A few summers ago, Pamela Dias was embarking on a new chapter in her life. The Atlanta, Georgia, woman had just accepted a new job as a flight attendant and was looking forward to traveling the world.
But on June 2, 2023, the mother and grandmother got a shocking phone call that upended her plans and changed her life.
"I'm told over the phone that my daughter has been killed," Dias told "20/20." "I cried. I screamed. I screamed."
A new "20/20" episode,"The Neighbor from Hell,"airing Friday, April 3, at 9 p.m. ET on ABC and streaming the next day on Hulu, examines the case.
You can also get more behind-the-scenes of each week's episode by listening to "20/20: The After Show" weekly series right on your 20/20 podcast feed on Mondays, hosted by "20/20" co-anchor Deborah Roberts.
Dias' daughter, 35-year-oldAjike Owens, was a single mother of four living in Ocala, Florida.
Owens had expressed frustrations to her mother about an ongoing dispute with her neighbor Susan Lorincz that dated back to February 2022. Lorincz had repeatedly called police to complain about Owens' and other neighborhood children who played in a field near her home.
"Moms knew each other because all the kids were at the bus stop together," Kimberly Robinson-Jones, one of Owens' best friends, told "20/20." "It's a family neighborhood."
According to neighbors and friends of Owens who shared their stories with "20/20," Lorincz was the only neighbor who consistently called police to complain about the children.
"All of us live out here. Nobody else is complaining. Nobody else. She's the only one," neighbor Phyllis Wills said.
Neighbors echoed this sentiment in conversations with sheriff's deputies, as seen in body camera footage.
"The picture was painted that Susan was a problem in the neighborhood," Detective Ryan Stith of the Marion County Sheriff's Office told "20/20."
In her repeated calls to police, Lorincz said that she works from home and expressed concern over the children playing near her home, saying they were loud and disruptive.
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On the day of the shooting, Owens knocked on Lorincz's door to confront her after Owens' son said Lorincz yelled and threw roller skates at him, according to the sheriff's office, but Lorincz would not open the door. Lorincz admitted to authorities that she tossed the skates but denied aiming at the child. She claimed to police they had trespassed.
Lorincz has denied throwing a skate at the children and claims that they were trespassing.
According to the Marion County Sheriff's Office, at around 9 p.m. local time on June 2 Lorincz fatally shot Owens through her closed locked front door, as Owens stood near her nine-year-old son Israel, called "Izzy" by his mother.
"I cannot imagine for Izzy to be standing there next to his mom and a gunshot pierces the door and hits his mom. I cannot imagine what that had to be like for him," "20/20" co-anchor Deborah Roberts said to Dias in an interview.
"He told me that he heard her say, 'Call the police, call 911. I've been shot,'" Dias said.
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Kemisha Mobley, a Marion County Fire Rescue 911 operator who received Lorincz's call after the shooting, recalled what she heard in an interview with "20/20."
"She stated she shot through the door," Mobley said.
Lauren Smith, a neighbor who is seen in body camera footage performing CPR on Owens, recalled the harrowing night.
"Isaac, the oldest, comes just through here, screaming, hollering, 'They shot my mom. They shot my mom,'" she told "20/20." "I'm scrambling, like this can't be true. I don't understand. He takes me by the hand and leads me to his mother's body over in the field."
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Dias said that a "frantic" Isaac called her soon after to tell her about the shooting.
"Isaac, my grandson, called me from his mom's phone," Dias said. "He's just screaming, yelling, saying that mom's been shot."
The Marion County Sheriff's Officereleased extensive body camera footage, dash cam video and 911 audiothat documented Lorincz's history of complaints to law enforcement about the children in their neighborhood, including Owens discussing the dispute, and the aftermath of the fatal shooting.
Police body camera footage shows children telling sheriff's deputies that Lorincz called them racial slurs and other names. Lorincz admitted to calling children in the neighborhood racial slurs and other derogatory terms in the past, according to a police report.
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Neighbor Phyllis Wills' daughter Nevaeh, who is now 16 years old, alleged that Lorincz used slurs in her interactions with children in the neighborhood.
"She used to call us the N-word with a hard R, um, just names, saying we're gonna get raped if we be in her yard," she told "20/20."
Following the release of the body camera footage, the case garnered increased national attention, prompting widespread outrage.
"It told me that people understood the atrocity of this," Dias said. "It showed that people still care. People want justice."
Owens' family, along with neighbors and community advocates, rallied for days ahead of Lorincz's arrest and continued to call for hate crimes charges to be filed. Florida State Attorney William "Bill" Gladson said there was insufficient evidence to prove such a charge in court, but Lorincz was arrested on June 6, 2023 and ultimately charged with manslaughter with a firearm.
Facing 30 years in prison, Lorincz pleaded not guilty and was held on a $150,000 bond. Lorincz claimed in interviews with police that she feared for her life before the shooting -- a claim that was at the heart of Lorincz's defense during the trial.
As Owens' family awaited the trial, her four children -- Izzy, Isaac, Afrika and Titus -- had to cope with a life without their mother. They were 9, 12 and 6 at the time, with Titus the youngest only 2 years old.
In the wake of their mother's death, Dias, who relocated to Ocala to care for her grandchildren, vowed not to leave their side.
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Asked how she and the children are doing, Dias said, "Time has passed, but the grief and the hurt has not passed."
Following a week-long trial in 2024,Lorincz was convicted of first-degree felony manslaughterwith a firearm on Aug. 16 andwas sentenced to 25 years in prison on Nov. 25, 2024. She is appealing her conviction.
"I thought that a guilty verdict was going to make me feel better," Dias said. "it almost had the opposite effect. It didn't make me feel good. It validated what I already knew, that my daughter's life should never have been taken."
Marion County Sheriff's Office Deputy Ashton Welfenberg told "20/20" that Owens' family remains in the thoughts of her and others who worked on the case.
"We still think of them. I do. I think of them a lot," she said.
Reflecting on his healing journey, Izzy, who is now 12-years-old, recalled a song that his mother would sing to him titled "I Am What God Says I Am."
"I remember this one time we were both at home and we were sitting on the bed and she started teaching me this little song," he said.
"Would you do a little bit?" Roberts asked.
"I am what God says I am and I can be what God says I'll be," Izzy said. "I am and I can be all that God says I can be."
ABC News' Sabina Ghebremedhin contributed to this report.