Serialously with Annie Elise
347: Netflix Showed the Bodycam but They Didn't Show This | AJ Owens
15 Dec 2025
Chapter 1: What tragic event happened to A.J. Owens in her neighborhood?
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Newly released affidavits and 911 calls offer more insight into what happened in the shooting death of mother of four, A.J. Owens. She had love.
She had compassion. We are truly the divided states of America, not the United States of America. I wish our shooter would have called us instead of taking actions into her own hands. Justice for AJ! Justice for AJ! Justice for AJ! We believe in salvation and liberation. Please don't let our baby girl's death go in vain.
Hey, true crime besties. Welcome back to an all-new episode of Serial Asleep. The night of June 2nd, 2023, was not a typical night for the Quail Run neighborhood in Ocala, Florida. It was normally a very quiet, very peaceful neighborhood, full of younger, working-class families just trying to make a living and raise their kids.
And on any regular evening, you could actually hear the neighborhood kids playing outside.
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Chapter 2: How did the neighborhood dynamics change after the shooting?
There were a lot of them too, all varying in ages, and spending time together outside was really what they loved to do. So much so that many of the adults had become friends over the years as well. Just think of it as like a traditional neighborhood, not necessarily block parties, but with that kind of vibe, right?
With everybody outside, the kids all playing, the parents getting to know one another. everyone really looked out for one another. And the adults would even take turns watching the kids while they were playing outside. Almost like the neighborhood parents considered the neighborhood kids to all be their kids. And the kids, they were all each other's best friends.
There was just this really great sense of community there. And I have to say, in this day and age, that is like music to my ears because it's not often that kids choose to play outside and get dirty rather than stay inside and play video games or stare at their phones or their tablets. I know for me, when I was growing up, it was play outside until the streetlights come on.
You are riding your bike. You're making obstacle courses. You're playing fake restaurant. You're using chalk. And there's something so nostalgic and wholesome and comforting about that. In today's day and age, and I'm speaking based on experience with my own kids and even what I've seen, it is more, let's stay inside, let's do tablets, let's do video games.
I think not only because technology has advanced so much, but also because there's a fear of kids being outside. No parents really are allowing their kids to just play until the streetlights go on. I mean, depending on where you live.
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Chapter 3: What led to the altercation between A.J. and Susan Loritz?
So hearing that this neighborhood really had that, kids just playing outside until all hours, really coming together, having imaginary fun, and like, it's just so nice to think about. The parents would all watch them run from house to house, just gathering all of their toys, inviting their friends to come outside and play.
And for these parents, it was like watching these core childhood memories being made. But on the night of June 2nd, other memories were made. Ones that people should never have to relive, let alone kids. Because instead of laughter, there was a single, loud, and very distinct gunshot that rang through the entire neighborhood. And nothing in the community of Quail Run would ever be the same again.
And what happened next was absolute chaos.
Hey, is your mom laying in the ground? Yeah. 9-1-1, what is the absolute chaos? Somebody got shot. 9-1-1 operators were being flooded with phone calls about a woman being shot.
And in the background of many of these calls, you can hear a very young boy crying. I mean, just really, you know, wailing and just sobbing. Those sounds are something that personally will haunt me for a very long time. And most of the calls all reported more or less the very same thing, that a woman was on the ground, that she had been shot, and that they didn't know exactly what had happened.
And it was 35-year-old Ajaka Owens, also known as AJ by her family and friends. Now, one of these phone calls that came into dispatch, it was very, very different, because this phone call actually came from the perpetrator.
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Chapter 4: What were the 911 call details surrounding A.J.'s murder?
911 with the address for the emergency.
Oh my God, this lady just tried to break down my door.
I shot through the door. Oh my God. Okay, repeat that address for me to make sure I have it correct. Okay, what is your name? Okay, what's going on? Take a deep breath for me. Calm down. Oh, my God. You said someone tried to break down your door. Is that correct? Yes. The woman was screaming and yelling, and she was trying to break down my door. Okay. It was a female? Yes.
I didn't know what to do. I grabbed my gun, and I shot at the door. I was like, what are you going to do to me?
Chapter 5: How did A.J.'s family and community react to her death?
Oh, my God. You said you shot at the door. Is that correct? Yes, I saw it at the door because she wouldn't stop. I told her to get away and she wouldn't. Okay, where is your gun now? It's in my bedroom. I didn't know what to do. I was panicking. This is the woman who attacked me. Okay, do you still see the subject? I don't know where she is. I'm still in my house. I didn't open my door to her.
Is it just only you in the home? That's right.
One of the callers was the woman who pulled the trigger and shot AJ. Now, if you haven't heard about this case yet, just based on the 911 calls and everything so far, you might be thinking to yourself, okay, it sounds like maybe it was some sort of dispute between neighbors. Maybe even something more severe like a potential break-in, vandalism, something like that.
Well, the story that the caller tried to tell that night...
Chapter 6: What evidence was presented during Susan's trial?
isn't even close to what really happened. The woman on that 911 call was 58-year-old Susan Loritz. She had made it sound like somebody had been trying to hurt her or was somebody trying to get inside her home. But as you will come to learn very quickly in today's episode, this case is not straightforward. And it isn't at all what it appears to be on the surface.
Now, you might be familiar with this case if you watched the recent documentary, The Perfect Neighbor. But... That documentary, while very, very incredibly well done and moving, it consisted primarily of body cam footage, not the story and the details behind everything. And that's why I wanted to cover this episode today.
I want to not only give you some of that footage and those sound bites, but I want to explain the story to you as well, just so that you have full context. Now, if you have not watched The Perfect Neighbor yet, I do want to warn you, for me personally, I watched it before we researched this case and dug into it more.
And at one point, and I'm not going to say what point in case you have not seen it, at one point in the middle, I had to stop watching. I ended up finishing it because I knew I needed to, but it is a very difficult watch because, again, so much of it consists of the actual firsthand account from the body cam footage.
So today, like I said, I want to just break down this story for you and the reality of everything and all of the parts that weren't left in because they didn't really give narrative at all in this documentary. and explain the truth. Because something horrific happened that night between these two neighbors. But when these 911 calls were pouring in, nobody had the full story yet.
However, this wasn't the first time that the investigators had been called to Susan's house. They were more than familiar with the name Susan Loritz. Like I said, I want to take you deeper inside this case, into the lives of the people involved, and into the community where it happened.
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Chapter 7: What was the verdict in Susan Loritz's case?
Because there were all of these strong neighborhood bonds, yet they masked a tension that really simmered for a long time with this neighbor, and it eventually exploded into violence. So on the night of June 2nd, 2023, it really started off like any typical night. It was the middle of summer. All the kids in the neighborhood were out of school for summer break.
So that meant having way more time to play outside. And a group of kids made up of multiple neighborhood families had been playing in this particular section of the block where it's kind of just like this open field. There's a lot of properties on the block and it looks to be two duplex properties, but then in between the two of them, this big wide open field.
So they would go in that field, they'd play football, they'd kick around the ball, they would bring toys over there. It was really kind of like, I don't want to say a park, but like the footprint of a park, if you will. A very big extended area of grass. And this was where the kids usually played.
I mean, sure, they might go to one family's yard or another, but with the large amount of kids that all came together on a regular basis... Sometimes it was difficult to play in those smaller yards. They would need this big open field to play tag, kickball, football, whatever it is. So now, like I said, this field was completely empty.
I'm not sure if maybe there was a home there in the past and it was torn down or if it had always been an open field, but the point being, it was an empty field between two rental properties. meaning that the land itself was privately owned.
Now, I'm not sure if the owner lived in the neighborhood or not, but apparently he did know that this was a spot where all of the kids would gather to play with each other. And he had absolutely no issues with it at all. It's not like they were doing anything harmful or illegal, right?
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Chapter 8: What ongoing impact does A.J.'s story have on her family and community?
It was just kids getting together and playing. They were just playing football, tag, or other childhood games. And according to some of the neighbors, the guy who owned the field would even sometimes play with the kids, kind of join in on the fun, like he enjoyed the spirit of it all. The kids also never damaged the property or disrespected it.
The worst thing that they could possibly do was maybe forget some of their toys on the lawn and then leave them behind when they returned back home, which... They, of course, would eventually come back for them the following day since this was like their stomping grounds. This is where they played. So again, the owner just didn't care.
He gave them and their parents full permission to use this field whenever they wanted. Now, for those of you who have seen the documentary, The Perfect Neighbor, while the documentary was, yes, really well done, a lot of people out there are demanding for more information about AJ. who she was, what she was like as a person. And so I want to touch on that for a moment here.
AJ was a mother of four young children, 12-year-old Isaac, 10-year-old Izzy, 7-year-old Africa, and Titus, who was just a baby. Now, being a mother was absolutely the most important role in the world to AJ. She loved her kids more than anything. She was also a very hardworking mom. She would clock in for very long shifts at McDonald's where she worked as a manager.
She didn't care if she was overworked, if she was tired. She would go. She wanted to support her children. And when it came to work, a work-life balance was also really important to her. She took this job very seriously because, yes, she wanted to provide for the kids, but she also wanted to be as present as possible in her kids' lives. Which, what's that saying? Work to live, not live to work?
I don't know. But her family had said that she always made sure to cook dinner every single night. She also would volunteer in the kids' classrooms whenever she could. AJ just really wanted her kids to know that they were the most important part of her life. She always wanted to be present, to be their best friend, to be their confidant.
Her older three kids were very athletic and very into sports, and that's something that she very much encouraged them to do. And with that, she always made sure to be at their practices or their games, just on the sidelines, cheering them on, encouraging them. So AJ was a great mom to her kids. but she was also a great mom to everybody's kids.
On most days, even after those long shifts at work, instead of sitting inside or relaxing, watching TV, just vegging out and taking time for herself, she'd be outside in the neighborhood, playing with all of the kids, her own and the other neighborhood kids. Phyllis Willis, one of her neighbors, had a son around the same age as AJ's boys.
And AJ knew that they all loved playing football together in the neighborhood, so she encouraged Phyllis to sign him up for football. But unfortunately, Phyllis was working a lot at the time. She wasn't able to take him. But AJ took it upon herself to step in and to sign him up herself. She also continued taking him to every single practice and game that Phyllis couldn't make it to.
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