Ajike Owens, documentaries, film festivals, Florida, Geeta Ganbhir, movies, Netflix, New York Film Festival, Sundance, Sundance Film Festival, Susan Lorincz, The Perfect Neighbor, true crime, TV
October 18, 2025
by Carla Hay
Directed by Geeta Gandbhir
Culture Representation: The documentary film “The Perfect Neighbor” features a group of white and African Americans in archival footage from 2022 to 2024, in the case of Ajike Owens, a 35-year-old mother of four, who was killed by a neighbor in Ocala, Florida, on June 2, 2023.
Culture Clash: Owens was shot to death by Susan Lorincz, who was 58 years old at the time, after several months of an escalating feud between Lorincz and her neighbors, who accused each other of harassment.
Culture Audience: “The Perfect Neighbor” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in documentaries about racist crimes and neighbor disputes that turn deadly.
The all-archival documentary “The Perfect Neighbor” uses mostly police camera footage to tell the harrowing story of how lies from a hateful bigot can escalate into the killing of a defenseless person. There are no follow-up interviews with anyone involved in the case. This well-edited documentary is presented as a series of incidents, police interviews and events that were recorded on video from 2022 to 2024.
Directed by Geeta Ganbhir, “The Perfect Neighbor” had its world premiere at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Directing Award: U.S. Documentary. “The Perfect Neighbor” had its New York premiere at the 2025 New York Film Festival. The movie’s footage (which is shown in chronological order) was primarily filmed in Ocala, Florida, where the killing of 35-year-old Ajike “A.J.” Owens took place on June 2, 2023. Owens, who was unarmed, was shot to death on the front doorstep of the rented house of her neighbor Susan Lorincz, who was 58 years old at the time and living by herself. Owens was a single mother of four children.
Lorincz admitted to shooting Owens through Lorincz’s locked door. Lorincz claimed she was acting in self-defense because Owens was pounding on the front door and threatening Lorincz. About two minutes before Lorincz shot Owens, Lorincz called 911 to report this alleged threat. Florida’s “stand your ground” laws say that a person can claim self-defense in a killing if the killer reasonably felt that their life was threatened by the person or persons who were killed, in the moments before the killing.
Almost everyone in the documentary’s footage is not identified by their names, except for Lorincz, Owens, Owens’ mother Pamela Dias, and Owens’ two eldest children: sons Isaac and Israel, who were both interviewed by police immediately after the shooting. Isaac says that he saw his mother getting shot. The most heartbreaking part of the documentary is the footage showing Ajike Owens’ loved ones, especially her children, being told that she died.
“The Perfect Neighbor” director Ganbhir has said in interviews that Ajike Owens’ family gave permission to include all of the footage that is in this documentary. Ganbhir says she got involved in making this documentary because Ajike Owens was the best friend of Ganbhir’s sister-in-law. A portion of the documentary’s revenue is reportedly going to financially help Ajike Owens’ children.
The documentary shows that Lorincz was in a police interrogation room (but not yet under arrest) when she found out that Ajike Owens died. Lorincz’s reaction shows signs of her being a malignant narcissist because she’s more concerned about herself rather than feeling remorse that she killed another human being. Lorincz’s attitude throughout the questioning is saying versions of this “blame the victim” excuse: “I no choice but to shoot her because she was pounding on the door, and I was scared.”
Police body cam footage in the documentary shows that for more than a year leading up to this shooting, Lorincz called police several times to complain about neighborhood kids and their parents, whom she claimed were harassing her by making too much noise or leaving garbage near her house. In February 2022, she claimed that Ajike Owens threw Lorincz’s small “No Trespassing” sign at Lorincz. In a interview with police who were called to the scene, Ajike admitted that she tossed the sign behind her, but she said she wasn’t specifically aiming at Lorincz.
In April 2023, Lorincz called police for a complaint saying one of the neighborhood boys tried to put a dog in the back for her truck. By May 2023, police received the first report that Lorincz was showing people she had a gun, and she told people she wouldn’t hesitate to use the gun. She often demanded that police arrest certain kids or their parents whom she accused of harassing her. However, no arrests were ever made from her complaints because Lorincz could never provide any proof, and witnesses interviewed said that Lorincz was lying.
The people she accused told a very different story from what Lorincz was claiming in her accusations. They said Lorincz was the harasser, who would curse and yell at kids for playing in nearby streets or in a grassy vacant lot that she didn’t own. By her own admission, Lorincz (who is white) would also hurl hate speech slurs meant to insult black people and mentally disabled people when she would have disputes with her neighbors. Most of the people she complained about are African American.
On the night that Ajike Owens was killed, Owens had gone over to Lorincz’s house to retrieve a computer tablet that her second-eldest son Israel had accidentally left outside near Lorincz’s house. Ajike Owens believed that Lorincz had taken the tablet out of spite. According to Israel, Lorincz threw the tablet and rollerskates at him but the objects did not hit him.
When Israel’s older brother Isaac went to confront Lorincz about her violent act of throwing items that could cause injuries, Lorincz angrily told Isaac to get his mother to come over to talk to Lorincz. Witnesses said that when Ajike Owens went over to Lorincz’s house, Ajike Owens was shouting at Lorincz through the Lorincz’s closed front door, but Ajike Owens wasn’t shouting any threats to harm Lorincz. Ajike Owens did not have any weapons when she went over to Lorincz’s house.
The documentary also includes police body cam footage of Lorincz being arrested—in an unrelated incident in March 2023—for ramming her truck against a wire fence and damaging the fence because the fence was locked, instead of contacting the owner to unlock the fence. An eyewitness had come forward and had identified Lorincz as the person who damaged the fence. In the police body cam footage of cops interviewing Lorincz about the incident, Lorincz initially lies about being outside during the time of the property damage.
But when she’s told that a witness identified her as the person causing the fence damage with her truck, Lorincz admits she caused the damage. When Lorincz starts to understand that she might be under arrest, she tries to make the excuse that she had a panic attack when she damaged the fence because she had been beaten and raped in the past. When a cop reads her Miranda rights (including the right to remain silent), Lorincz says she doesn’t want to talk to the arresting cops anymore, but then she contradicts that statement by continuing to talk.
When one of the cops mentions to Lorincz that the owner of the fence wants someone to pay for the damage, Lorincz tries to talk her way out of getting arrested by saying she’d like to resolve the situation privately with the owner. Unfortunately, “The Perfect Neighbor” does not mention what was the result of this arrest. The only reason to put this footage in the documentary was to show that Lorincz had been arrested before for committing violence, as well to show how she acts when she’s about to be arrested for a crime that she admitted doing.
There is no other background information on the victims or the killer in the documentary. What is clear from the footage of this escalating feud, Lorincz’s arrest for the killing, and her subsequent trial: She often tried to look like a helpless victim, but her actions show that she is someone who committed a cold-blooded crime and didn’t have much remorse about it.
The footage shows that as she was about to be arrested for manslaughter in a police interrogation room, Lorincz refused to stand up from the chair where she was sitting when the three cops in the room asked her to stand up so she could be arrested. The cops also didn’t touch her during her refusals, and they gave her plenty of time to decide when she wanted to stand up and be taken to the arrest booking area. Lorincz also tried to talk her way out of the arrest by saying that she didn’t feel well. In other words, the documentary shows that, unlike many other crime suspects, Lorincz was always treated politely by the police.
Lorincz was arrested four days after killing Ajike Owens. The movie also shows some of the controversy about why it took this long for Lorincz to be arrested. Family members, friends and other supporters of Ajike Owens were very open in declaring that there was a racial disparity in how cordially Lorincz was treated during the investigation, compared to people of color who are suspected of manslaughter. After Lorincz killed Ajike Owens and before Lorincz was arrested for manslaughter, Lorincz was given police escorts to and from where she wanted to go because she claimed she needed safety protection.
Because this is a high-profile crime case, the outcome of Lorincz’s trial is well-known: She was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 25 years in prison. This impactful documentary serves as an example of how people should not take false accusations lightly from anyone who has a toxic and dangerous agenda. It also shows how important it is to seek justice when a perpetrator pretends to be a victim.
Netflix released “The Perfect Neighbor” in select U.S. cinemas on October 10, 2025. The movie premiered on Netflix on October 17, 2025.