A Florida woman was sentenced Monday to life in prison for zipping her boyfriend into a suitcase and leaving him to die of suffocation amid a history of domestic and alcohol abuse. Judge Michael Kraynick imposed the sentence in Orlando on Sarah Boone, 47, for the 2020 killing of 42-year-old Jorge Torres. A jury deliberated only 90 minutes Oct. 25 before convicting Boone, who insisted she was herself a victim of domestic violence at the hands of Torres and had rejected a plea deal offer of a 15-year sentence, the Associated Press reports.
Torres’ family members testified that his death has torn them apart. “Sarah deserves to rot in jail,” said a sister, Victoria Torres. “Sarah has caused a lifetime of pain.” In her statement, Boone went through a litany of abuse by Torres she said occurred over many years, decried the way her trial was handled and covered by the media, yet asked forgiveness for her actions. At first, Boone told Orange County Sheriff’s Office investigators that she and Torres had been drinking heavily and playing hide-and-seek on Feb. 23, 2020, in their residence when they thought it would be amusing for the 103-pound Torres to climb into the suitcase.
They had been drinking alcohol and she decided to go to sleep, figuring that Torres could get out of the suitcase on his own, she told detectives. 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. Boone was charged with second-degree murder after investigators found videos on her cellphone in which Torres is heard yelling from inside the suitcase that he couldn’t breathe and repeatedly calling out Boone’s name. “She decided to keep (Torres) in the suitcase when he said he could not breathe in it to terrorize him,” prosecutor William Jay said. “She then struck him with a baseball bat.” During her trial, Boone testified that past violent incidents between her and Torres caused her to perceive a threat of imminent harm and that she acted in self-defense by keeping him in the suitcase.
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