Jury seated in trial of woman accused of fatal shooting of Florida neighbor Ajike Owens
A jury was seated on Monday in the trial of Susan Lorincz, the Florida woman who is charged with fatally shooting her neighbor, Ajike “AJ” Owens, a Black mother of four, in 2023 amid a dispute with Owens’ children.
Anthony Thomas, the attorney representing the family of Ajike Owens, told ABC News in a statement on Monday that two of Owens’ four children will be called by prosecutors to testify during the trial.
“Unfortunately, yes, we have confirmed that they will be called to testify. This is an unimaginably painful experience for them, as they continue to grapple with the deep emotional wounds caused by losing their mother in such a violent way. And witnessing her murder. Izzy stood right beside her as that bullet penetrated his mother’s body," Thomas said, adding that Isaac, 13, and Izzy (Israel), 10, are "determined to testify" on their mother's behalf "despite their grief."
“They do this out of profound love and respect for her, knowing that their voices are crucial in the pursuit of justice," Thomas said. "They understand the gravity of this moment and want to ensure that their mother's death is not in vain.”
Judge Robert W. Hodges of Florida Fifth Judicial Circuit, who is presiding over the case, read the jury instructions to the group and told them that they won’t be shown on camera. He asked jurors to be back in court on Tuesday morning and said that the trial is expected to be over by Friday.
"This case is scheduled to take just one week. [It will] probably be done sometime on Friday, if not before that," Hodges said on Monday morning.
Lorincz was present in the courtroom for jury selection and has pleaded not guilty to the charge of first-degree felony manslaughter.
The charges
Susan Lorincz, who is white, was arrested on June 6, 2023, and charged with first-degree felony manslaughter, which is punishable by up to 30 years in prison if she is convicted, according to the Marion County Sheriff's Office. She was also charged with culpable negligence, battery and two counts of assault, but those lesser charges have since been dropped, according to court records.
Lorincz pleaded not guilty on July 10, 2023. She was held on a $150,000 bond and has remained in custody since her arrest last year. Lorincz’s attorney, Amanda Sizemore, previously declined to comment on the charge her client is facing and did not immediately return a request for comment from ABC News ahead of the trial.
Over the past year, Owens' family has repeatedly called on prosecutors to upgrade the charge against Lorincz to second-degree murder, but Florida State Attorney William "Bill" Gladson said in a June 26, 2023, statement that there was insufficient evidence to prove a murder charge in court.
"As deplorable as the defendant's actions were in this case, there is insufficient evidence to prove this specific and required element of second-degree murder," Gladson said.
What the video shows
According to a June 6, 2023 statement from the Marion County Sheriff's Office, Lorincz allegedly shot Owens through a closed door in the presence of her now 10-year-old son after the mother of four went to speak with Lorincz about a dispute over Owens' children playing near her home.
Ahead of Lorincz’s trial, the Marion County Sheriff's Office released video on June 10, 2024, of Lorincz’s two-hour interrogation, which took place four days after the fatal shooting.
Lorincz claimed in her interview with detectives that she was acting in self-defense when she shot Owens.
"She was saying 'I'm going to kill you,'" Lorincz claimed in the video.
"No one that we've interviewed so far has made any statements about her saying that she wanted to kill you," one of the detectives told Lorincz.
Body camera footage released on July 3, 2023, by the Marion County Sheriff's Office showed seven incidents between Feb. 25, 2022, and April 25, 2023, in which Lorincz called sheriff's deputies to complain about neighborhood children, including Owens' children, playing near her home.
The body camera videos also show a child alleging in comments to sheriff's deputies that Lorincz called the children in the neighborhood "the N-word" and another who accused Lorincz of being "racist."
During the interrogation, Lorincz repeatedly denied using racial slurs toward Owens and her children on the night of the shooting, but according to a police report, Lorincz admitted to calling children in the neighborhood the N-word and other derogatory terms in the past.
"I do not have a comment at this time," Sizemore told ABC News on July 3, 2023, when asked to comment about the release of the body camera footage and the allegation that Lorincz called the children the "N-word."
Owens’ family also called on Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody and the U.S. Department of Justice in July 2023 to review the case and consider whether the shooting was a hate crime.
ABC News' Davi Merchan contributed to this report.
