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Netflix’s new true-crime documentary, The Perfect Neighbor, has sparked social media talk for its unsparing depiction of a devastating shooting that rattled a Florida town in 2023. The documentary, which had its world premiere on October 17, is told entirely through police body camera footage, CCTV footage, and ring camera video.
This technique offers a raw, immersive look at the circumstances leading to the killing of 35-year-old Black mother Ajike “AJ” Owens by her white neighbor, Susan Lorincz. Ditching explanatory voice-overs and interviews, the documentary crafts an eerie narrative of panic, animosity, and institutionalised discrimination, which concludes in death.
Emmy-winning filmmaker Geeta Gandbhir’s The Perfect Neighbor steers clear of sensationalism, instead immersing viewers in the high-stakes meetings among Lorincz, Owens, and her community in Ocala, Florida. The documentary mines the daily and existential terrors of American neighborhood life, elevating pedestrian police encounters into meditations on racial bias, fear, and the deadly ramifications of “Stand Your Ground” laws.
Is The Perfect Neighbor based on a true story?
Yes. The Perfect Neighbor tells the true story of Susan Lornicz, a 60-year-old woman from Florida who killed her neighbor, Ajike Owens, through a locked metal door on June 2, 2023. Single mother of four, Owens, had come to Lornicz’s residence to confront her for threatening her children, who were playing in a leafy patch next to her duplex. Lorincz said she shot out of fear, telling police she believed Owens:
“Was going to kill me.”
With more than 30 hours of police bodycam footage, dashcam video, and community-sourced surveillance, the film compiles a heightened two-year record of tension in their street. Lorincz would call the police regularly to report trespassing children: That she was being intimidated and harassed, that she was a victim.
In one of many calls to the Marion County Sheriff’s Office, she said:
“I’m a single woman. I work from home. I’m peaceful. I’m like the perfect neighbor.”
While the controversial Florida “Stand Your Ground” law was cited in her defence, Lorincz was found guilty of first-degree felony manslaughter with a firearm in 2024 and sentenced to 25 years in prison. Judge Robert Hodges found during sentencing that the shooting was:
“More anger-driven than fear-driven.”
The documentary situates the Owens–Lorincz case within a broader discussion of race and self-defence laws in America. Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” statute allows residents to use deadly force if they fear imminent harm, a defence that has disproportionately protected white perpetrators in cases involving Black victims. The law became best known when George Zimmerman was acquitted in 2013 of killing sixteen-year-old Trayvon Martin.
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In The Perfect Neighbor, Gandbhir leverages this backdrop to hold a mirror to the way fear and racism manifest in suburban America. Rather than using narration to steer the audience, the documentary lets the footage uncover the undercurrent of tensions that characterise the day-to-day engagements.
What distinguishes The Perfect Neighbor from the rest of the true-crime pack is that it’s entirely composed of police and surveillance footage. Gandbhir, a family friend of Owens, secured more than 30 hours of footage through a 'Freedom of Information Act' request. Together, they meticulously reconstructed bodycam and CCTV footage to form a chronological story that encapsulates the neighbourhood’s life before the fatal shooting.
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