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- [00:00]
A
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Murder Sheet listeners can save 30% on their first order. Just head to cornbreadhemp.com msheet and use code msheet at checkout. That's cornbread.community msheet and use code msheet content warning this episode contains discussion of murder as well as racism. So today on the Murder Sheet, we're going to do another Spin Docs. Spin Docs, as a reminder is our show where we take the time to discuss docu series docudramas around the topic of crime. So we all know that places like Netflix, Hulu Peacock, these are, they're putting out these, you know, crime documentaries, crime docu series that have a huge impact on our culture and how we perceive crime. And we sort of use this program to sort of talk about some of those things and say, okay, is this accurate, is this good, Is this misleading? And today we're going to do something a little bit different. I think our previous two spin docs were by and large pretty critical of the, you know, whatever the project was we were talking about. I think it was Amy Bradley is missing from Netflix and then also from Netflix, the Ed Gein story from Monster.
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B
And I think people often ask us, oh, do you ever disagree about things? This particular one we're discussing today, I think one of us has a more negative view about this particular program than the other person. The other person really seems to like it a lot.
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A
So now, now, you know, we disagree about stuff, so we're going to do that today. But today we're going to be talking about the Perfect Neighbor, which was a 2025 documentary from Netflix. So let's get into it. My name is Anya Cain. I'm a journalist and I'm Kevin Greenlee.
- [04:26]
B
I'm an attorney.
- [04:27]
A
And this is the Murder Sheet.
- [04:29]
B
We're a true crime podcast focused on original reporting, interviews and deep dives into murder cases. We're the Murder Sheet and this is.
- [04:38]
A
Spin the perfect neighbor 2020.
- [05:26]
B
Where do you want to begin?
- [05:27]
A
I want to start by saying this ultimately is about the death, I would, I would say murder, but technically manslaughter of a 35 year old young mother named Adjaga Chantrell Owens. And my heart goes out to her family and friends, especially her four beautiful kids. I this before we get started, I want to say this whole situation, this whole case brought to mind for me a quote from James Baldwin, the writer who was doing an article for the Nation in 1980 about his dismay over the presidential race. And he this was a Quote from that. So, quote, the children are always ours, every single one of them, all over the globe. And I'm beginning to suspect that whoever is incapable of recognizing this may be incapable of morality. End quote. And that will become apparent why I said that as we go on. But let's start by talking about the two central figures in this documentary. And, and this is a very unusual documentary in many respects. I, I recall watching one thing about the Chris Watts case that did something similar where it was more of using social media footage versus the traditional documentary, but this is doing something similar with body camera footage from police officers. So the, one of the central, the central figure IN this is Ajaga Chantrell Owens. She went by A.J. she lived in, let me say this, right Ocala, Florida, with her family. This is the county seat of Marion County, Florida, sort of north Central. And she's 35, as I mentioned, she's a single mom. She has four kids, Isaac, Israel, Africa and Titus. And around the time where this happened, they were 12 to 3 years old. So an age range. And you see them all in the documentary. And she's just a very heavily involved mom. By all accounts. She's the person who's getting them sent to private school. She's having them do sports lessons, football teams, gymnastics, dance, very dedicated and ensuring that they're feeling loved and cared for. She was some sort of management position at a McDonald's. So she's working hard to provide her children a good life. And by all accounts, from many of the neighbors who end up kind of appearing in and out of this thing, she gets along with people, people like her. People, people think she's a good mom, people think she's a good person. People say she's always nice to me. Then we have the other central figure in this case, which is Susan Lawrence. She was 58 years old when this happened, and she was a neighbor in this Quail Run sort of residential area. It's called Quail Run. And she started out renting. And then it's not clear, she may have. I think she stayed renting. I don't think she ever bought the place necessarily, but she, she basically was the person in the neighborhood who was constantly griping at local children. The central conflict seemed to be that there was a open lot near her house. She felt the kids should not be playing there. And not only did she just have those feelings and keep them to herself, but she was often going out. And according to these people, according to the children, harassing the kids, filming them, confronting them, throwing things at them, in one case, and calling them names, including. I'm not going to repeat racial epithets. The N word and then another slur. The R word, the B word, the P word. She was calling them slaves. An important note, Lawrence is white. And a lot of these kids that were playing in the lot, as well as Agica Owens, black. So there. There takes on a racial connotation here where you have her referring to some of these racial slurs, some of these things she's calling these kids. So, you know, she. This is. This is where. This is kind of where the conflict comes. These two women, these children, and, you know, one who's there for her kids and trying to ensure that they have a happy childhood, and the other one who seems totally fine with going out and hurling abuse at kids who are playing. So I guess one thing we can talk about is, you know, in a situation like this, Kevin, I mean, I don't know about your opinion. I have an opinion. I. I don't. I don't have any children yet. I'd like to.
- [10:22]
B
That, you know about.
- [10:23]
A
I know. Or they're all floating out there. No, I mean, I. But, I mean, I love kids, but I know everyone doesn't feel the same way. Some people don't like kids. I think kids are just people. So if you have a bratty kid, then that's annoying. But it's just like, I don't hate people. You might meet good or bad people. But anyways. But kids are.
- [10:40]
B
So you're going out on a limb with your controversial position that kids are okay.
- [10:44]
A
Kids are great. You know, I like kids. And also kids are. When a kid's not good, then it's less their fault than, like, if an adult's not good. But I think when we see kids in our neighborhood running around on their bikes or playing, I love that. Cause it's like, oh, that's so nice. They're like, I would rather like. It's great to see kids out and about playing, even if they're loud. I mean, how do you feel?
- [11:07]
B
How do I feel about kids? Oh, I'm against them. No, I have no problem with kids playing in a neighborhood. Obviously.
- [11:13]
A
I used to do that when I was a kid. We lived in, like, for a long time. We lived in, like, a townhouse sort of area. And there was, like, a central court where me and my sisters and other kids in the area would play. I mean, that's, you know. I mean, I'm sure you were kind of gallivanting about in Columbus, Indiana, the Athens of the Prairies.
- [11:30]
B
I mean, I'll be perfectly honest, I don't pay much attention. There are kids out in our neighborhood. Sometimes you see them playing, sometimes you don't. Has no relevance to my life. I'm not. I'm not sitting in my den rubbing my chin, formulating an opinion like, ah, yes, this is great, or, oh, no, this is awful. I don't have a strong opinion.
- [11:52]
A
To me, if the kids were playing on my property or something I felt was my property, the only concern I would have is, okay, what? Like, is. Is it safe for them? If they fall over, am I liable? You know, like, I mean, but that wouldn't be something where I would go out and confront the children. It would be maybe having a conversation with their parents in a very polite manner.
- [12:11]
B
I would be concerned if the kids were playing on our property and we're damaging our property or we're tormenting our dog or something like that.
- [12:20]
A
Yeah. And that's a conversation.
- [12:21]
B
And obviously that's not the case in this. In this instance that we're talking about in this documentary, nothing that extreme was occurring. And also, I want, to the best of my understanding.
- [12:31]
A
Well, I want to. I want to also underscore here that, you know, one thing that came out over the course of this documentary is that this was not her property. So first of all, she's renting. But second of all, this. This big open field near her, there was another nearby house, or whatever you want to call it, unit, where the guy was like, yeah, come and play. No big deal. Like. Like. Like, it's not even clear to me that she had any claims to this. And in fact, it sounded like, from what we were told in this documentary, that she did not. So this is as if, you know, you know, someone's glaring across the street, and it's like this situation doesn't even involve you. You're just inserting yourself into this because you're annoyed by kids having fun and playing and listening. That can get noisy. I'm gonna say this. I understand. Not everybody would agree with me. Not everybody would like to see kids playing. Not everybody would want the noise or maybe it's annoying to them. And that's fine. Everybody can have their different opinions, but we can all control our actions. So she's a renter. She is in an environment where she's not happy about the NOID level. And the thing is, this is clearly a area. This is clearly a series of residences where there are a lot of younger families, there's lots of kids playing, there's Lots of kids around, and she's an, she's, she's in, she's in her late 50s. I think. She, you know, maybe go find an area that is a bit older, maybe more people who are like retirees, and there's not going to be that same issue. You know, she, she, again, she's renting. It's not like she's committed to this residence forever instead of making it everybody else's problem. And this is where I kind of like, you run into these people who, their life, their life's perpetual victim. Everything they do is right, everything everyone else is doing is an affront to them. And instead of just being like, listen, I'm the common denominator in terms of just getting everyone mad at me. Maybe I should just remove myself from the situation and seek out a situation where I'm going to be feeling better and not fighting with people constantly. Instead of just like taking some ownership in the situation or, or being an adult and seeking out what you want. It's like, we've gotta make everybody else miserable. Um, and I just, yeah, I've run into types like that. I don't know if you ever have.
- [14:52]
B
Yeah, certainly, I think that they're very common in life.
- [14:55]
A
Yeah, it's, it's just life's perpetual victim and then basically using that as an excuse to victimize others completely needlessly instead of just again, moving this all could have been avoided. And then obviously the fact that she's using racial slurs, I, that's something that comes up later and then we can get into that. But it's like she, at one point, like, when talking to detectives, is talking about, like, oh, well, you know, in some context, you know, this is why I might use the N word. And it's like, and it was like, are you kidding me? Like, I, I felt there was a racial overtone to her fixation on these African American children having fun. And basically, like, that's not allowed. Why is that now? I mean, if, if she wasn't using racial slurs, then I, I might say, I don't know, maybe, maybe, maybe their skin color wasn't what caused that. But when she's also doing that, I feel pretty confident saying she's racist. Like, she's a racist person. You know, like, that's the, and like.
- [16:02]
B
That seems like a fair reading.
- [16:03]
A
You know, I, I, I know I'm going out on a limb here again, but I, I think she's, she seeing these black kids experience joy and experience community was like something that was triggering for her. And again, instead of like maybe thinking about it for a few seconds and perhaps being like, well, maybe this is a me issue. Maybe I need to like, open my heart and be not racist, she's again making it their problem. And what bothered me so much about this is she's going out and confronting these kids constantly and they're having to deal with that stress. And it's like, I, I can't even imagine. Like you, if there's an issue, you go to the parent and you're polite. You don't start yelling things at children. Like, I don't know how that the only way I could see myself yelling at a kid is if they're doing something deeply unsafe. And I'm like trying to intervene. I'm like, don't, don't, don't climb up on that. You're gonna fall. You know, like, not, not like yelling names and calling them all these. It's just horrible. I mean, just what I mean, horrible person. Okay, but let's get into this. As busy true crime podcasters covering so many cases, we have to make a pretty strenuous effort to clean our house at the end of the day. That's frankly time we could spend unwinding and relaxing after a day in court or on the phone wrangling FOIA records. That's why we find our wonderful new sponsor, Homaglow, so amazing. Homaglow is a top rated home service platform. They're all about making your space clean and tidy. Their online booking capabilities ensure you can hop on there, schedule a cleaner in an instant. They're affordable, convenient, and sometimes so necessary for beating the stress around house cleaning.
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- [18:44]
A
Is compiled of like a series of body cam footage.
- [18:47]
B
Yes, and most of it consists of calls that the police were sent out on in this particular neighborhood in response to complaints made by this woman. And there were I don't know how many calls, but there were certainly a lot of these calls. They were presented in quite a bit of detail. And it's interesting to some extent to realize this is what a lot of police work is in this country. Police aren't always going out and solving international jewel thefts or solving big, intricate murders. They're getting called to things like this, to little neighborhood disputes. And this is part of their job, being a little bit of a, of a peacemaker in a neighborhood and trying to deal with these things.
- [19:38]
A
And it can be very difficult when there becomes a he said, she said or she said, she said situation where they have, they, they can't just necessarily arrest somebody based on one person complaining or there's no additional witnesses. And in, in this case, you know, the police are not equipped, frankly, nor should they be equipped to deal with some of this stuff, because some of this stuff just isn't crime. This is, this is one thing. At one point, Lawrence said something that really kind of stunned me, other than all the racism. But she was, she was saying that, oh, you know, like, I don't know if she was, if she was so upset with me or something, like, why didn't she call the police? And it's like, you shouldn't be calling the police on your neighbors unless something is really, really seriously wrong. Like, you know, if someone's breaking the law, for instance, and you have a good reason to believe that, or someone's in danger. Like, dealing with just a petty dispute is not what you should be calling the police about. But a lot of people don't seem to understand that. It's basically what they're doing is they're using law enforcement as a weapon to hurt other people around them. And we saw, I mean, that was something we actually documented in our book on the Delphi murders case, Shadow of the Bridge. A lot of tips that were called in about a child murder, the murder of two children were actually people trying to get people they didn't like in trouble. And like, how despicable is that? Like, I, I don't, I, I, I don't know how you can prevent that other than to get people to stop being awful, which will never do. But, like, that happens a lot. I think that happens a lot. And this is a kind of an extension of that. This is somebody trying to use police to get others in trouble and not because they have any actual fear for their lives or not because it's actually a serious situation. It's just wasting public time, taxpayers, money, police resources, and trying to intimidate the people in the neighborhood around her. So the predominant law officers or law enforcement agency in this were the Marion County Sheriff's Office, which was confusing because there's a Marion county in Indiana, as well as many other states, but this is the one in Florida, of course. So the deputies are coming. You asked me how many times. One date was February 25, 2022. Another was August 10 of that year, April 25, 2023, May 22, 2023. So I don't know if that compiles all of it, but those are the dates I wrote down in terms of how many times they're coming out there and some notable instances why she's calling. In the first one, she says that AJ threw a sign at her and hit her. And when deputies interview a number of other neighbors, they say they saw the incident and that she did throw the sign, but she did not hit Lawrence. And these are two, I should note, just because I did bring up the race angle. These are two other neighbors who are white. So this isn't like a situation where the neighborhood is divided by race, where all the black people are siding together and all the white people are siding together. These other moms. These other moms are saying, no, AJ didn't do anything wrong. This other. This other woman has been harassing our children, too. And, you know, in this initial call, the deputies already seem to be sort of sympathizing, in my view, with the neighbors and with. With AJ Versus Lawrence. But they're still pretty guarded because they're coming into this situation the next one. You know, I thought it was interesting. You know, Lawrence calls, says the kids are screaming and running around. She wants the kids to stop trespassing. And one of the deputies, who's a lady, said basically, like, she'd rather them screaming and playing than, like, stealing cars. And that was kind of my view, too. It's like she also calls herself Dr. Lawrence, even though I found no indication that she has a PhD or any sort of doctorate. So don't know what that's all about. One of the deputies in. One of the male deputies in this point, I think he at one point walks away from her door muttering, psycho. Did you catch that?
- [23:51]
B
Yes. Yes.
- [23:52]
A
Yeah. So they're not sympathetic with her at this point.
- [23:55]
B
And I know we'll talk more about this later, but I do want to say now that I found this part of it where we had lots of footage from every one of these calls. I found this part of the documentary to be really, really boring.
- [24:10]
A
Yeah, I think you didn't like this documentary because you felt it was too much of this.
- [24:16]
B
Yes, we get the idea. This woman is making a lot of complaints that turn out to be frivolous. I don't know how much it helps us to get every last bit of every interaction of every one of these frivolous complaints. And maybe some of that time either could have been eliminated from the documentary, or maybe it could have used to cover things more like the trial or things of that nature. Yeah, but we can talk more about that later.
- [24:40]
A
We'll talk more about it later, because I disagree. But this. The April 25, 2023. She accuses kids of trying to put a dog in the back of her truck. And an adult who's in the neighborhood says, I. I've seen that dog. There's no way those kids were lifting it up. It's huge like that. Like. And, you know, the. These kids are also, like, talking with the deputies and sort of saying, you know, she's. She's keeps coming after us and. And doing all of this and, you know, points Lawrence is saying, oh, I'm going to move and stuff, but she's obviously never leaves. And then she even goes into the sheriff's office and says, oh, people are burning my don't trespass signs. And they're like, you don't have video proof. We're going to take the report. But, like, what do you, like, almost. What do you want us to do? And there's some, you know, this is all interspersed with audio from interviews with detectives. And it's pretty clear, you know, something bad happened. And they're being interviewed about. And, you know, universally, people are saying she's harassing kids, she's filming kids, she's cursing at kids, she's running after the kids. She doesn't even have the right to do that. This isn't her property that we're even talking about. And she's just been a menace to this society at Quail Run. So before we get into what happened, I want to talk about two things. What did you make of the neighborhood of Quail Run in terms of the neighbors as they were Dealing with this.
- [26:06]
B
Kind of thing, except for that one woman, Ms. Lawrence. They seem to be a rather tight knit community. They seem to act as a unit. They all seem to enjoy the kids, to like the kids, and they seem to support each other and view her as the problem.
- [26:26]
A
Yeah, they actually seemed like the perfect neighbors because they were all, like, looking out for each other and the different parents would watch out for the kids and they were protective of the kids. And I was like, that's cool. The kids should be allowed to play and have fun. They're not doing anything wrong. They were playing football in this lot. They were playing football and running around and tag. And that is the kind of thing you want kids to do rather than being inside on their phones all day for the most part. I mean, like, that's good. So I like the neighbors too. I thought, I thought they were, they were cool. What did you think of law enforcement through these kind of. We're seeing them and their perspective. I mean, in fact, they're in some ways the videographers of this piece, because they are. It is their body cam footage that we are watching. So as we were watching these different deputies, because it's not always the same. Although some people do come back and they're like, yeah, I've been here before and we know that you guys aren't doing anything wrong. What did you make of their handling of this situation?
- [27:21]
B
As I mentioned earlier, this is what a lot of police work is. You go into situations where maybe there's a lot of anger and conflict, but maybe not necessarily any evidence an actual crime was committed. And you have to go, you have to talk to both sides, make them feel heard, makes them feel validated and with the goal of walking away. Maybe you're not making an arrest, but maybe you've calmed things down a bit. And I. I think the officers we saw in this, in my opinion, behave professionally.
- [27:53]
A
How do they behave professionally? I like that some of them tried to build up the rapport with the kids and say, hey, just, you know, we don't want you to get in trouble. So, you know, maybe just avoid her house if you can. But for the most part, I felt they were very sympathetic with the neighbors and the children. And I thought they did do a good job building up that rapport. And they seem to be very confused at best with what Lawrence was doing. I mean, there was a part where she like, rams her truck into somebody's fence in sort of an unrelated incident. And that was like something out of a horror movie, because one of the deputies is going to her house and knocking on the door, trying to get her to come out. And then suddenly she just, like, jumps through like, like, like a jump scare where she's like, at the window somehow. And then like, he's just like, ah. But it was just like, I felt bad for these people. I mean, like, their time is being wasted and they're. I mean, I've seen some people be like, well, why didn't they just arrest Lawrence? And like, you. I mean, you tell me, Kevin, you're the lawyer. But you can't just arrest someone for being a jerk, right?
- [28:52]
B
If, if you could, we'd be in trouble.
- [28:55]
A
We're not jerks. No.
- [28:59]
B
They need to have actual evidence that a crime has been committed.
- [29:03]
A
And, you know, at some point when someone is making a bunch of frivolous calls, should something be done about that? Should you just say, no, you're not coming over anymore. You're clearly, you know, the boy acquired wolf.
- [29:17]
B
If the police decide, okay, this person has bothered us enough, we're not responding to their house anymore, teach them a lesson, and let's say they call, oh, someone's breaking in and is murdering me, and the police don't come and the person dies, that's going to be a big problem.
- [29:36]
A
Right. So there's really, at this point in society, nothing they could have done here. Like, there's. There was nothing. No intervention here.
- [29:45]
B
There's a lot of times people make repetitive calls to the police. That sort of person, that sort of behavior is something that has gone on probably since the dawn of time.
- [29:58]
A
Yes. So, yeah, but I'm just trying to emphasize the point that, you know, unfortunately, the way society is and the way law enforcement works and the way that, you know, you enforce the laws, I think people like to think, oh, if only we had done this. And it's like, no, unfortunately, I don't. The. The person who controlled what happened was Susan Lawrence. And if we want to have a conversation about, like, you know, I, I don't know, for me, maybe at some point they could have started basically telling her, like, we don't believe you. But at the same time, I don't know, maybe that would have been opening themselves up to a lawsuit. But either way, she seemed to become increasingly emboldened with what she was doing. She was escalating. So you'd like to think maybe there was something someone could have done to stop it. Maybe if she'd felt less comfortable or less like they thought she was the victim, maybe she wouldn't have done it. Cause she would have felt like, I can't get away with this. But who knows? This is not. We're not dealing with someone who I think we can really understand so well. So June 2, 2023, there was. There were calls. There was a situation where some of AJ's kids were playing. And one. And this woman took one of their tablets and threw a roller skate at one of the kids, and they got their mom and she went to the house. But before that, Lawrence called police again. She said, the kids are trespassing. I'm. I'm fearing for my life. Uh, the kid said, I took his iPad, but I didn't. And, you know, AJ comes out and she starts knocking or banging on the slide doors at Lawrence's apartment and yelling things, possibly like, why did you take my son's tablet? And, you know, like, don't, don't. Like, basically confronting her about how she's, you know, treating her children. And then we see kind of footage, I think like a ring doorbell or something like that security cam. We see kids screaming, she shot my mom. We hear bangs. So we see the. The police footage racing to get there. And what we learn is that Lawrence has shot AJ. And 911 audio shows saying her saying, oh, I thought she was gonna kill me. She's coming after me. The kids keep trespassing, and she's like, hyperventilating on this call. Again, this is someone who is just life's perpetual victim. She shot a woman, and she's the victim here, but police detain her. Marion County Sheriff's office detain her, and they also tried to provide life saving aid to aj, and sadly, they're not.
- [32:52]
B
Able to save her. And she passes away.
- [32:54]
A
She dies. One of the hardest parts of watching this was watching her kids react to her being shot, which they presumably saw. And also then hearing the news of her death before. Before she even passes away, one of her sons is just crying. And someone asks him, are you hurt? And he says, no, but my heart is broken. That just made me, like, cry. Like, what a. What a horrible, horrible thing. And then sheriff's deputies, I think, call AJ's ex, ex romantic partner to come over, which he does. And they tell him she didn't make it. He, like, recoils from that, like the news. And then he has to go tell the children she's not coming home. She's dead. It's horrible. It's a really horrible and just heartbreaking thing. And the neighbors are there, they're crying. Everyone's crying. It's really horrible. Then June 3, 2023, we see Susan Lawrence in an interview room with detectives, and we kind of see how this stuff can actually work. They're not confront, they're not confrontational. They just tell us your story, tell us your side of it. She doesn't ask for a lawyer. What did you make of that as a lawyer?
- [34:12]
B
Always ask for a lawyer, bad idea. And that's just not me being. Always give money to lawyers. The fact that's your main concern, that's always my main concern. The fact of the matter is, if you, as an amateur, are going to be doing something in a space that normally is dominated by professionals, you will be better off if you get a professional helping you. I know some people like to sell their own homes. I think it generally makes sense. Get a professional realtor, you probably end up with a better situation. Don't perform heart surgery on yourself. You're better off if you get a professional who's been in the area before and who can assess things and give you really, really solid advice.
- [35:02]
A
Yeah, she does not do that. She talks about how, you know, the neighbors were out there screaming, yelling. Things finally got quiet. She went outside and she, you know, basically then AJ came to her door, was banging on the door. Claims like it was like shaking off its hinges. Almost like she was about to break it down.
- [35:21]
B
She.
- [35:21]
A
She got the gun. She doesn't remember getting it, but she remembers shooting it. And she shot. And I just wanna emphasize this, she shot this woman. She shot her neighbor through the door, through a locked door. So when we're talking, okay, we'll get into that later. But, like, that's something that's important. And she said that the kids were always leaving toys around her house. She was almost killed. Cause she tripped over a roller skate and she was shaking an umbrella at them. And then they tell her that AJ is dead. She puts her hand on her heart and covers her face, doubles over. And she said, they, they basically ask her, how did you know what you were firing out? Like a child might have been in AJ's arms when she was doing, you know, she was at your door, what were you intending to do? And she said she was fearful for her life. Never been in this situation before. And detectives advise her that the state attorney, the prosecutor for the state attorney's office, says they're gonna continue the investigation. So they let her go. She's escorted back to her home to get her, you know, things for her hotel. A couple things that struck me when police come to her door initially, she talks about, well, we need to close the door cause my cats might get out. She's more concerned about her cats than shooting somebody, in my opinion. And I mean, cats are great, but come on, she just shot a human being, shot a mother, you know, and she's more concerned about that. And the other thing was. So shooting through a locked door, how does that kind of weigh in on something that might be a self defense claim, Kevin?
- [36:52]
B
Well, typically a successful self defense claim arises when you take reasonable force to defend yourself against a real threat. And so you'd have to ask yourself, okay, if I'm on one side of a room and someone is coming at me with a gun or coming at me with an axe or some sort of lethal weapon, they're coming at me and there's nothing between me and them and I have a gun. Obviously no one would argue, okay, Kevin is in real jeopardy of his life. That's not just in his imagination, it's real. And it would be reasonable for him to shoot and kill this person. But when you have a situation where you don't even know if the other person is armed and they're on the other side of a locked door and there's no reason to think that they're going to be able to pick that lock, no reason to think they're going to actually succeed in breaking down the door if they just knock loud enough. That certainly can be an unpleasant experience if you're inside the house, but you're not in danger of your life at that moment.
- [37:58]
A
Now if the situation changes, if someone kicks down your door, then it's different. That's a different situation. But if they're angrily knocking or even saying things, I'm going to kick your butt, you know, how dare you do this to my children. That's not, that's not.
- [38:12]
B
You're not in danger of your life. You're not justified to use lethal force at that time. As you say, the situation is fluid. If she comes in and she has a gun or if there's something it can change.
- [38:25]
A
Yeah, there's different things where if this happened, then it would be this. But the situation of shooting through a locked door is not self defense. It doesn't matter how scared you say you are. You know, anyone can be scared of anything. I could be scared to see, you know, the mailman coming at my house. That doesn't mean I can shoot him. Like your feelings don't hurt.
- [38:50]
B
I had a dog. I had a dog who used to be terrified of the UPS truck. Anytime they saw the UPS truck anywhere down the street would be terrified. My dog would not be justified in taking lethal action against the UPS truck today.
- [39:04]
A
Kevin. I'm a nervous person. I like to listen to my music when I'm making my tea. Today, Kevin came home from getting his lunch and startled me when I turned her. You know, I was like, oh my God, there's a guy in my house. That doesn't mean I get like, you can't shoot first and ask questions later in these situations, except when you have a reasonable belief that that someone is going to harm you.
- [39:26]
B
And also keep in mind that she knew police were on the way.
- [39:28]
A
She knew police were on the way. And the thing. And, and we're just talking about what we know now in the documentary, but there's going to be stuff that comes out later with subsequent interviews. So the aftermath of this is that there are a number of. I mean, first of all, the aga's children are left devastated. They were, we're told, in terms of, you know, people talking in this, in this thing, talk about how they feel. Her son's, the older son felt like he couldn't perform CPR on her and it's his fault. And then the younger son feels guilty for leaving his tablet out because that sparked it. Witnesses are talking about how Agica was always so nice to them. Just like just a really nice lady who was there for her kids. And the sheriff, Bill woods of Marion county, he's talking about his best detectives around the case. And, and he says, you know, publicly, if someone threw something at my child, I'll be pissed off. There are protests, justice for Agica. People are talking about this mother lost her life for being a mother. And you know, the, the dynamics of a black woman being shot by her white neighbor in this context, after the white neighbor was, had a history of harassing her kids and using racial slurs, people were protesting the lack of arrest. Now in some cases, I would feel like some of that protesting was too hasty because it's like you need to let the investigation play out. But in the case where the racial dynamics are at play here, I can understand people's concern being like, is this going to be swept under the rug? Because minority community, communities in America have often had to deal with the fact that they're treated like second class citizens. In some cases, including in the criminal justice system, that's just a reality of our history. It's a very unfortunate reality, but it is reality. So when you see the situation and you see, okay, she's been let out, what's going On, I can understand the lack of trust there. I don't think it was warranted ultimately in this case, because they did, there was a prosecution, and I feel like justice was served here. But I'm not gonna question people doing that in this case just because of those dynamics at play. What do you think?
- [41:38]
B
Yeah, I agree with all that.
- [41:40]
A
In a. In a different situation, I might be like, okay, why are we protesting? But in this case, I was like, yeah, I understand that. And they were basically letting the world know Ajica's life mattered, mattered. Her life mattered. Her children, their trauma, that matters. And we need justice in this case. So good for them for doing that. Pamela Diaz, the mother of Adika, was kind of instrumental in some of this in terms of speaking out for her daughter. And I mean, her loss is just incalculable. Obviously, we see the final police interview, and that is so June 6th. They're in this, like, dirty looking interview room and Lauren sits down, still no lawyer. And she talks about with the detectives. Detectives say, okay, so you have unreported sexual abuse that you've gone through domestic violence. She was robbed by some men. And so she's kind of given them, like, her backstory, I guess, as far as, you know, things that would make her seem mitigated.
- [42:41]
B
I think, correct me if I'm confusing things, but I believe it's during this interview that we see one of the great reasons why you need a lawyer. Because at one point the police say, oh, if you want, we'll give you some paper and feel free to write a letter in which you make potentially damaging admissions about the case to the orphans of, of this woman you killed.
- [43:06]
A
Yes, we will. We will talk about that in a minute.
- [43:08]
B
And. And that's something that no lawyer would allow. It's basically a trick. You're trying to manipulate the person into making damaging admissions by playing on whatever sympathies or guilt they might have.
- [43:19]
A
Yeah, we always see police interrogations and police interviews as being, you know, like in the movies of, like, slamming on the desk, like, I know you did this. I'm coming for you. But in reality, it's much more like this. Like, these guys are so friendly and they're totally on my side, and they're even giving me the chance to apologize to these children. It's like, no, they' to get you.
- [43:37]
B
Yeah, they're trying to get you. And that. That's one of the many reasons why you need a lawyer.
- [43:41]
A
Yeah, because these guys just seem so calm and friendly and understanding and just. Yeah, we just Want to go over with you one more time, Just super nice, you know, that's more what you'd be dealing with, I would think, in most situations. But, but this is also where she admits to using the N word. And she's like, oh, I'm, I'm sorry. Like, and they're like. And she's like, oh. Like, she almost alludes to, like, well, there's a contest where I'd. And they were like, you could just, like. There was like a pause and they were just like, oh, what context would you use that word? And she's like, oh, if they're just being really rude, it's like, what. You know, she says that. She said, you know, she, she said basically, look, why didn't. If AJ felt I did something wrong, why didn't she just call the police? And again, that's what I'm talking about. That kind of like normalizing, just calling the police about every single thing to mitigate what should just be a neighborly dispute that's solved in, within the neighborhood without bringing in law enforcement. Her mindset is warped. This is a warped person. This is a warped mind where you just, you, you just escalate things so much constantly because you see yourself as the ultimate victim. And when people aren't, aren't going along with that mindset, then you get angry and you want to destroy people. So they ask her, you know, how long was she banging on the door? And she says, you know, or like, how long, how, how much time transpired between your initial 911 call to her pounding on the door? She says 10 minutes. And they also allude to her, you know, did you do any research on like, self defense? Stand your ground. And she says, yeah, she was, she was looking at it on, on, on social media. And, and again, this is all bad because it's like, it looks like she's like looking how she can justify shooting somebody. And they pulled the call logs and they show, say her 911 call started at 8:40, 8:54pm lasted five minutes, disconnected at 8:59pm and, and what the, the footage and what all this stuff shows is that she pulled the trigger two minutes after 8:59. So, you know, the idea that Ajika was pounding and pounding on her door for 10 minutes and it was rattling off the hinges is bogus. You know, she didn't have time to do that. Like, this was a very, very short period of time. Lawrence acts like, well, I don't know, it felt longer, blah, blah, blah. And, you know, she says, you know, whatever. So they tell her that the state's attorneys are recommending charges of manslaughter. And they also give her that piece of paper of like, well, we. You can't talk to her children, but maybe there's something you want to say to them now. So then we get to one of the most bizarre portions of this, where they're going to take her away to be booked, and they say, come with us. And she says, no. I mean, what did you make about this whole part? She, like. They're like, you're under arrest. And she's basically like, no, I'm not.
- [46:43]
B
It was just.
- [46:46]
A
Oh, in that case, I guess we'll let you go.
- [46:50]
B
It was an odd moment, but it was an odd moment. There's. There's no way around that. But certainly when a person gets that sort of news, I imagine you go into a state of shock.
- [47:02]
A
I think it's just entitlement. Maybe there's some shock there that her actions are finally having consequences. But I think there's a level of entitlement there where it's just like, you know, because it doesn't. It's not like an initial reaction. It's like, goes on forever. They're, like, debating with her, you need to get out of the chair. And then, oh, I'm going to have a heart attack. Well, we can go take you to the medical then, but you have to get up. Oh, no, it's this. It. She needs to reframe things so that she's the victim and they feel bad for her. So they're gonna arrest her for killing somebody? Oh, no. But she's very sick and she feels terrible, and we need to take care of her now. It's. It. I think it was just an attempt to kind of for. For her ego not to shatter. For her kind of like, sense of self and sense of victimhood that she claim clings to not to shatter. She has to flip it around so she's in trouble and she needs help, and they need to take care of her. Eventually, they talk her out of it. And after a while, this goes on for a while. And then one of the detectives comes back in and reads her note. It said, I am so sorry for your loss. I never meant to kill your mother. I was terrified your mom was going to kill me. I shot out of fear. So that was what she wrote down, Right. In the end, Billy woods, the sheriff, announced that they arrested her. And there's some footage from, like, a memorial for Agika. Al Sharpton is there. He Says, you know, she wasn't gonna let her kids be degraded. Don't feel guilty because mothers choose their children over themselves. And that's what she did. And the. It ended with, they had some notes about stand your ground laws. They said this documentary claimed that, you know, there's racial disparities in terms of what kinds of Americans find success with a self defense case. In these cases, it's more successful for white Americans when they kill people and talks about how she was charged with manslaughter. And then they really skim over the trial. The trial just appears in the end credits. We see deputies that we saw earlier on testifying, we see that her friend Ajica's friends and family in court. And ultimately the jury is asked by the prosecutor, was it reasonable to shoot through a metal deadbolted door. And then the defense brings out a delightful color coded chart about like, if. If you. If, like the red indicates at the bottom of the chart indicates guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. But all these other colors mean something else. And if you fall in one of those, you have to acquit. But she got convicted of manslaughter, found guilty, and she was sentenced to 25 years in prison. And the film is.
- [49:37]
B
And clearly that was, that was the correct verdict.
- [49:39]
A
Yeah. And she was, you know, people might say, well, why not murder? I mean, the prosecutor has to prove what they can prove, but going away for 25 years seems appropriate given what she did here. The film's dedicated to AJ's children, so let's talk about how this was structured and we can kind of get into our opinions about that.
- [49:57]
B
Okay, do you want me to tell my opinions?
- [49:59]
A
Well, I can, I can do the doc. I'm gonna do the docu series elements too.
- [50:02]
B
Okay.
- [50:03]
A
So the. There's no interviewees in this in the traditional sense. There's no. The kind of. The trappings of the traditional true crime documentary, AKA archival footage, plus interviews with people later on, does not happen in this. It's all like raw footage, almost. Body cam footage, audio recordings of witness statements, footage of residences from above at one point, dispatch audio from the sheriff's office, footage of the trial testimony at the very end, footage of AJ's kids at the end. And then I thought there were some effective moments here with the, you know, there's a point where the, the deputies enter Lawrence's home and she's all blurred. It looks all creepy. It's creepy. But that's kind of how they set it up. So this is where we get into what's the deal? With this doc. So what are your opinions?
- [50:51]
B
I didn't like it. I thought it was really boring. I think using all of the body cam footage was a gimmick. And gimmicks can be good, and gimmicks can make something seem more direct. And, oh, it's happening now, and I'm seeing it. But I think in this case, the gimmick ended up impeding understanding. I felt that you could have communicated, oh, this woman has made a lot of frivolous calls that's really caused upset in this neighborhood without playing. A huge chunk of this documentary was just repetitive footage of the same sort of calls from. To police from this woman and getting the same sort of reaction from the neighborhood. It's like, we get the idea. And then I also felt that just sticking to the body cam footage, first of all, by giving so much time to the original calls, we didn't get, as you mentioned, hardly anything of the trial. I'm curious what kind of a defense they put on. We just saw like a snippet of it. As I say, I'm satisfied that the verdict they arrived at was just. But I would be curious as to what kind of defense they put on. Really didn't find out that much about this woman. You mentioned that she referred to herself as a doctor. Why did she refer to herself as a doctor? I don't know. I would be interested in hearing what the police actually think of calls like this. Pardon me. This is a big part of their job, going out and quelling these little neighborhood disputes. What is that like? Were there warning signs here that they don't see in other cases? What do they think? Are there things they think they could have done differently? What do experts think? Are there things that could have been done differently? If there's reasons why she couldn't have been charged earlier, which clearly there were. Love to have experts discuss that.
- [52:48]
A
Yeah, I understand where you're coming from. I think to me, it was about centering the experience of these children in the neighborhood and that. That it had a narrower focus than your traditional true crime documentary, which is kind of what it sounds like. You would have preferred that traditional approach.
- [53:07]
B
I would prefer walking away with a greater understanding than I had when I walked away from this case, from this documentary. Rather, it didn't feel that much different from, like, watching body cam footage on YouTube.
- [53:23]
A
I liked the way it was weaved together. I think it centered what it needed to center, which was the experience of these people in this community. And at a certain point, for Lawrence, none. Not. Not Knowing anything about her background doesn't matter. It's what she did in this situation, and it's what she put these people through. For me, the body cam footage ramped up. The dread, it ramped up, okay, we know something's coming, and it's not gonna be good. And it gave context. And for me, what was most important about it, in terms of what I liked about it, is we all could find ourselves in this situation. We all could deal with a Susan Lawrence in our neighborhood or our workplace or our life. And this is going to probably be where we come into contact with law enforcement versus some wild thing where, you know, the ne. You know, a serial killer tries to grab us like this. We're gonna. It's gonna be in this mundane, kind of sordid way. And getting to watch all of that unfold and how different people handled it was very interesting to me. And it just felt like a more realistic view of everything that I enjoyed getting because I thought. I thought it was excellent. I thought it was excellent.
- [54:35]
B
Yeah, I hear. I hear what you're saying, certainly, but I don't think it's useful for people to walk away from a true crime presentation feeling, oh, my God, this could happen to me. Because I feel a lot of true crime just tries to make people more fearful. And the odds are if. If you know of someone in a neighborhood or an office who's kind of unpleasant, the odds are they'll never murder you.
- [55:01]
A
I don't think I. Okay, first of all, the traditional true crime docu series is all about making you think your husband or wife is going to kill you.
- [55:10]
B
I don't think that's helpful.
- [55:11]
A
Well, I'm saying I don't think this is anywhere near as guilty. I'm just saying this is more realistic of what anyone could run into. I don't think it's saying everyone's a Susan Lawrence. It's more of like, this is what a Susan Lawrence can wreak on a community in terms of what they could be capable of. And we should be aware of those kind of antisocial personalities that you need to be safe. And if someone's constantly going after kids and doesn't seem to have any boundaries with that, make a note of it. Make a note of it and tread carefully. I don't think it's about scaring people. I'm just saying you're way more likely to meet a Susan Lawrence than a Ted Bundy.
- [55:46]
B
Yeah, that's certainly true.
- [55:47]
A
You know, and I. That's all. I think it's Just important to note that I see what you mean about, you know, you seem to favor the more traditional side of true crime documentaries where you're getting more of that context. I think I liked this because I felt it was pretty gripping and innovative, but I think there's different, different sides to it. But I think where I come down though, I, I feel like I am, I, I, it's horrifying that, that this happened ultimately that we can agree on. It really is. And I, I will say, and again.
- [56:17]
B
I, I, I feel the verdict was.
- [56:19]
A
Just, I feel like I have questions mostly in like, what the hell was Lawrence's problem? I actually looked up her, you know, history of like legal filings and stuff. You know, one thing that I did get annoyed with when I saw the discourse on this, a lot of people were saying, well, Lawrence was obviously mentally ill. I, I, that's not obvious to me. Why are we blaming mentally ill people and mental illness for somebody, something somebody's doing? You know, I, I, I, I hate.
- [56:47]
B
The people were saying that.
- [56:49]
A
I saw people on Reddit saying that they were like, oh, she's obviously mentally.
- [56:52]
B
Ill. She did not come across as obviously mentally.
- [56:55]
A
I don't think she came across as obviously mentally ill. Also, we need to stop pathologizing every bad person. You can just be a bad person. You just can. Maybe there might be some trauma there, maybe there might be some childhood trauma there. I'm not discounting that there can be those things. There can be anxiety issues or depression. But like when we're just, we're saying mentally ill, that conjures the to mind someone who's psychotic or schizophrenic or not living in reality. And it's not fair to people who actually deal with those issues to be just randomly diagnosing somebody without information. When she seems very cogent to me, she's not out there saying, hey, the kids are flying around on dragons and I'm trying to stop, like, she's not in psychosis. She seems to be just a bad person. And maybe there's some, I know that she got into some childhood trauma, I think at trial, and that's fine. That doesn't give anyone an excuse to do anything. A lot of people have childhood trauma. That does not give anyone an excuse to do anything or to harm other people at all. And I'm just sick of people blaming mental illness for people being nasty jerks. And, you know, I think there's some certain people that are kind of pathetic. They have a victim mentality. Actually, I think Richard Allen in Delphi is one of these people. They have the victim mentality. I'm life's little victim. Oh, poor me. Isn't it awful? And then they, they, they build up rage towards other people and ultimately they're a ticking time bomb. And I don't know how society can deal with this, I don't know how society can deal with this with these people, because there's a lot of them. You might run into them, they might never do anything really heinous, but they might, they might do something. You just don't know because they're grievance collectors. And I don't, I don't know how you can prevent them other than, you know, trying to, I think maybe put out stuff where it's like, this exists and don't be like Susan Lawrence. Don't let yourself get into that, you know, So. I don't know. But yeah. Anything else you wanted to say?
- [59:03]
B
No. People wanted to hear us disagree, so they got to, got to have that delightful experience.
- [59:08]
A
Yes, we disagree strongly about this, but I think we both agree on the case being very sad and horrible.
- [59:14]
B
Yes, we both agree on that. And I think we both agree that the verdict was a just one.
- [59:20]
A
Yeah, I'm glad to see that she got a heavy sentence for this because what she did to that family is horrible. And I feel so bad for those kids and I really hope they're getting the help and assistance and guidance they need. Sounds like they're in the care of their grandma, Pamela Diaz. She seems great. So I'm really hopeful that she'd not.
- [59:38]
B
Appear, Ms. Lawrence, to be in the best of health. So there's an excellent chance that 25 year sentence is a life sentence.
- [59:43]
A
Oh, yeah, 100%, you know, which I think is warranted. I mean, she took away this beautiful young mother for, for no frigging reason. For no reason. Just move. Like you don't, you don't like your neighborhood, you don't like your neighbors, get out of there. You're renting. Rent somewhere else. Stop trying to bully young children and, you know, then, then escalate to killing their mother in front of them. It's horrible. But, yeah. Well, anyway, thank you everybody for listening and we will, you know, keep watching some documentaries and see if we find anything interesting about them, but we appreciate you guys taking the time.
- [60:18]
B
Thanks so much for listening to the Murder Sheet. If you have a tip concerning one of the cases we cover, please email us@murdersheetmail.com if you have actionable information about an unsolved crime, please report it to the appropriate authorities.
- [60:38]
A
If you're interested in joining our Patreon, that's available at best www.patreon.com murdersheet if you want to tip us a bit of money for records requests, you can do so at www. Buymeacoffee.com murdersheet we very much appreciate any support.
- [61:02]
B
Special thanks to Kevin Tyler Greenlee, who composed the music for the Murder Sheet and who you can find on the web at Kevin Tg.
- [61:12]
A
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