Sons of FL mother killed outside neighbors house blame themselves: report

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OCALA, FL – The sons of a black mother who police say was shot and killed by her white neighbor last week blame themselves for her death, according to their grandmother.

Ajike Owens, a 35-year-old mother of four, was killed on Friday when her neighbor fired through a door as Owens’ 10-year-old son stood next to her. The shooting brought a violent end to what the Marion County Sheriff’s Office described as a 2½-year feud between Owens and 58-year-old Susan Louise Lorincz.

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Police said the shooting happened after Lorincz got angry at Owens’ children, who were playing in a field near her home. Lorincz confronted the children, police said, throwing a roller skate at one of them and later swinging an umbrella at them.

After the confrontation, Owens drove to Lorincz’s home, where police said Lorincz fired a shot through the door, hitting Owens in the chest.

Lorincz was arrested on Tuesday for manslaughter with a firearm, culpable negligence, assault and assault in connection with Owens’ death, Marion County Sheriff Billy Woods said in a statement.

At a press conference on Wednesday, Owens’ mother, Pamela Dias, said her two grandsons, ages 12 and 9, were guilty because they were with their mother outside Lorincz’s house when she was shot.

Dias said Owens’ 12-year-old son blamed himself for his death because he couldn’t perform CPR on him.

“Grandma, grandma. I couldn’t save her,” Dias recalled, the 12-year-old boy told her, according to a CNN report.

Owens’ 9-year-old son also told Dias he blamed himself because he was the one who told his mother about the confrontation with Lorincz, CNN reported.

“In his soul, in his heart, it is his fault that his older brother, younger sister and younger brother, and himself, will never see their mother again,” Dias said.

The Marion County Sheriff’s Office said since January 2021, deputies have responded to at least half a dozen calls related to what police described as a feud between Owens and Lorincz.

Prior to the confrontation, Lorincz had yelled racial slurs at the children, according to a statement from civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who represents Owens’ family. He also represented Trayvon Martin’s family in 2012, when the black teenager was killed in a case that drew worldwide attention to Florida law.

In 2017, Florida lawmakers shifted the burden of proof from someone claiming self-defense to prosecutors. Before the law change, prosecutors could charge someone with the shooting and then defense attorneys had to present an affirmative defense explaining why their client should not be convicted. Now authorities must rule out self-defense before filing a complaint.

Stand firm and ‘Castle Doctrine’ cases – which allow residents to defend themselves by law or judicial precedent when threatened – have sparked outrage amid a string of shootings across the country .

Lorincz made his first court appearance on Thursday. She appeared via video connection wearing a dark protective vest.

In a statement to investigators after the shooting, Lorincz allegedly said that she had two years of trouble with neighborhood kids who didn’t respect her, including the victim’s children.

“Lorincz indicated that (Owens)’s children had told her in the past that they would kill her,” the report said.

On the day of the shooting, Lorincz told investigators she had a headache and “neighbors were screaming and screaming outside, kids were running around” in a grassy area separating two four-plex apartment buildings, including her own. She said Owens angrily confronted her and threatened to kill her.

Lorincz claimed “Owens banged on the door so hard it all started shaking and she thought the door was going to come loose,” and she panicked and thought, “Oh my god , she’s really going to kill me this time.” It was then that she fired a single bullet from her .380 caliber handgun, the report said, noting that Lorincz also had a second handgun at home.

“Lorincz said she bought the gun for protection after an altercation with the victim,” he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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