Testimony got underway Tuesday in the manslaughter trial of an Ocala woman who fatally shot her neighbor through a locked door.
Morris Carranza, one of the assistant public defenders representing 60-year-old Lorencz, said she fired the pistol in self-defense.
Ajike "AJ" Owens, 35, was the mother of four young children. She was banging on Lorincz's apartment door and shouting to her on the evening of June 2, 2023. Owens had come across the street in the Quail Run community near Ocala after Lorincz had an altercation with two of her boys, Isaac and Israel.
During the investigation, Marion County sheriff’s detectives learned that Lorincz had a history of using racial slurs with Owens’ children. But those slurs have not been a part of the trial. Instead, jurors are hearing about a neighborhood feud that involved the children playing near Lorincz’s apartment.
During opening statements, Carranza played the agitated 911 call that Lorincz made right after the shooting.
"I didn't know what to do," Lorincz said during the call. "I grabbed my gun and I shot at the door."
Carranza said the call showed her "absolute terror" and that she shot through the door in self-defense.
"[I]n her core, in her soul, in her heart, in everything that she was, she felt that she was in mortal danger," Carranza said.
Assistant State Attorney Adam Smith described a more deliberate reaction from Lorincz, who had, minutes earlier, placed a call to 911 complaining about the children.
"The defendant goes into her bedroom, grabs a loaded firearm, then walks all the way back out to the locked front door," Smith said. "And the police are on the way, as she'd been told. She points at the door, fires one shot at the center of the door, shooting and killing Miss Ajike Owens."
The trial continued with testimony from neighbors and neighborhood children, and then from officials with the Marion County Sheriff's Office.
Neighbors testified Owens was angry and shouting but they didn't hear the threats Lorincz later claimed she made.
For example, Smith questioned 22-year-old Jerreth Gardner, who was there.
"All right," Smith said, "you said you heard, 'Come outside.' You heard the b-word. At any time did you ever hear Isaac and Izzy's mom say, 'I'm going to kill you.'?
"No, sir," he testified.
The state expects to wrap up its case on Wednesday. Defense attorneys have indicated they do plan to present witnesses on Wednesday afternoon and Thursday.
Circuit Judge Robert Hodges said Monday that the trial should be concluded this week.
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