Susan Lorincz, the white Florida woman who fatally shot her Black neighbor, Ajike Owens, through her locked front door following a dispute with her children in June 2023, is threatening to pursue legal action against the Owens family, following the release of Netflix’s The Perfect Neighbor documentary about the case in October.

Lorincz was convicted of manslaughter in August 2024 and sentenced to 25 years in prison, which she is currently serving at the Homestead Correctional Institution in South Florida, The Tab reported.

According to WCJB, Owens’ family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Lorincz and landlord Charles Gabbard on June 1, seeking at least $50,000 in damages to account for “past and future mental pain and suffering” caused to Owens’ children following their mother’s death, including medical expenses, funeral costs and loss of inheritable estate.

In response, Lorincz has threatened to sue the Owens family. Court documents submitted in September include a letter she penned dated Aug. 8, in which she shares plans to countersue Dias and three of Owens’ children for slander, libel and defamation of character for damages exceeding $50,000.

Lorincz claimed Owens’ children lied in their deposition about the incident

In Lorincz’s letter, she claimed that statements made publicly by Owens’ children and their representatives, some of which appeared in The Perfect Neighbor, misrepresent her actions before and during the fatal incident. She alleged the Owens family fabricated their recollection of prior incidents, and those accounts have encouraged negative publicity.

Lorincz claimed Owens’ children trespassed on her property before the shooting and accused them of lying in their depositions about doing so. She also claimed they lied about her allegedly throwing a roller skate at one of them.

In the letter, Lorincz claimed that when Owens got involved, she approached her front door and “pounded and screamed profanities like a lunatic” and noted that her children “told different stories about their location at the time of the shooting.”

Lorincz also called out her former landlord, Gabbard, whom she accused of not securing the property correctly. She concluded the letter by arguing that Dias is going “directly against” herself by pursuing a wrongful death lawsuit to receive monetary compensation.

“I now wish to countersue for slander, libel and defamation of character,” Lorincz wrote in the letter.

According to Court TV, court documents don’t list an attorney representing Lorincz in the civil case, and a hearing date has not yet been set.

The Owens family and Lorincz have different accounts of the incident

As Blavity reported, the Owens family and Lorincz have very different accounts of what happened on June 2, 2023. According to Dias and Owens’ children, the latter were playing in a public field near Lorincz’s home when she allegedly called them racial slurs. In the arrest affidavit, a detective noted it wasn’t the first time Lorincz had called the children such terms.

The children said they left the area after Lorincz called them the slurs, but they forgot a tablet, which Lorincz allegedly picked up and later damaged when, per Dias, she threw a roller skate toward one of the children. Ben Crump, the Owens family’s attorney, clarified to NBC News that the skate was thrown indirectly.

The Owens family also claimed that Lorincz swung an umbrella at another one of Owens’ children, after which Owens got involved in the altercation.

“[Owens] … knocked on Lorincz’s door multiple times and demanded that Lorincz come outside,” the arrest affidavit read. “Lorincz then fired one shot through the door, striking Owens in her upper chest.”

Witnesses said they saw Owens stumbling from Lorincz’s porch while yelling for help before she collapsed.

Meanwhile, Lorincz has maintained that she was afraid during the incident and acted out of self-defense. She’s claimed Owens and one of her sons threatened her life.

Ajike Owens

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