Law&Crime Sidebar - Florida's ‘Perfect Neighbor’ Wants to Sue Kids of Woman She Killed

Episode Date: November 8, 2025

AJ Owens through a closed door, is now attempting to countersue Owens' children for defamation. Lorincz maintains she acted in self-defense, claiming Owens and her children threatened her. Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber analyzes the wrongful death lawsuit filed by AJ Owens' family and Lorincz's surprising plans for a countersuit, with insights from Anthony Thomas, lawyer for AJ Owens’ Estate.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW:If you’re ever injured in an accident, you can check out Morgan & Morgan. You can submit a claim in 8 clicks or less without having to leave your couch. To start your claim, visit: https://forthepeople.com/LCSidebarHOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael Deininger, Christina O'Shea, Alex Ciccarone, & Jay CruzScript Writing & Producing - Savannah Williamson & Juliana BattagliaGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. I'm not trying to be a bit, you know, it's not funny. I hate her. Oh. She's doing it for good. The Florida woman who gunned down her neighbor through her front door and in dispute over noisy neighborhood kids, wants to sue her victim's children for defamation.

The subject of Netflix's perfect neighbor documentary is standing by her story that a mother of four was threatening to kill her as she beat on her door, leaving her no choice but to fire through it. So now, as she sits behind bars for at least the next couple of decades, she is facing a wrongful death lawsuit from the family.

And she says she wants to counter sue. We're going to break down the lawsuit and what could happen next with the lawyer for the deceased woman's estate. Welcome to Sidebar. Presented by Law and Crime, I'm Jesse Weber. Obviously, this is a story we wanted to put a spotlight on. It's important to cover, okay?

And the reason that we can do that is because of the amazing support that we get from our sponsor, Morgan and Morgan. We're talking about America's largest personal injury law firm, a firm with over 1,000 attorneys. They have recovered $25 billion for more than 500,000 clients. In the past few months alone, a client in Florida received $12 million when insurance, offered just $350,000. Out in Pennsylvania, another client was awarded $26 million. That is 40 times the insurers offer. Morgan and Morgan, they make it easy to fight for what you deserve. You can even start a claim from your phone. So if you're injured, you can start a claim at for the people.com slash LC sidebar. You can click the link below or you can scan the QR code on screen.

An already controversial story has taken yet another shocking turn. Susan Lawrence, the woman convicted of killing her neighbor who insisted that the shooting was justified filed a handwritten response to a wrongful death lawsuit. And despite a jury determining that the then 58-year-old committed manslaughter when she fired a pistol through the closed locked door of her apartment, Lorenz continues to claim that she was in fear for her life and had no choice but to shoot. And I'm going to get into that letter in a minute. By the way, some people say Lawrence, some people say Lawrence. We're going to go with Lawrence. Okay, going back to the night of the shooting, This heartbreaking body cam footage from that night, it was the focus of Netflix's

the perfect neighbor, this documentary which dominated the streaming services charts for weeks. Baby, wake up! That one right there, 1003. Wake up, wake up. Wake up, baby, wake up. Hey, sh-break up. We need to do CPR real quick. Baby, wake up.

Baby, wake up. Let me see, do we have any fault? So according to multiple witnesses, 35-year-old, mother of four, Ajica, AJ, Owens, went over to Lawrence's apartment on June 2nd, 2023. She apparently banged on her door, demanding that Lorenz come out and speak with her, because you see, Lawrence had reportedly taken AJ's son's iPad, even threw a roller skate at him for allegedly trespassing. But instead of speaking with AJ, Lawrence fired one shot through the door, and it hit AJ in

the chest, and she died. When 911 calls started flooding in that there had been a shooting, Marion County deputies, They were actually already on the way. And that's because Lorenz had called dispatch in the minutes before the shooting, claiming she was in fear for her life because of the kids playing in a field near her house. I left my iPad over there because we were playing games. I went to get it. She said, I said, give me my iPad to her.

She threw the. If y'all were here when it happened, just stand right here so I know who was out here when it happened, okay? I left my iPad over there because we were playing games. And I went to go get it. I said to give my iPad because she had it. She dropped and tried to throw the skates at me. And then I got my brother. She said, come in me with the skates.

And then, um. All right, bud. Give me a minute. Just hang up by my car, okay? She's been doing that. Damn, and the kids was over there. They weren't even open here. So when Marion County Sheriff's deputies responded to this chaotic situation, most of them were already familiar with the address.

Lorenz had called them about the children playing near her apartment again and again and again. Well, I mean, as long as they're not on your property, I mean, they can pretty much play wherever they want to play. And I want you guys to run around hoot and holler all you can because I'd rather see you guys outside playing than on them TikToks, all right? Right. So hoot and holler all you want, but if someone asks you to quiet down, bring it down a notch, okay? Okay. If she asked nice, she come up here. For sure.

Hey, you retard, stop yelling! Yeah, if she starts screaming at you guys, I want you to tell them adult, okay? I don't want you to antagonize her, okay? You don't have sole control over the parking lot. There's four people here. Yeah, but those children don't live here. I mean, they literally live across the street on the other side. They don't.

I understand what you're telling me, and I get it, but you don't have sole power to say, hey, they can't be in this park. She's also the only one that ever calls. You know what? Deputies, they responded to at least six calls in relation to this dispute, this feud between Susan Lawrence and AJ in the months before the deadly shooting. And there wasn't much they could do except, you know, take a report, warn the kids not to be too wild. And despite what she might have thought, that grassy area next to Lawrence's apartment was not part of her property.

And no trespassing signs and warnings from deputies didn't mean much. Well, several days after AJ died and after at least two interviews with police, Susan Lawrence was arrested in charge with manslaughter with a firearm. She has always maintained that AJ and her children had made threats against her. And this is despite witnesses saying they had never heard anything like that. When she went to trial in 2024, it took a jury only a couple of hours to return with a guilty verdict. The judge sentenced her to spend 25 years behind bars, and she's been locked up ever since. But now we've got to talk about what just happened, okay?

Months after the trial wrapped up, A.J.'s mom, Pamela Dias, filed a wrongful death lawsuit on behalf of her daughter's estate. Now, the suit wasn't just filed against Susan Lorenz. It names a co-defendant, Charles Gabbard. Who's he? Well, Charles Gabbard was apparently the landlord of the apartments where Lawrence and AJ lived. He told investigators that Susan Lawrence would often complain to him about the children being unruly outside her windows. So she demanded he put up no trespassing signs, which he did at a property line, but he didn't have any say over that grassy area. Now, Pamela laid out what happened to her daughter on that day in 2023.

and why she believes Susan Lawrence should pay up as part of the consequences for her actions. When it comes to Gabbard, this is what the complaint had to say. Quote, Charles Gabbard had actual or constructive control of the premises and knowledge of the history of erroneous allegations made to the Marion County Sheriff's Office by defendant Susan L. Lawrence against the decedent, Ms. Owens, and her children. Moreover, defendant Charles Gabbard knew and or should have known that there was a propensity. for gross negligent conduct and or intentional harm by defendant Susan Lawrence, which unreasonably exposed the decedent and her children to an unreasonable dangerous condition on the premises which was likely to cause harm. So Pamela is looking for specific damages, including past and future mental pain and suffering

of AJ's children, the expense of medical care at the end of AJ's life, funeral arrangements, loss of AJ's future potential earnings. And now, now we have to talk about something. We have to talk about the fact that Susan Lawrence has responded to this lawsuit from behind bars. So let me be clear. It's not an attorney doing this. It's her. She is actually physically writing back.

And she's not only responding, she is looking to counter sue. She sent a handwritten letter to the court laying out her intentions. And in that correspondence, she holds fast to the same assertion she always has that she had to kill AJ. before A.J. killed her. The document reads, in response to general allegations, Ogica Owens and her children were trespassing. There were multiple no trespassing signs on the property. Miss Owens did in fact scream, threatened to beat me multiple times while trespassing. Miss Owens was instructed to stay off the property along with her children multiple times by the county sheriff's department. Miss Owens did not knock politely and speak reasonably on June

2nd, 2023. She pounded and screamed profanities like her. a lunatic. Ms. Owen's children had lied to her and stated, I hit her child with a roller skate. During his encounter with the prosecutors, Bucksman and Smith, that child recanted that the roller skate hit him and only came near him. Assault and battery charges were dropped. Now, to be clear, none of AJ's children testified during the trial. They did do interviews with police and pretrial depositions with the attorneys. So Lawrence writes, quote, In depositions, all the children told different stories about their location at the time of the shooting. One child was over 60 feet away at the mailboxes.

And Lorenz also returned to a story that she's repeated time and time again, that AJ had once thrown a yard sign at her after becoming frustrated over repeated issues with Lawrence. So Lawrence writes, quote, The female juvenile who testified at trial stated she was an eyewitness to Ajika Owens throwing a metal sign and seeing said signs strike me in the leg. I was seven weeks post-operative for my neck fusion. And Susan Lawrence also referred to another juvenile named Uriel, who provided his recollections to the court, writing, quote, Uriel testified in his depositions that

Ms. Owens would come onto my sidewalk by the patio and threatened to fight me. He testified she was trying to scare me so that I would stop calling Marion County sheriffs. One child also testified that his brother struck Ms. Lawrence with a water bottle in his depositions. I now wish to counter sue for slander, libel, and defamation of character for damages in excess of $50,000. And she also indicated that she wanted to sue the landlord, Charles Gabbard, as well, for, quote, not securing the property correctly and allowing Ms. Owens and her children for harassment, physical threats of harm, and mental duress. Now, okay, so right now I'm joined by Anthony Thomas, who is the lawyer for A.J. Owens' estate. Anthony, thank you so much for coming on. First up, what did you make of this handwritten

response from Ms. Lawrence? Well, she responded. I'm glad she responded. You know, sometimes when you have pro se litigants, it's kind of difficult to sort of get them engaged the proper way. I received that particular letter in the mail to my office before it was even something and that went to the courts. And so once I was able to understand that, you know, she had also mailed it to the court, I'm glad that the judge was, you know, able to make sure that that document was entered in as a pleading on her behalf.

You know, now we can engage in litigation and we can continue the case that now that she's responded. We can move on. We're now at the discovery phase of litigation where I'm allowed to, you know, take Susan's deposition, take, you know, the landlord's deposition, all parties involved, witnesses and things like that. So I'm happy to have litigation moving pretty much. And her response, which was both on the defensive and the offensive, right?

She's intending to file her own lawsuit. Thoughts on that? And how do you plan to address that? Well, my thoughts are, you know, I hope that if Susan, you know, wants to, you know, take advantage of whatever defenses she has in this situation that she's able to articulate it well, You know, if she needs to get an attorney to do that for her, I wish her luck with that. But as it relates to, you know, what she's claiming in this letter to the judge, you know, I don't really want to comment on that other than the fact that, you know, it's given me some insight

as to, you know, how she's thinking about this case. So you're limited in what you can actually say since it's ongoing litigation. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, I have some evidence, you know, we've, you know, shared some discovery at this point with the landlord's attorney. And so what I don't want to do is just compromise the integrity of that evidence for the sake of, you know, you know, commenting on what Susan, you know, has in her mind, pretty much. What I've had the conversation with my client about was the merits of this case. You know, if Susan is entitled to her defenses, cool. you know, I'm okay with her being able to articulate those, but I pretty much think that this case is going to be tried on its merits. And, you know, I think that the family has the better claim here.

Can you talk to me a little bit more about the wrongful death lawsuit? I mentioned it before. I was talking about it. Why does the family feel the need for this? And why also, what is the expectation at this point about what they believe they can actually recover? Well, I've been, you know, asked or hired to investigate negligence in this situation. We've had the criminal case play out where Susan was convicted. And so that's the criminal side now to make sure that she has been prosecuted to the full extent of the law. That includes civil litigation. She should be able to answer for, you know, her wrongdoings, criminal and in the civil sense. So we have a degree or at least a theory of what we think, you know, that negligence is

on Susan's part, as well as her former landlord, Charles Gabbard. And so we've pursued the lawsuit based on that. We've made a short plain statement according to the rules of, you know, pleadings here in a lawsuit situation. And we just want the evidence to be played out in the case to be tried on its merits. So again, like I am in a place that will allow us to move litigation forward in a sense. And so I just want the evidence to play out. And once it does, you know, I'll be able to have a better conversation with you about that. Sure. And just to be clear, you have received a response from Charles Gabbard's side. I mean, I know you can't talk about the content of it, but you have received some sort of response. So, you know, this information is pretty much public. Clerk

of Court's website, Marion County has, you know, all that stuff available. So yes, I've received an answer from Charles Gabbard's attorney. We've made some progress with the discovery. And we've exchanged some information. And so hopefully with the discovery phase of litigation, we can get forward more information, we'll eventually take depositions. I'm interested in taking Susan Lawrence's deposition, Charles Gabbard's deposition, of course, because they are the defendants of the case. There are some other witnesses who I'm interested in getting their deposition testimony as well. So we'll let the facts be where they are, but I'm definitely excited about being able to move this case forward. Because like I said before, when you have pro se litigants, sometimes

that progress of discovery can be stifled. Yeah, no, I understand. How's the family doing at this point? About as good as they can. You know, the holidays are always hard, especially with loss of someone who was the center of their life. You know, these are four babies, no mom. And they have to endure the holidays without her. You know, and it's an everyday, ongoing situation. Each child has their own personality, their own relationship with their mom.

And, you know, Pamela Diaz, the grandmother is really just trying to hold the family together. So it's rough. You know, it's a day-by-day kind of process. Every day isn't good. Every day isn't bad. But, you know, they're doing the best that they can. And the attention around the world from this Netflix documentary, how has that affected them? It's really interesting because what you have is the grandmother, Pamela Diaz, really.

really trying to protect her grandchildren from all the things that go on. I mean, the oldest is a teenager now. So, of course, he may be exposed to social media. He may see things. And so what she's really focused on is trying to protect these kids from the negative attention, that kind of thing. She wants to promote positivity within her family unit. And so it's hard when there's so much attention out there. Everybody has an opinion about what's going on, the Netflix film, and comments about that. And so from the perspective of the grandmother here, she's really just trying to protect these kids, keep a shield of protection around them, so then they don't get exposed to the negative attention. Do you know if they objected to it being produced?

Do you know if they objected to this being published and, you know, this story being told in that way? I have no understanding of any objection at all that was made. made with regards to the production of the documentary, no. Okay. Anthony, again, I know you're limited in what you can say about the litigation. Is there anything else you can tell us about, you know, what we should be looking out for, what we can expect, what might be going on here, anything else you might be able to share at this point?

My job, of course, is civil litigation, right? I really want to be able to articulate the damages and what these kids have gone through. their relationship with their mom or the loss of their mom having to deal with that is something that is the most critical part of their life. That is the ultimate damage. Like I couldn't imagine being four years old or, you know, nine years old, 13 years old without my mom. And so the process of dealing with that is definitely one of the most important things that I want to be able to articulate and share with the public. Like these are children. Their stress, their pain, their suffering, their aggravation.

is ongoing. It's not fixable with, you know, any amount of money that can be pulled from civil litigation. It's not fixable from any amount of punishment given to Susan Lawrence. It's not, it's not fixable in the sense that, you know, any amount of counseling with these kids can sort of help them adjust to what they may be going through. I don't live with them every day. I hear their stories, their grandmother does her best to try to make sure that I understand their damages because I have to articulate those in a courtroom someday. But it's an ongoing sort of situation. And these kids are, like I said, it's hard. It's very hard. These kids are going through a very rough time in their life. And I'm not sure when there's going to be some, some closure. We try,

you know, of course, with the conviction of Susan Lawrence, there is one door closed in that chapter. Hopefully we can close another door with the civil litigation so they can put this behind them. You know, And then, you know, at some point, the attention may taper off. At some point, the media may move on to the next situation or something that's out in the public. And so much attention won't be brought on these children where they don't have to live with, you know, all of the negative, you know, influences. It's horrible. It's horrible when you think about how traumatic it is to lose a parent at a young age. But in that way, in that way, and in a way that now there was a trial, it was public.

There is this Netflix movie. You know, it's being talked about our hearts, our prayers are going to them. I can only imagine how difficult this is. And you know what else? I was going to ask you, I know it's still early in the litigation, but potentially they could be called as witnesses, right, and have to testify at a civil trial? Yeah, they can be. You know, a lot of times the judge will, you know, have say-so in, you know, the testimony of minors.

you know it's really something that is possible you know it was definitely possible in the criminal case but of course you didn't hear any testimony from a j owens his children during that trial and susan was still convicted so you know i think for the most part you know if if a jury can convict susan of you know her heinous acts um without without any insight from the children i I think the evidence is clear in a civil sense. But Susan could potentially call them as her own witnesses, right? Yeah, she does have that ability to call them as witnesses. We will see, you know.

I think that, you know, you've seen the law enforcement footage. Like there's one particular case where or situation at the time of the shooting where you have AJ's child being present. you know, seeing his mother, you know, pass away, like, okay, well, that's, that's definitely an issue where that child can be able to articulate what he was going through at the time. That's, that's a damage. So if Susan wants to explore that, then we'll figure out, you know, what steps we need to take to see if that evidence is, you know, can be, you know, presented in court.

Ultimately, we all understand that this is a situation that never should have happened, never should have happened at all. And so when we think about things like that, we go into, okay, well, who's responsible? Is it Susan? Is it law enforcement? You know, we've made no claim against law enforcement. Is it the landlord, Charles Gabbard? We think he has some liability. That's why he's named in the lawsuit.

So that's hopefully, you know, like I said, the evidence can play out. No matter who or what information is brought out, we're able to make sure that this case is tried on its merits. I want you to stay in touch with us. this progresses because obviously this is not the end of the story. There is a lot more. We will see if we hear more from Susan Lawrence from prison as this progresses, whether or not she'll retain counsel, whether she'll fight back or not. But again, I go back to something I said before, just on behalf of all of us, our hearts, our prayers, our thoughts are with the family. I know this is a tremendously difficult time. It may only get more difficult. But Anthony Thomas, thank you so much for taking the time. Really appreciate it. I appreciate your attention on this case. Thank you so much. Sidebar, everybody. Thank you so much for joining us. And as always, please subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you should get your podcast. You can follow me on X or Instagram. I'm Jesse Weber. I'll speak to you next time. or Spotify.