The Florida woman accused of zipping her boyfriend in a suitcase and leaving him there to suffocate and die will spend life in prison for his murder.
Sarah Boone was found guilty of second-degree murder in the death of 42-year-old Jorge Torres Jr.
Authorities found Torres’ dead body in a suitcase at a home in Winter Park, Florida, on Feb. 24, 2020.
Boone told detectives that she and Torres were drinking wine while playing hide-and-seek and decided it would be funny to zip Torres, who was 5 feet 2, in a suitcase.
The 47-year-old said she went to bed after closing the suitcase but left enough space for Torres to stick a couple of his fingers out, believing he could get out on his own.
When she woke the next morning, she found Torres’ body inside the suitcase and called 911.
She told law enforcement that she never meant to leave him there.
However, investigators later discovered videos on Boone’s phone that show Torres pleading for Boone to release him from the suitcase while a voice presumed to be Boone’s taunted him and accused him of cheating.
“Sarah, I can’t f—ing breathe,” Torres was heard saying.
“Yeah, that’s what you do when you choke me,” Boone responded in the video.
“Sarah, Sarah,” Torres said. “Sarah, I can’t breathe, babe.”
“That’s on you,” she responded. “That’s what I feel like when you cheat on me,” she later added.
It took more than four years for Boone’s murder trial to begin partly because she kept changing attorneys. She represented herself for a brief period of time during her seven-week-long trial before landing on her ninth attorney, James Owens, to argue in her defense.
Boone delivered nearly five hours of testimony during the trial, claiming that Torres was responsible for heinous acts of physical and sexual abuse. She told the jury that he “kicked, punched, spit on, raped, stabbed, (and) choked” her during their relationship and that she suffered “battered spouse syndrome,” WESH reported. She told the court that she feared Torres would kill her if she released him from the suitcase.
“I wanted him to try to understand how I felt so maybe he could progress and be a better person,” Boone said when a prosecutor asked her why she didn’t unzip the suitcase.
The prosecution argued that Boone intentionally left Torres in the suitcase, not because she feared for her life, but because she felt he deserved to die for his past behavior. Orange County State Attorney Andrew Bain stated that the video recordings showing Torres pleading for his life from inside the suitcase as Boone mocked him contradicted statements she made on the stand.
An Orange County jury found her guilty on Friday, Oct. 25.
Ahead of Boone’s sentencing, several of Torres’ family members spoke to members of the media about his death. His mother, Blanca Torres, said Boone “not only killed my son, she killed a father, a brother, an uncle.”
“Sometimes when I look out the window, I’m waiting for him to come and say, ‘Mom, I love you,’” she said, according to CNN.
One of Torres’ daughters, Ana Victoria Torres, said she experienced chronic depression and anxiety after learning of her father’s death. In the year after Torres died, she said she woke up “screaming every morning or night wishing I was having a nightmare, only to wake up and remember all over again that my father is gone.”
Torres’ sister, Victoria Torres, said Boone “has caused a lifetime of pain,” and deserved to “rot in jail.”
Boone’s attorney said Boone was “shocked” by the guilty verdict.
“We’re obviously very disappointed,” Owens told reporters.
Boone filed a request for a new trial last month, alleging prosecutorial misconduct and other complaints, but a judge denied that request before her sentencing.
