Defense rests in Susan Lorincz trial

Susan Lorincz is led into the courtroom during her manslaughter trial at the Marion County Judicial Center in Ocala, Fla. on Wednesday, August 14, 2024. Lorincz is on trial for the June 2, 2023 shooting death of Ajike “AJ” Shantrell Owens, who Lorincz shot and killed through her own closed and locked front door. [Bruce Ackerman/Ocala Gazette] 2024.

The defense rested its case Thursday afternoon after Susan Lorincz, the woman on trial for aggravated manslaughter in the shooting death of her neighbor Ajike “AJ” Owens, chose not to testify before the jury.

Lorincz is accused of shooting Owens to death with a single shot through her apartment front door after Owens sought to confront her for shouting and throwing a roller skate at her children. The incident was the culmination of what neighbors and law enforcement described as a long-running, racially tinged feud over where children in the Quail Run apartment complex played.

Closing statements will be delivered on Friday morning before Circuit Judge Robert Hodges. The jury will then deliberate to determine whether Lorincz’ actions were justified on June 2, 2023, when she fatally shot Owens through her locked front door.

Lorincz wore no handcuffs or restraints and was dressed in civilian clothes rather than a jail uniform throughout the duration of the trial. Lorincz had the right to testify before the jury on Thursday but chose not to after consulting with her defense team.

Lorincz is being defended by Public Defenders Morris Carranza, Amanda Sizemore and Frances Watson, who attempted throughout cross-examination of the state’s witnesses to support a claim of self-defense for Lorincz.

On Wednesday afternoon, the defense presented its first witness, Rosalie Smith, a neighbor of Lorincz and Owens. She has lived in the neighborhood since 2021 and testified that she lives “about a football field” away from Lorincz’ apartment, where the shooting took place.

Smith testified that the apartment complex was lower income and felt it unsafe. When asked how she identified the sound of the gunshot when Owens’ was killed, Smith said that she had heard one before, saying she “knew what that sounded like.” Smith was one of the neighbors who called 911 after the shooting.

Smith described hearing the interaction between Lorincz and Owens, describing repeated banging and pounding. She said she heard a woman’s voice yelling but couldn’t make out any specific words said.

When asked if she heard the woman say anything along the lines of “I’m going to kill you,” like Lorincz claimed Owens said to her, Smith said she could not speculate for sure any words that she heard yelled.

The defense presented three expert witnesses to give opinion testimony on Thursday, two of which gave opinion on where and from what distance Lorincz may have shot from.

Joshua Wright, a former Florida Department of Law Enforcement forensic technologist, offered opinion testimony on firearm identification, crime scene deconstruction and ballistics.

Wright presented materials gathered from his research of the crime scene, physical evidence and reports from law enforcement. Based on the location and trajectory of the bullet’s entry and exit from Lorincz’ front door, the location of the shell casing on the kitchen countertop, Wright estimated that Lorincz was standing by her kitchen table, holding the gun near the top of her head with two hands when she fired the shot.

Wright testified that his analysis was conducted without ever visiting the crime scene or examining the door before it was repaired. Based on the margin of error that exists in calculating a bullet’s trajectory, Wright estimated that there was about a 10-degree cone of error due to law enforcement not calibrating their measurement instruments and other factors.

The state argued that if Lorincz was standing closer to the door, the gun could have been fired lower given the trajectory of the bullet. The state also asked Wright if there was any possibility that the shell casing had been moved by Lorincz or by law enforcement, and he said he did not examine that possibility because there was no mention of that circumstance in reports from law enforcement.

The next witness, Toby Terpstra, is a 3D forensic analyst who created an animated visualization of the crime scene through light and radar terrestrial scanning. Terpstra also created 3D scans of both Lorincz and Owens, by referencing photos, meeting Lorincz and using Owens’ autopsy report.

The defense presented a video to the jury of Terpstra’s animated visualization, which depicted Owens approaching Lorincz’ house, banging on the sliding glass door, then banging on the front door. The animation then showed Lorincz inside, standing 12 to 15 feet away from the front door next to her kitchen table, firing the gun nearly above her head, then showed the bullet striking Owens causing fatal injury.

With the testimony from Wright and Terpstra, the defense intended to show that Owens did not shoot from directly in front of her door, but instead from further inside the house, therefore didn’t intend to inflict a fatal injury.

The final witness, Roy Bedard, gave his opinion on educational psychology, specifically use of force decision-making and decision-making under stressful circumstances. Bedard trains and develops products for law enforcement and has a doctorate in educational psychology with an emphasis on human performance but is not a licensed psychiatrist or psychologist.

Bedard described the decision-making process that happens while a person is under stress and must predict possible outcomes for circumstances where they are in danger. Bedard claimed that when there are high stakes and a short amount of time to make a decision, the human brain acts automatically rather than logically.

In this prediction process, Bedard said that there could be a high amount of error, meaning that you may believe someone is armed when they aren’t, or vice versa, causing you to decide to use deadly force.

“The best way to predict the future is to know the past,” Bedard said, meaning that if a person has had negative experiences with an opposing party in the past, that factor impacts the decision-making process.

Closing arguments are expected to finish by around noon on Friday. The jurors have the right to deliberate for as long as they need to before making a decision.

If convicted, Lorincz faces up to 30 years in jail.