After Netflix’s The Perfect Neighbor, everyone is fascinated by the sad story. The most tragic part is, Susan Lorincz and her victim Ajike Owens hardly had any direct contact before she killed her.
The documentary follows the 2023 killing of Ajike “AJ” Shantrell Owens, a black woman who was shot by her 58-year-old white neighbour Susan Lorincz because her kids kept playing on her front porch.
Lorincz would often yell at the mum of four’s kids for leaving things on her front garden and record them, but this is everything she’s ever said about Owens directly, before and after shooting her.
Credit: Netflix
Susan Lorincz told police Ajike Owens threw a sign at her
Their first actual contact was on 25th April 2023, when Lorincz called police and claimed Owens threw a sign at her. This was two months before the shooting.
“I called because the woman across the street hit me with a sign,” she said in body camera footage obtained by ABC. The mum of four admitted to picking up a “private property” sign and throwing it, but denied that it hit Lorincz.
“I literally went and picked the sign up and as I walked off I threw the sign. I said I can go and buy a sign too, it still doesn’t mean anything,” Owens said.
A neighbour told police Owens did “tell the lady to stop yelling at her kids,” but that was as far as the dispute went and the sign claim wasn’t true.
She said she thought the mum was going to ‘kill her’
In her 911 call after the shooting, Lorincz said: “Oh my God. This lady just tried to break down my door. I shot through the door. Oh my God. The woman was screaming and yelling at me trying to break down my door. I didn’t know what to do. I grabbed my gun and shot at the door because I thought she was going to kill me.”
Credit: Netflix
Lorincz finally apologised to Owens at her sentencing hearing
Lorincz didn’t testify at the trial, but she publicly apologised to Owens at her sentencing hearing in November 2024, saying: “I am so sorry that I took AJ’s life. I never intended to kill her. The night I shot that gun I was confused as to why she was screaming and pounding on my door. Please accept my humble and sincere apology for this tragedy.”
She also argued that the shooting was “not about race”.
She changed her story on the shooting in a 2025 prison interview
In a new 2025 interview from prison, she then claimed she thought it was a police officer knocking on her door, so was “terrified” when she heard Owens’ voice.
“As soon as I said, ‘One minute,’ she went on the tirade, expletives and just horrible language, screaming at me, pounding on the door so hard. I’m like, ‘Oh my God.’ I’m like, ‘You need to leave. You’re trespassing. You were told not to come here by the sheriff’s department. You know, you’re trespassing. You need to leave’,” she told WCJB.
She continued: “Then she said, ‘I’m gonna f***ing kill you.’ And I went, ‘Oh my God,’ and she’s pounding and she’s pounding and she’s pounding, and I just, you know, I was terrified.”
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Featured image by: Netflix
