Florida woman charged with leaving her boyfriend to die in a suitcase found guilty of murder

A Florida woman charged with leaving her boyfriend to die after he was zipped into a suitcase in their home has been found guilty of  murder in the Feb. 2020 death of Jorge Torres, Jr., 42.  The jury took just 90 minutes to find Sarah Boone, 47, guilty of second-degree murder.

Torres was found dead on the morning of Feb. 24, 2020, inside a suitcase in their Winter Park apartment after they were playing what Boone claimed was a drunken game of hide-and-seek.

Boone initially told detectives with the Orange County Sheriff’s Office that she and her boyfriend, Jorge Torres, had been playing hide and seek in the residence they shared in Winter Park, Florida, when they thought it would be funny for Torres to get into the suitcase.

They had been drinking, and she decided to go to sleep, thinking that Torres could get out of the suitcase on his own, she told detectives, according to an arrest report.

When she woke up the next morning, she didn’t find Torres but then remembered he was in the suitcase. She unzipped the suitcase, and found him unresponsive, the arrest report said.

However, parts of the chilling incident was captured in two videos that Boone recorded on her phone that night, showing Torres begging her to let him out of the suitcase

Detectives charged Boone with murder after they found the videos on her cellphone showing Torres yelling that he couldn’t breathe in the suitcase and calling out Boone’s name, according to the arrest report.

An autopsy report said that Torres had scratches on his back and neck and contusions to his shoulder, skull and forehead from blunt force trauma, as well as a cut near his busted lip.

The prosecution’s opening statement was delivered by Assistant State Attorney William Jay, who said, “She did this with the malicious intent to punish him and then she went up to sleep and left him to take his final breaths on this Earth alone.”

During closing arguments, Boone’s attorneys tried to make the final case for her as a domestic abuse victim suffering from battered spouse syndrome.

“Ultimately, this is about justifiable use of force,” said defense attorney James Owens. “That is a legal defense in Florida” but prosecutor Dave Cacciatore refuted that claim.

Boone testified in her own defense saying “He was 5 feet, 3 inches tall, roughly, and he weighed like 100 pounds,” Boone said. “I just kind of zipped him up. We thought it was funny. We were joking that he was small enough to fit inside the suitcase.”

“He just thought it was funny,” she said. “From there, I moved it around a couple of times on the wheels and, at that point, it was still funny. We were joking and laughing about it.”

She told the jury “That’s when I decided to videotape to see the jest in it, for him to understand that right now I feel safe and I can speak to you in the manner in which I normally can.” She continued “I want you to know that a majority of the time I’m always afraid and always scared,” and “I just wanted him to understand that was the whole point of the video.”

At one point, “His tone changed, and I knew the tone, and we ended up, I guess, arguing back and forth with one another,” Boone said.

When he managed to get his hand outside of the suitcase, she picked up a baseball bat and hit his hand with it until he put it back inside, testifying that she feared he was “going to break out of the suitcase.”

She claimed that she was afraid of how Torres would behave once he got out of the suitcase, and that was why she didn’t let him out.

Boone had told police that she went up to bed shortly after the videos were taken and fell asleep, leaving Torres inside the suitcase.

On October 7th, Boone rejected a plea offer from the prosecutors that would have sent her to prison for 15 years for pleading guilty to manslaughter. Boone now faces a minimum of 16 years to life in prison.

Boone’s sentencing is scheduled for Monday, December 2, 2024 at 1:30pm.

Source:   apnews.com