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Trial begins in case of white woman who fatally shot Black neighbor during dispute

News

Trial begins in case of white woman who fatally shot Black neighbor during dispute
News

News

Trial begins in case of white woman who fatally shot Black neighbor during dispute

2024-08-14 01:59 Last Updated At:02:01

OCALA, Fla. (AP) — A Florida jury will determine whether a 60-year-old white woman was justified when she fired through the door of her central Florida apartment a year ago, killing a Black mother during an ongoing dispute over neighborhood children.

In opening statements on Tuesday, jurors were told that shortly before Ajike “A.J.” Owens was killed on June 2, 2023, the children had been playing in a small field outside the apartment where Susan Lorincz lived in Ocala, which is 80 miles (128 kilometers) northwest of Orlando in central Florida.

Lorincz told investigators that the children were running and yelling outside her apartment. She went outside, saw some skates on the ground and threw them at the children.

She went back inside her apartment, defense attorney Morris Carranza told jurors.

Owens, who was the mother of several of the children and who lived across the street, went to Lorincz's apartment to confront her. Owens was apparently angry at how Lorincz dealt with the children, lawyers said in opening statements.

Owens banged loudly on her door, Carranza said.

“A.J. was pounding, and she was cursing,” Carranza said during opening statements. He said that Owens had threatened his client, and she feared the woman would break the door down.

He said Lorincz was standing a few feet from the front door, beside her table as the pounding on the door continued.

Prosecutors said the door was locked and told jurors that Owens was not armed.

Carranza argued that Lorincz was fearful that Owens would harm her.

She believed “in her mind, in her soul and in her core that she had no choice” but to fire one round from her .380-caliber handgun, her attorney told the jury.

Yvonne Costa, who lived in the apartment that shared a wall with Lorincz, testified Tuesday that she heard loud voices shortly before the shooting, but she couldn't understand what was being said.

Then the pounding started. It was loud, she testified.

“The wall in between our two apartments started shaking,” Costa said. “It was very loud. And it scared me.”

She testified she then heard a loud pop, followed by more screaming. She ran to her bedroom to call 911.

Witnesses said that Owens stumbled from the porch, and she yelled for someone to call 911 before falling to the ground.

Lorincz is charged with manslaughter and faces up to 30 years in prison.

State Attorney William Gladson has said his office contemplated filing a second-degree murder charge but that prosecutors concluded there was insufficient evidence that Lorincz had “hatred, spite, ill will or evil intent” toward Owens.

Both the state and defense attorneys convene at the bench as Judge Robert Hodges holds a side bar during Susan Lorincz's trial Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2024, in Ocala, Fla. Lorincz is charged with manslaughter in the June 2023 shooting of her neighbor Ajike “A.J.” Owens. (Doug Engle/Ocala Star-Banner via AP, Pool)

Both the state and defense attorneys convene at the bench as Judge Robert Hodges holds a side bar during Susan Lorincz's trial Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2024, in Ocala, Fla. Lorincz is charged with manslaughter in the June 2023 shooting of her neighbor Ajike “A.J.” Owens. (Doug Engle/Ocala Star-Banner via AP, Pool)

Defendant Susan Lorincz takes notes during her trial Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2024, in Ocala, Fla. Lorincz is charged with manslaughter in the June 2023 shooting of her neighbor Ajike “A.J.” Owens. (Doug Engle/Ocala Star-Banner via AP, Pool)

Defendant Susan Lorincz takes notes during her trial Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2024, in Ocala, Fla. Lorincz is charged with manslaughter in the June 2023 shooting of her neighbor Ajike “A.J.” Owens. (Doug Engle/Ocala Star-Banner via AP, Pool)

FILE - In this image taken from video provided by the Marion County Sheriff's Office, Susan Lorincz, center, is escorted by law enforcement following her arrest in Ocala, Fla., Tuesday, June 6, 2023. Lorincz is accused of fatally shooting her neighbor, Ajike Owens, a Black mother of four. (Marion County Sheriff's Office via AP)

FILE - In this image taken from video provided by the Marion County Sheriff's Office, Susan Lorincz, center, is escorted by law enforcement following her arrest in Ocala, Fla., Tuesday, June 6, 2023. Lorincz is accused of fatally shooting her neighbor, Ajike Owens, a Black mother of four. (Marion County Sheriff's Office via AP)

FILE - A protester holds a poster of Ajike Owens and demands the arrest of a woman who killed her during a rally at the Marion County Courthouse, June 6, 2023, in Ocala, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux, File)

FILE - A protester holds a poster of Ajike Owens and demands the arrest of a woman who killed her during a rally at the Marion County Courthouse, June 6, 2023, in Ocala, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux, File)

Authorities will try again Friday to pull a station wagon from the Columbia River that's believed to have belonged to an Oregon family of five who disappeared nearly 70 years ago while they were out searching for Christmas greenery.

The search for the Martin family was a national news story at the time and led some to speculate about the possibility of foul play, with a $1,000 reward offered for information about their whereabouts.

Salvage efforts were called off just before dark on Thursday and authorities said they could not provide a timetable for the removal of the car.

The station wagon thought to belong to Ken and Barbara Martin was found last fall by Archer Mayo, a diver who had been looking for it for seven years, said Mayo’s representative, Ian Costello. Mayo pinpointed the likely location and dove several times before finding the car upside-down about 50 feet (15 meters) deep, covered in mud, salmon guts, silt and mussel shells, said Costello, who announced the find Wednesday.

“This is a very big development in a case that’s been on the back of Portland’s mind for 66 years,” Costello told The Associated Press.

Mayo found other cars nearby, which will need to come out before the station wagon can be pulled from the river, Costello said. Pete Hughes, a Hood River County sheriff’s deputy, said one car had been previously identified and the second was an unknown Volkswagen.

“We don't know what we will find,” Hughes said when asked if officials thought bodies were inside the cars.

The Martins took their daughters Barbara, 14, Virginia, 13, and Sue, 11, on a ride to the mountains on Dec. 7, 1958, to collect Christmas greenery, according to AP stories from the time. They never returned. Officials narrowed their search for the family after learning that Ken Martin had used a credit card to buy gas at a station near Cascade Locks, a small Columbia River community about 40 miles (64 kilometers) east of Portland.

“Police have speculated that Martin's red and white station wagon might have plunged into an isolated canyon or river,” the AP reported. “The credit card purchase was the only thing to pin-point the family's movements.”

Five months after their disappearance, the body of the youngest daughter was found “bobbing in a Columbia River slough,” according to the AP. “The body of Susan apparently floated free of the wreckage in the spring current and was washed to a back water slough near Camas, Washington," the AP wrote.

Virginia Martin's body was found the next day about 25 miles (40 kilometers) upstream from where her sister's was located. The other family members were never found, but the search continued.

The Martins had a 28-year-old son, Don, who was a Marine veteran and graduate student at Columbia University in New York at the time and told the AP he believed his family was dead.

“It's been a high public interest case,” Hughes told the AP on Thursday. After Mayo provided part of the license plate number and other vehicle identifiers, the sheriff's office and the Columbia Gorge major crimes team, along with the Oregon State Crime Lab, arranged to have the car pulled out, he said.

“We're not 100% sure it's the car,” Hughes said. “It's mostly encased in mud and debris, so we don't know what to expect when we pull it out of the water today.”

Mayo runs a business that finds things that were lost in the river, like watches and rings, but also helps with the recovery of drowning victims, Costello said. He had been looking for a research vessel that sank in 2017 when he learned about the Martin family, Costello said.

Mayo began digging up material on the family and used modeling to pinpoint the possible location, he said.

There is a road near where the cars were found underwater. Authorities haven't said whether they think they might find the remains of other missing people in any of the other vehicles being pulled from the river.

FILE - The home of the missing Ken Martin family in Portland, Ore., April 2, 1959. (AP Photo, File)

FILE - The home of the missing Ken Martin family in Portland, Ore., April 2, 1959. (AP Photo, File)

FILE - United States Navy Pharmacist's mate Donald Martin looks at a 1952 Christmas photo of his missing family at Fort Schuyler in New York, April 2, 1959. (AP Photo, File)

FILE - United States Navy Pharmacist's mate Donald Martin looks at a 1952 Christmas photo of his missing family at Fort Schuyler in New York, April 2, 1959. (AP Photo, File)

Searchers return to the spot in 1999, where they believed the Martin family may have disappeared and compared the scene with a photo of it from 1959, front. (The Oregonian via AP, file)

Searchers return to the spot in 1999, where they believed the Martin family may have disappeared and compared the scene with a photo of it from 1959, front. (The Oregonian via AP, file)

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