“The Perfect Neighbor”: Inside Netflix’s New True Crime Documentary

HARI SREENIVASAN: Christiane, thanks. Pamela Dias, Geeta Gandbhir, thanks so much for joining us. Geeta, you’ve done several social justice-focused films in the past, and your most recent one is on Netflix. It’s called “The Perfect Neighbor” and it focuses on the death of the shooting of 35-year-old Ajike Owens, a Florida woman who is the mother of four, who was shot by her neighbor Susan Lorincz. Tell us a little bit about this story and why you decided to tell it.

GEETA GANDBHIR :Sure. So the background to the story is that Ajike Owens was a family friend. She was my sister-in-law’s best friend.
So when this happened we were immediately called. My partner, Nikon Kwantu — who’s also a producer on this film — and I were on the ground immediately to try to support Pamela Dias and her family as far as keeping the story in the news. That was something we wanted to do because we were concerned that due to Stand Your Ground laws that exist in Florida, that Susan Lorincz would walk from the crime. And we have the precursor of Trayvon Martin that I think is steeped in the national consciousness and that was, again, it was a concern. 

So about two months later, after we became involved in supporting the family, we received the body camera footage from Pamela’s lawyers, Benjamin Crump and Anthony Thomas. (02:59): And they had done, used the Freedom of Information Act to acquire all the materials that the police had recorded in the process of this case and prior to the murder. And so when we got our hands on that and went through the materials — we were asked to look through them to see if there was anything that would be useful for the media or, you know, or maybe even for the lawyers — we realized that there was a much bigger story here because the body camera footage stretched back two years. So that’s what, how the film began. 

SREENIVASAN: And Geeta, when you looked at the footage, what surprised you? Because I suspect you were expecting, well, the night of… but to have two years worth of video…

GANDBHIR: Yeah, no, absolutely. I think for us, as you mentioned, usually when a crime occurs as far as police body camera footage, it really usually is only the night of. You might have some security camera footage that captures something, but we were shocked to see the frequency with which police were called to the scene. And again, like I said, it spanned back two years. 

SREENIVASAN: I guess, for people who might not have seen the film. Can you just tell us a little bit more about Ajike as a daughter, a mother, a friend?

PAMELA DIAS: Yes. So, Ajike was a single mother of four children. She was super mom, I would say. She was very involved in her children’s lives. She had her children in private school. She instilled in them a deep faith. She had core values. She instilled in them respect for their elders. As you see in the film, where she tells her son if — or she tells the police regarding her son — that if they have a problem with an adult, you know, to take it, come tell her, and she’ll take it up with the adult. 

The kids were involved in a lot of extracurricular activities. She was the cheer mom, she was the football team mom. I always joke and say that we have this great extended family because everyone that she considered a friend was family to her. She had great, high dreams, aspirations.. Just a joy, very comedic, funny, loved, and just a beautiful person.

SREENIVASAN: Before this event, did you know much about the neighbor that shot your daughter?

DIAS:  I did not know her by name. She always referenced her as a neighbor. And she would tell me — my daughter would tell me — that there was a white neighbor that would harass the children. And then she told me that there was an instance where she waved a gun. I couldn’t wrap my mind around the fact that a neighbor would show a gun to children. It just didn’t seem real to me at that time. But obviously it was.

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DIAS: it definitely had a major racial component to it. And Susan was never in fear. Susan was motivated by hate, biases and racism.

SREENIVASAN: Geeta, we see so many different interactions of the police that come to Susan’s door, that come to the neighborhood, that talk to the kids, that talk to the families. Black police, white police, male, female. What was their failure here? Was there, what was, how did race play into those interactions?

GANDBHIR: Sure. So I think what’s so fascinating in this that we saw in the footage, and I think what you see in the film is that there were overall systemic failures in this case. And the police show up on scene multiple times. And what’s interesting, and I think when, again, in sharing this film with audiences, what we see is that our bar for the police is so low that we sometimes mistake politeness — or, again, them not showing up guns blazing, you know, throwing people to the ground or, or shooting anyone — as competence. And I think what happened here is that Susan was treated as a client. Again, because she was the person who called again and again, she — as an older white woman — was handled with kid gloves and just treated as a nuisance, right? Ultimately, the police did get, seem to, tire of her. But they never saw her as a threat. And they never saw the community a multiracial community, as people who were worth protecting. They never saw them as, I think, as important or as citizens in the way that they saw Susan. So they sort of, again, they dismissed the idea that there was any threat.
I think one of the reasons we were so committed to using the body camera footage is because it is evidence. And we are filmmakers first. So we wanted to make sure that we clearly documented — or showed the audience — the perspective of the police, Susan’s perspective, and the community’s perspective. But when you look at all of them, you really see that Susan was the aggressor in this case. And the police, again, they should have, maybe by the third time Susan called and it was unfounded, they should have flagged her. I do believe that if Susan had been a person of color, that this would’ve gone very differently.

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SREENIVASAN: The day Ajike was shot, she had gone over to Susan’s house because Susan allegedly threw roller skates at Ajike’s children. And it snowballed from there. According to the facts, Susan shot Ajike through a bolted metal door, and her defense team called on the Stand Your Ground laws. And some people might remember that from 2012 when George Zimmerman used that defense when he shot Trayvon Martin. But just refresh us — what are Stand Your Ground laws? 

DIAS:  Yes. So in essence, I’ll give you the short version. Basically Stand Your Ground law states that you have – it removes the duty to retreat if you feel that you are in danger, that you have the right to protect your home. And again this, this law actually, it’s really being misused. It creates fear. It emboldens people to shoot first and rationalize later.
Stand Your Ground law is definitely a law that needs to be reviewed, modified, taken off. It exists in about 38 states, if I believe, in some form or fashion. So it is a very, a law that basically allows people to weaponize it and lack accountability.

SREENIVASAN: Geeta, you have a statistic at the end of the film that shows, it says, that these laws have been linked to an eight to 11% increase in homicide rates, or roughly 700 additional deaths each year. And there are statistics from the FBI — this is about 10 years old now — but controlling for other variables, the odds that a white-on-Black homicide is ruled justified are 281% greater than when a white person kills another white person. How does race play into that foundational level of this policy that is so broadly adopted in the United States?

GANDBHIR: Sure. So I think what’s so interesting to me is in the — I think the film is a microcosm of the best of American society, but also the worst of American society. And the worst is the sort of the racial disparities that you see in how, in systemic treatment. And I think that stand your ground laws, again, it’s a predatory law falling under the Castle doctrine – but the key part of it is that if you can prove that, or if you feel that, your life was in imminent danger, you have the right to defend yourself without having the duty to retreat. 

And so I think, again, there is this…almost a paranoia in our society about those around us. I think those, I think there is manufactured fear. And that is a tool of an authoritarian government also — used to polarize and divide us. We are, instead of sort of living together and, and living in community the way that Ajike and her neighbors did, I think Susan sort of embodies those fears. And you see this play out in history time and time again, and it’s particularly with white women. The story of Emmett Till reflected on that Black people are punished and murdered for in some way offending, even if they do not right?  (29:04): But a white person will claim that they were somehow offended by, or insulted by, or, you know, harmed by a Black person. And the result is death, you know, is a death sentence for the Black person. And Stand Your Ground laws are just an extension of that. 

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SREENIVASAN: Pamela, Susan Lorincz recently did an interview from the correctional facility that she’s in serving 25 years for, and in there she expresses some remorse. I wanna read her quote. “I can’t take it back. I can’t replace her. And I’m still so sorry,” in regards to your daughter. But she still claims that your grandchildren repeatedly threatened her and maintains that she was fearful for her life when she shot. And what’s, I guess, your reaction, because this is something that she said to the police from the beginning, at her sentencing and even now.

DIAS:  So Susan has never shown any real remorse. I’ve sat through all of the hearings leading up to the trial and including the trial. Susan has always embellished the truth or flat out lied. (31:07): The fact that she would say that the children threatened her is ludicrous when she’s the one who took my grandchild’s possession, refused to give it back to him and threw an object at him. She often filmed the children while they’re playing with an adult in an area that did not belong to her, did not belong to her landlord. She clearly was the nuisance, clearly was the problem.
She antagonized them repeatedly, repeatedly. Accused, make accusations that they’re trying to steal her car. And you see in the documentary that the kids say “we’re 11” – they don’t know how to drive. She accuses my grandson of trying to put this little puppy in the back of her truck when it’s a dog as big as him that he couldn’t lift. So her accusations are baseless. And it’s typical, Susan. A typical is the kids would say a ‘Karen.’

SREENIVASAN: Pamela, what you see in this film is these really difficult images of your grandchildren hearing that their mother is gone. And we are all collectively watching this. And that must have been difficult for you to see the first time, but then to decide, Yeah, I  want the rest of, well, America or the world to see this. How, what made you say, Yes, let’s go forward? 

DIAS: Absolutely, that was very heart-wrenching, gut-wrenching to see my grandchildren in such distress. But after I lost my daughter in the manner in which I did, I thought to myself, you know, this is something that you read about in the paper, you see on the news. This happens to other families. But this happened to my family. I didn’t understand why, you know? I questioned why. I didn’t know what was going to come next. I didn’t understand why, you know?
And then… I’m grieving, the grandchildren are grieving, the community is grieving. I said to myself, It has to be more than just grief. I can’t just bury my child and just walk away and that’s the end of the story. My daughter said the world would know her name. We don’t know the when’s, the why’s and the how’s, but this is the way the world knows her name. And I had to honor her. I had to show up for her. I had to be her voice. The manner in which she died, under the premise of Stand Your Ground Law, is a clear representation of why this law needs to be repealed. And for that reason, I said, Yes. We need — our family, our story — will be the call to action. We’ll be the catalyst to make real changes in our community and our society.

SREENIVASAN: The film is on Netflix now. It’s called “The Perfect Neighbor.” Pamela, I’m so saddened for your loss and the loss for your grandchildren. And Geeta Gandbhir, thanks so much for making the film.

GANDBHIR: No and thank you for having us.

DIAS: Thank you.