A jury has convicted a white Florida woman of fatally shooting her black neighbor during an ongoing dispute.

A white Florida woman was convicted Friday of murder within the shooting death of her black neighbor, after a jury rejected her claims that she fired shots through a metal door in self-defense during an ongoing dispute over children playing in front of her home.

An all-white jury in Ocala, Florida, found 60-year-old Susan Lorincz guilty after deliberating for two.5 hours. Lorincz faces as much as 30 years in prison at sentencing. She claimed she was acting in self-defense when she fired a single shot from a .380-caliber handgun through her front door on June 2, 2023, killing 35-year-old Ajike “AJ” Owens.

The confrontation was the newest in a dispute between the 2 neighbors over Owens’ children playing in a grassy area near their homes. Prosecutors said Owens got here to Lorincz’s home after her children complained she allegedly threw roller skates and an umbrella at them during a prolonged outburst of anger over their noisy play outside.

Lorincz told detectives in a taped interview that she feared for her life as Owens screamed and banged on her door.

“I thought I was in imminent danger,” she said.

Lorincz also said she was harassed for many of the three years she lived in the world.

Family members of the victim burst into tears as Lorincz left the courtroom with deputies. She showed no response or emotion as the decision was announced.

District Judge Robert W. Hodges didn’t immediately set a sentencing date but ordered a background report on Lorincz.

Anthony Thomas, an attorney for the Owens family, said they may push for the utmost sentence of 30 years in prison. Owens’ mother, Pamela Dias, said she found comfort within the guilty verdict.

“We got some justice for Ajike. My heart is a little lighter,” Dias told reporters outside the courthouse. “It’s been a long journey to get to this point, to reach this verdict. I find some peace in this verdict.”

District Attorney William Gladson, whose office prosecuted the case, said it was a “tragic reminder” of the results of gun violence.

“The defendant’s choices left four young children without a mother, a loss they will feel for the rest of their lives,” Gladson said in a statement. “While today’s verdict will not bring AJ back, we hope it brings some measure of justice and peace to her family and friends.”

During closing arguments, prosecutor Rich Buxman said there was no evidence Owens posed an imminent physical threat to Lorincz.

“It’s not a crime to bang on someone’s door. It’s not a crime to yell,” Buxman told jurors. “There was no imminent threat when she fired that gun.”

Lorincz’s attorney responded that she was terrified by Owens’s aggressive actions and had the precise to fireplace her weapon under Florida’s “stand and fight” law. An autopsy revealed that Owens weighed about 290 kilos (130 kilograms), making her significantly larger and younger than Lorincz, and the 2 had had prior confrontations.

“She can defend herself,” said Amanda Sizemore, an assistant public defender. “She had a split second to decide whether to fire her weapon.”

Lorincz didn’t testify, but said in an interview with detectives that was played for jurors that she never intended to harm Owens. Still, in a single 911 call, Lorincz told a dispatcher, “I’m sick and tired of these kids.”

“She wasn’t scared. She was angry,” Buxman said.

Owens’ family expressed surprise that no black jurors were chosen for the trial, given the racially sensitive nature of the case. Protests erupted within the black community when prosecutors took weeks to accuse Lorincz of murderwhich is a less severe charge than second-degree murder, which carries a penalty of life imprisonment.

The district court clerk’s office said in an email that eight black people were among the many 70 people within the initial group of jurors. There were 49 white jurors, while 10 were listed as Latino, two as Asian and one as “other,” the clerk’s office said, based on documents provided by the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles.

Ocala is about 80 miles (130 kilometers) northwest of Orlando in central Florida. Marion County’s black population is about 12 percent, in line with census data.

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