Florida woman faces sentencing in fatal shooting of neighbor Ajike Owens through locked door
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(OCALA, Fla.) — Susan Lorincz, the Florida woman who was found guilty of first-degree felony manslaughter with a firearm in August, is set to be sentenced on Monday for fatally shooting her neighbor, Ajike “AJ” Owens, through a locked door in an incident that occurred on June 2, 2023, in Ocala.
She is facing up to 30 years in prison.
Lorincz, who is white, shot Owens, a Black mother of four, in the presence of her now 10-year-old son after Owens went to speak with Lorincz following a dispute over Owens’ children playing near Lorincz’s home, according to a June 6, 2023, statement from the Marion County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO).
After a jury found Lorincz guilty on Aug. 16, Judge Robert Hodges said that Lorincz would be held in the Marion County jail without bond until her sentencing.
Ahead of Lorincz’s sentencing hearing, Owens’ family shared a statement on Wednesday with ABC News that they released through their attorney, calling for the judge to sentence the Florida woman to “the maximum penalty under the law.”
Owens’ family said that while the guilty verdict was an “ important step,” they are still seeking “justice.”
“While no sentence can ever restore the life taken from us, the court’s decision will send a strong message about the value of Ajike’s life and the importance of justice for victims of senseless violence,” the family said. “We are hopeful that the presiding judge will honor the jury’s decision and deliver a sentence that reflects the severity of this crime.”
Owens’ mother, Pamela Dias, who previously told ABC News that the guilty verdict brings a “sense of peace” to the family, said in a statement on Wednesday that Lorincz’s sentencing is an opportunity for the family to “find some closure.”
“While the pain of losing Ajike will never go away, we are hopeful that justice will prevail and that the court will give Susan Lorincz the maximum penalty for her actions,” Dias said. “Ajike’s legacy will live on in her children, and we will continue to fight for justice, love, and peace in her name.”
A spokesperson for the family told ABC News that they plan to be in court on Monday to attend Lorincz’s sentencing hearing.
Lorincz’s attorney Amanda Sizemore declined to comment in response to a request from ABC News.
Lorincz pleaded not guilty and during the trial her defense team argued that she should be found not guilty because she was acting in self-defense because she feared for her life. Meanwhile, prosecutors argued that Lorincz should be found guilty because she fatally shot an “unarmed” Owens through a “locked” door.
(WASHINGTON, D.C.) — Inflation has fallen over the final months of the presidential campaign, carrying potential implications for a tight race between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.
More than half of adults list inflation as a top issue for the country, making it the highest-ranking concern by a wide margin over issues like immigration, crime and abortion, according to an Ipsos poll conducted late last month.
Price increases nationwide have largely returned to normal. However, the presidential race is widely expected to hinge on the results in seven closely contested battleground states, placing importance on where inflation stands in those key locations.
An analysis by ABC News found that inflation rates vary significantly across four major cities situated in battleground states: Detroit, Michigan; Phoenix, Arizona; Atlanta, Georgia; and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
In each of those states, the average polling margin between the two candidates is no more than two percentage points, according to FiveThirtyEight.
Here’s what to know about what inflation looks like in swing-state cities and what that means for the election:
Detroit, Michigan
Consumer prices rose 3.5% in Detroit over the year ending in August, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). That figure stands a percentage point above the national average and marks the highest inflation rate of the four cities examined by ABC News.
The surge in prices has stemmed in large part from rapidly rising housing costs, Gabriel Ehrlich, an economist at the University of Michigan, told ABC News. The trend marks a recent turnabout from sluggish housing prices that had taken hold in the city in the aftermath of the 2008 Great Recession.
Back then, a crisis in the auto industry caused rising unemployment, an exodus from Detroit and diminishing demand for homes. As Detroit has since improved its economic performance, however, the population has begun to grow and housing prices have started to soar. Housing costs climbed 6.2% in Detroit over the year ending in August, which stands more than a percentage point higher than the national average.
Even if the improved economic performance has contributed to the rise in housing prices, that silver lining offers little solace for city residents paying high costs, Ehrlich said.
“That’s a hard sell,” he added.
Phoenix, Arizona
In Phoenix, the inflation rate clocks in at 2.3%, according to BLS data for August, the most recent month on record. That pace of price increases is slightly lower than the national average.
Like Detroit, housing prices play a significant role in the dynamic behind costs in Phoenix – but it’s for the opposite reason. Housing prices there are rising at a pace of 3.5%, well below the national average of more than 6%.
The moderate pace of current housing price increases in Phoenix marks welcome relief after a bruising stretch of skyrocketing costs, Lee McPheters, director of the JPMorgan Chase Economic Outlook Center at Arizona State University, told ABC News. Since 2017, housing prices in the Phoenix area have doubled, he added.
The price increases have slowed, however, as Phoenix has made a concerted effort to ramp up home construction and address its dearth of supply.
Phoenix is expected to build roughly 20,000 apartments in 2024, granting it the fourth-highest apartment construction rate of any U.S. city, a RentCafe study in August found. That total would amount to a 88% increase from the apartment construction rate achieved two years prior, according to the Maricopa Association of Governments.
“There’s of course been the same housing shortage issues in Phoenix that you see across the country,” McPheters said. “The difference here is that Arizona responded.”
Atlanta, Georgia
As of August, the inflation rate in Atlanta stands at 1.7%, which clocks in nearly a percentage point lower than the national average and is the lowest pace for any of the swing-state cities examined by ABC News.
Prices in Atlanta have risen at a slower pace than the national average for a range of essential products, including housing, meat, poultry, fish and eggs.
Gasoline prices have dropped nationwide over the past year but they’ve fallen even more in Atlanta. The same trend applies to the price of new and used cars, the latter of which has fallen a staggering 11% over the past year.
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Consumer prices in the Philadelphia area climbed 3.4% over the year ending in August, BLS data showed. The city’s inflation rate registers nearly a percentage point higher than the national average.
In Philadelphia, prices for many food and beverage products are rising faster than the national average. Over the past year, prices for meat, poultry, fish and eggs have climbed at more than twice the national average pace. Cereal and bakery products have surged 2.5% over the past year in Philadelphia, even though prices for such goods have fallen by 1% nationwide.
The prices for nonalcoholic beverages in Philadelphia have climbed more than six times faster than the national average over the past year.
Erasmus Kersting, a professor of economics at Villanova University, said the sharp increase in prices for some food items may owed to a lack of competition among grocery stores in Philadelphia. In the absence of fierce competition, grocery stores retain the latitude to raise prices without fear of a rival offering a better deal on comparable products, Kersting explained.
Two supermarket chains, Giant and ShopRite, accounted for 56% of the local grocery market in 2022, according to the Philadelphia Business Journal.
“Grocery store prices have gone up a lot,” Kersting told ABC News. “Some of this has to do with market structure. How many competitors do grocery stores have?”
Former film producer Harvey Weinstein appears in Manhattan Criminal Court for a pretrial hearing, following his overturned sex crimes conviction, in New York City, July 19, 2024. (KENA BETANCUR/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Harvey Weinstein’s criminal sexual assault case is scheduled to return on Wednesday to a Manhattan courtroom — and if Weinstein shows up he will be arraigned on a new indictment.
The charges remain sealed until Weinstein appears. The former movie mogul missed his last court date after being rushed to the hospital for emergency heart surgery.
The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office presented to the grand jury allegations of three separate women who said Weinstein sexually assaulted them. Their allegations were not part of the initial trial of Weinstein that ended in a conviction, which was later overturned on appeal.
“We will do everything in our power to retry this case, and remain steadfast in our commitment to survivors of sexual assault,” a spokeswoman for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said in a statement earlier this year, when the conviction was overturned.
Weinstein has denied all claims of sexual misconduct, saying his encounters were consensual.
(MOSCOW, Idaho) — Parents of the University of Idaho victims are speaking out on the two-year mark of the gruesome quadruple homicide as they await the trial for their children’s suspected killer.
For victim Kaylee Goncalves’ parents, one of the devastating milestones this year is Kaylee’s younger sister, Autumn, turning 21 — the age Kaylee was when she was killed.
“Early on, [Autumn] just said, ‘What am I going to do when I’m older than Kaylee?'” Kristi Goncalves recalled. “You should never be older than Kaylee, but yeah, you will be and, and that’s coming.”
“It should be an exciting, fun time for her to go out with all of her sisters and go do something fun. But somebody does this to your family, it robs you of all kinds of different things. And birthdays are a huge part of that,” Steve Goncalves told ABC News on Tuesday.
For the mom of 20-year-old victim Ethan Chapin, two years “seems like a long time ago,” but “also feels like yesterday.”
Ethan Chapin was a triplet and his sister, Mazie, and brother, Hunter, also attend the University of Idaho.
“The two will graduate college in May, and we could not be prouder of everything they’ve accomplished,” Stacy Chapin said in a statement.
“We continue to heal and miss Ethan as we work diligently to find the silver linings in the worst circumstances,” she said.
Bryan Kohberger is accused of fatally stabbing Ethan Chapin, Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen and Xana Kernodle at the girls’ off-campus house in the early hours of Nov. 13, 2022. Chapin, Kernodle’s boyfriend, was sleeping over at the time.
Kohberger, who was a criminology Ph.D. student at nearby Washington State University, was arrested in December 2022. His trial date has been pushed back to Aug. 7, 2025.
For the Goncalves, the last two years felt like a “standstill” in the courts.
Two months ago, Kohberger’s trial was moved from Latah County, where the crime took place and the defense argued jurors wouldn’t be as impartial, to Idaho’s capital city, Boise.
Kristi Goncalves said, “I feel like now that we’ve moved it down to Boise, as much as we didn’t want that, that was the right choice. And I’m glad that it, you know, in hindsight that it happened, and I feel like things are going to start moving, although it still seems very slow.”
Kohberger is charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of burglary. A not guilty plea was entered on his behalf.
If convicted, Kohberger could face the death penalty, though his defense is arguing for the death sentence to be taken off the table.
The Goncalves family said they support the death penalty in this case, highlighting the limitations that sentence would pose on Kohberger’s life in prison.
“It’s more about, honestly, the 23 hours of confinement, and not being able to be enrolled in college education and being able to further his career and his influence on society,” Steve Goncalves said.
On Wednesday night, the University of Idaho community will gather for a vigil to honor the four slain students.
“Together, we’ll honor their legacy by sharing memories, writing notes, and gathering in a place dedicated to all Vandals we’ve lost,” the student government said.
ABC News’ Kayna Whitworth contributed to this report.
