A feud between Ocala, Florida, neighbors escalated for greater than two years, ultimately reaching a lethal climax.
An Oscar-nominated documentary characteristic revisits the tragic confrontation in a distinctive method. Now streaming on Netflix, The Perfect Neighbor completely makes use of police physique digital camera footage and different evidential supplies to element the extended rift between Susan Lorincz and Ajike “AJ” Owens.
Tensions reached a boiling level in June 2023 when Lorincz shot and killed Owens, making nationwide headlines and sparking heated debate on Florida’s controversial “stand your ground” legal guidelines. The new movie offers viewers the chance to observe the occasions resulting in their deadly confrontation—and draw their very own conclusions about what occurred of their tight-knit neighborhood.
What is The Perfect Neighbor about?
The Perfect Neighbor affords a never-before-seen have a look at the dispute between neighbors Lorincz and Owens.
On June 2, 2023, Lorincz, then 58, contacted police as a part of a collection of ongoing disagreements together with her neighbor, 35-year-old Owens. Marion County authorities responded to at least six calls relating to the feud—primarily about Owens’ 4 youngsters strolling and enjoying close to Lorincz’s garden—beginning in January 2021.
According to an arrest affidavit, neighbors reported Lorincz often yelled at youngsters enjoying within the space and referred to as authorities with false experiences. The doc additionally stated Lorincz, who’s white, used racial slurs towards Owens’ youngsters, who’re Black, in the course of the collection of altercations—although Lorincz later denied this.
This culminated within the pair’s remaining battle, when Owens confronted Lorincz after she allegedly threw a curler skate at one of many youngsters. During the argument, Lorincz shot Owens by means of the locked entrance door of her residence with a .380-caliber handgun, leading to her dying.
Lorincz was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to jail
Lorincz was arrested 5 days after the capturing and later charged with manslaughter with a firearm, culpable negligence, battery, and two counts of assault.
Lorincz maintained she shot Owens out of worry for her life—testing Florida’s “stand your ground” legal guidelines, which permit the use of deadly force in self-defense underneath sure circumstances. Her authorized staff additionally claimed a historical past of psychological sickness—together with PTSD from struggling years of sexual and different types of abuse—exacerbated her terror.
Conversely, Owens’ household and prosecutors argued the violence was extreme and, doubtlessly, racially motivated.
Lorincz didn’t testify in her personal protection at trial and, in August 2024, a six-person jury discovered her responsible of manslaughter. She was sentenced to 25 years in jail. Judge Robert Hodges, who oversaw the case, decided Lorincz was underneath no imminent menace and located the capturing “completely unnecessary” in his ruling.
“I am so sorry I took AJ’s life. I never intended to kill her,” Lorincz stated.
Where is Susan Lorincz now?
Lorincz is presently incarcerated on the Homestead Correctional Institution in Homestead, Florida, and has a projected launch date of February 18, 2048, according to the Florida Department of Corrections.
She has since spoken publicly concerning the confrontation with Owens and maintains her actions have been justified. Lorincz alleged Owens and three of her youngsters made verbal threats towards her in the course of the dispute that led to the deadly capturing in an interview with Gainesville, Florida, tv station WCJB20 in September 2025. She claims she tripped over curler skates close to her sidewalk and requested the youngsters to take away them, however they refused.
“And I said, ‘Kids, pick up your skates and please leave. You’re trespassing. You know you’re trespassing,’ and the kid said, ‘I’m going to kill you. If I can’t kill you, I’m going to find someone to kill you,’” Lorincz instructed reporter Robert Bradfield.
She alleges that, quickly after, Owens started loudly banging on her entrance door utilizing “expletives and just horrible language, screaming at me” and refused to depart. “Then she said, ‘I’m gonna f—king 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,” she continued.
Lorincz added Owens’ dying “makes me sick” and “breaks my heart.”
Owens’ household permitted the usage of police footage for the documentary
Courtesy of Netflix
Owens’ household pursued additional accountability for her killing, submitting a wrongful death lawsuit towards Lorincz in July 2025 in Marion County.
“The past two years have been the hardest, toughest journey I’ve ever been on. It’s been filled with grief, sadness, despair,” Owens’ mom, Pamela Dias, said weeks previous to the submitting. The present standing of the lawsuit is unknown.
In November 2025, the Ocala Gazette reported that Lorincz expressed plans to countersue Dias and three surviving youngsters of Owens for “slander, libel and defamation of character, for damages that exceed $50,000” in response.
Dias performed an integral function within the making of The Perfect Neighbor. According to The Guardian, her legal professionals used the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to pressure police to launch all footage from the case, together with bodycam video, safety footage, and cellphone calls made by Lorincz. She then gave permission for director Geeta Gandbhir to make use of the supplies within the documentary.
“I showed Pam the film when it was completed,” Gandbhir defined, “and I said, ‘Is this what you want?’ She said, ‘Yes—the world needs to know what happened to my baby.’”
Watch The Perfect Neighbor on Netflix
Gandbhir—a two-time Emmy winner for Outstanding Picture Editing for the doumentaries When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts (2006) and By the People: The Election of Barack Obama (2009)—describes the documentary as a “deeply personal project, created to transform grief into purpose and honor the lasting legacy of Ajike Owens and her family.”
The Perfect Neighbor is streaming on Netflix and nominated for Best Documentary Feature on the 2026 Academy Awards on Sunday, March 15.
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