Sheriff’s office releases interrogation video of Florida woman accused of fatally shooting her neighbor through a door

By Rebekah Riess, CNN

(CNN) — Newly released interrogation video shows Florida woman Susan Lorincz telling detectives she heard her neighbor say she was going to kill her before Lorincz was arrested for fatally shooting the woman through a closed door during a dispute over children playing outside last year.

Lorincz, a 58-year-old White woman, is charged with manslaughter with a firearm and assault related to the June 2, 2023, shooting of her Black neighbor, Ajike “AJ” Owens, who had been knocking on Lorincz’s door. Investigators have said Lorincz became angry because several neighborhood children, including Owens’ children, were playing near her home.

In the video, released Monday by the Marion County Sheriff’s Office, Lorincz during the nearly two-hour long interrogation repeatedly tells two detectives she was in fear of her life during the incident and she recalled Owens saying “I’m gonna kill you.”

“I just remember being terrified that she was banging and screaming and just, I just remember hearing her say, ‘I’m going to kill you,’” Lorincz tells detectives, as also described in the affidavit in the case.

“I was in fear for my life. I mean, honest to God, I just feared that she was going to come through that door. I’m sorry. That’s how I felt. I can’t change the way I felt. I mean, it was sheer terror on my part,” Lorincz adds.

Detectives tell Lorincz no one they had interviewed had made statements about Owens saying that she wanted to kill Lorincz.

“These people said that she was saying to come outside,” the video shows one detective telling Lorincz. “She wanted to confront you about something, she wanted you to come outside.”

The Owens family previously told CNN Lorincz harassed Owens and her children and used racial slurs toward them prior to the killing. Lorincz admitted using racial slurs against neighborhood children in the past, according to an arrest affidavit.

The video also shows detectives asking Lorincz whether she had searched Florida laws on self-defense and “stand your ground,” to which she replied she had searched the topic earlier in the day, after she saw “they had it up on Facebook.”

“I know what you’re thinking – that I looked at the laws so I could do something. No,” Lorincz tells detectives.

Before placing Lorincz under arrest, detectives explain that her actions the day of the shooting did not appear reasonable.

“From everything I’ve seen, it doesn’t rise to the level for you to justify shooting through a closed door and with a firearm, OK. And I think you know that that wasn’t reasonable what you did,” one of the detectives says, questioning why the shot that killed Owens was fired only two minutes after Lorincz got off the phone with a dispatcher while calling 911 and requesting police.

“Two minutes – to me it was much longer,” Lorincz says.

At the end of the interrogation, the video shows Lorincz being given the opportunity to write Owens’ children a note, which she does while waiting for deputies to return.

When deputies return to transport Lorincz to jail, the video shows she initially refuses arrest, repeatedly saying “I can’t do this,” and exclaiming “I don’t care. Kill me!” She eventually stands up and is handcuffed.

Jury selection in the case against Lorincz is set to begin June 17, court records show. CNN has reached out to Lorincz’s attorney, Amanda Sizemore, for comment.

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