The jury on Wednesday viewed recordings of two interviews that Susan Lorincz gave Marion County Sheriff's Office investigators after she fatally shot Ajike "AJ" Shantrell Owens. At times during the interviews, Lorincz told detectives she did not remember some specifics about what was said during her 911 calls. What Lorincz insisted was that she fired the shot after Owens verbally threatened to kill her.
Lorincz, 60, is charged with manslaughter with a firearm. She has pleaded not guilty and is standing trial this week. If convicted, Lorincz could face up to 30 years in prison.
Lorincz, who is claiming self-defense, is represented by Assistant Public Defenders Amanda Sizemore, Frances Watson and Morris Carranza. Adam Smith and Rich Buxman are the prosecutors and Circuit Judge Robert Hodges is presiding.
Owens' mother, the family lawyer, friends, and well-wishers were in court on Wednesday. Lorincz's sister also was in the courtroom.
Ryan Stith, lead detective on the case, was on the witness stand Wednesday morning while prosecutors showed the jury a recording of the first of the two interviews that he and two colleagues — Detective Kip Peterson and Daniel Pinder, now a sergeant — conducted with Lorincz after the shooting. That interview was done hours after the June 2 shooting.
Lorincz told them she had a headache the day of the shooting. Children, including Owens' children, were playing outside and making noise and she wanted them to be quiet. She said she had ongoing problems with the children in the neighborhood being noisy.
The woman said Owens' children had threatened her in the past and Owens once had thrown a sign at her.
On the night of the shooting, Lorincz said, Owens was banging on her front door. She told Owens to go away. She said Owens threatened to kill her and the banging got worse and worse.
Lorincz said she panicked, went for her firearm, and fired a shot through the door. She said she feared for her life because she felt Owens was trying hard to enter her residence. Officials later confirmed that the closed front door was locked.
Before the shooting, Lorincz had called 911. The detectives told Lorincz that, in listening to that 911 call, they never heard her saying Owens had threatened to kill her. In that call, Lorincz said she was calling because of the noise. At the time, a dispatcher told Lorincz not to do anything and a deputy was heading to her.
The detectives told Lorincz they needed to know exactly what happened, because Owens had died. Hearing the news, Lorincz bowed her head.
She said she fired the shot because Owens was pounding on the door. Lorincz said she was by the kitchen table when she fired the gun.
However, in testimony presented in court on Tuesday, a sheriff's official said their investigation revealed the gun was fired close to the door. Other testimony confirmed that the door was sturdy and wasn't damaged beyond the bullet hole.
No charge:Woman accused of threatening Ocala State Attorney Bill Gladson won't be prosecuted
Lorincz also called 911 after the shooting. She couldn't tell detectives how much time elapsed between the 911 calls.
Lornicz said Owens had banged on her door before that day; however, she didn't call 911 at those times because Owens wasn't forceful.
Second interview
Lorincz returned for a second interview on June 7. The detectives asked her how she knew it was Owens outside her door the day of the shooting. Lorincz said she recognized the voice.
She said Owens kept banging on the door, screaming "I'm going to kill you." She said there was a pause in between what she described as continual banging.
Lorincz estimated between two to five minutes passed between when Owens started banging on the door and when she fired the shot through the door. She believed the 911 calls were made 10 minutes apart.
During the commotion, Lorincz said she was looking for her phone. She said she found it in the computer room and called 911 after the shooting. She said she and Owens have had disagreements since she lived there. She denied directing any racial slurs at Owens' children. Lorincz said said one of Owens' children had threatened to kill her on the day of the shooting.
"I felt that terror," Lorincz told the detectives.
Lorincz said she did not talk with Owens on the day of the shooting.
The detectives told Lorincz that her first 911 call was made at 8:54 p.m. and the call ended at 8:59 p.m. The second 911 call, placed after Lorincz shot Owens, was made at 9:01 p.m.
"I thought she was coming through the door and kill me," Lorincz told detectives.
Lorincz did write a note to Owens' children. It states: "I'm so so sorry for your loss. I never meant to kill your mother. I was terrified your mother was going to kill me. I shot out of fear."
At the conclusion of the second interview, Lorincz was taken into custody and transported to the county jail.
The door from Lorincz's home was removed from the residence to be used as evidence. It was shown to jurors on Wednesday.
On cross-examination, defense attorney Carranza asked the detective if the door was damaged, and he said yes. He asked if investigators found a shell casing on the kitchen counter, and the answer again was yes. He asked multiple other questions, including if there were prior calls made by Lorincz about her problems in the neighborhood. He was told that yes, there had been other calls.
The autopsy
In other testimony Wednesday, the medical examiner who performed the autopsy said the bullet entered Owens' body on the right side of her chest and there wasn't an exit wound.
Dr. Shandelle Norford, a former employee at the Medical Examiner's Office in Leesburg, told the court that the projectile passed through several areas of the body, such as the fourth rib, heart and spleen, before stopping in the left abdomen. Norford said the projectile, which was recovered, traveled right, left and downward.
Owens was shot with a .380-caliber handgun. The weapon was recovered from a trash bin inside Lorincz's home the night of the shooting: June 2, 2023.
Prosecutor Buxman asked Norford if there was any other trauma to the victim's body. The answer was no. Norford said Owens had an abrasion on her right wrist and it was superficial and not life threatening. The doctor said the abrasion probably came from Owens hitting something.
The doctor said Owens' cause of death was a gunshot wound and the manner was homicide.
Defense attorney Carranza, on cross-examination, asked if the term "homicide" meant death at the hands of another, and the doctor said yes. He asked if that was a legal term, and she said yes again.
Norford wasn't able to say with certainty what position Owens was in when she was shot, or how far away she was from the gun.
The bullet taken from Owens' body was compared with the firearm found in Lorincz's room. A Florida Department of Law Enforcement official testified that the bullet came from that gun.
Prosecutors rested their case at 2:42 p.m. Wednesday. Defense attorney Watson asked the judge to issue a judgment of acquittal, basically finding that the state had failed to prove its case and that Lorincz had lawfully acted in self-defense.
Buxman argued that Lorincz admitted to detectives that she shot Owens and that the shot was fired through a closed, locked door. He said Owens posed no imminent threat, but Lorincz still used deadly force, and therefore the state had proved its case.
The judge denied the request for judgment of acquittal.
The defense begins its case
Sizemore called the first defense witness, Rosalie Smith. She testified that she has lived in Quail Run, the neighborhood of the shooting, since December 2021.
Smith said her apartment is approximately a football field away from Lorincz's residence. She said she doesn't know either Owens or Lorincz.
She said she was sitting outside the night of the shooting when she heard screaming and pounding. Smith said it sounded "like a cop knock."
Though she could tell it was a woman's voice, she could not tell what the person was saying. Smith said the disturbance seemed like it "went on forever."
Question by the prosecutor on cross-examination, Smith said she called 911 after hearing the gunshot.
The defense is expected to call more witnesses Thursday and should finish its presentation before the end of the day. It's unknown if Lorincz will testify in her own defense.
Contact Austin L. Miller ataustin.miller@starbanner.com
