The white Florida woman accused of killing a Black mother in front of her children admitted to calling the family racial slurs in the past, police say.
Susan Lorincz also allegedly claimed she acted out of self-defense and purchased the gun used in the shooting after a previous run-in with mother-of-four Ajike Owens.
Lorincz was arrested Tuesday and charged with manslaughter for fatally shooting Owens, 35, through a locked front door on Friday after Owens went round to Lorincz’ house to confront her for harassing Owens’ kids.
According to an arrest affidavit provided to The Daily Beast, Lorincz told police officers during an interview Saturday that she had been having issues with Owens’ sons for two years “due to their lack of respect for her peace and privacy.” Lorincz claimed Isaac, Israel, and Titus—who were later identified by their grandmother Pamela Dias—were always playing in a common area outside her apartment. Lorincz claimed that when she told the children they were trespassing in the past, they said they would kill her.
Ajike Owens
Courtesy of Ben Crump
On Friday night, Lorincz again complained about Owens’ kids playing in the grass area near her apartment in Ocala. She took an iPad belonging to the kids, then threw a set of skates at one and swung an umbrella at another when they tried to retrieve it, authorities said.
According to the affidavit, the kids left to get their mother, and Owens allegedly banged on Lorincz’s deadbolted door. Lorincz claimed that Owens yelled, “You don’t talk to my sons, I’m going to fucking kill you!”
However, police said they spoke to neighbors who said they never heard Owens make any threats about killing anyone.
Lorincz told Marion County police that she went to her bedroom to retrieve her Remington 380, which she purchased a year before to protect herself from Owens. Lorincz said she “panicked” after grabbing the gun and shot one round through the front door, the affidavit says.
“[Lorincz] advised that she was just fearful of her life and was thinking ‘Go away, get out of this situation, just go away already,’” according to the affidavit from the Marion County Sheriff’s Office. She claimed she felt she was in “mortal danger.”
After speaking with neighbors and witnesses, many of whom described Lorincz as an antagonist who frequently harassed kids in the area and called them racial slurs, police conducted a second interview with Lorincz on Tuesday.
“Lorincz admitted to having used the n-word toward children out of anger in the past and also to calling children other derogatory terms,” investigators wrote in the affidavit.
Though Owens and Lorincz allegedly had a rocky relationship, Lorincz conceded to police that Owens never actually made any threats of violence during prior run-ins. However, she maintained Owens threatened to kill her during Friday’s fatal encounter.
Lorincz is being held in the Marion County Jail without bond.
This post was originally published on Daily Beast
