The Florida woman convicted of zipping her boyfriend in a suitcase and leaving him to suffocate to death while trapped inside has been sentenced to life in prison.
Sarah Boone, 47, learned her fate in an Orlando courtroom on Monday, Dec. 2, more than a month after she was found guilty of second-degree murder in the death of Jorge Torres, Jr., 42.
Torres was found dead on the morning of Feb. 24, 2020, inside a suitcase in the couple’s Winter Park apartment.
Boone claimed the two were playing a drunken game of hide-and-seek. On the stand in her own defense, she claimed the two found it “funny” that the 5-foot 2-inch Torres could fit inside the suitcase.
While he was inside, she zipped the suitcase closed and captured parts of the chilling incident in two videos she recorded on her phone that night.
In the videos, Torres can be heard begging her to let him out of the suitcase, proclaiming that he “can’t breathe.”
Claiming that Torres had been abusive to her before, she testified during her trial that she decided this would be a good time to talk frankly to him since Torres “was not able to get out.”
Boone laughed while Torres pleaded to be let out of the suitcase. “For everything you’ve done to me,” she says, going on to compare Torres’ suffocation to how she feels when he cheats on her or chokes her.
Sarah Boone Takes Stand in Murder Trial of Her Boyfriend: ‘I Couldn’t Believe That He Could Fit in the Suitcase’
When Torres 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.
Woman Allegedly Killed Boyfriend by Zipping Him in Suitcase in Drunken Game of ‘Hide-and-Seek’
Believing he would be able to get out of the suitcase himself, she said she went upstairs to sleep, leaving him inside for the night and finding him dead the next day.
Torres’ sister, Victoria, said Boone deserved to “rot in jail.”
“Sarah has caused a lifetime of pain, a lifetime of horrible images, a lifetime of hearing my brother Jorge plead for his life,” said Victoria Torres. “Such a simple thing as using a suitcase is so triggering, I try not to close it all the way.”
On the stand, Boone said she never intended to kill Torres while alleging that her actions were in self-defense and he had previously been abusive towards her. She repeated her allegations of intimate partner violence against Torres in a statement in court on Monday, alleging her boyfriend had beaten, raped, and stabbed her all while terrorizing her.
Boone nonetheless asked the Torres family for “forgiveness.”
The Orange County, Fla. State’s Attorney, Andrew Bain, however, contended her testimony was “contradicted” by the video evidence and her own statements to police.
Prosecutor Dave Cacciatore had asked the judge to sentence Boone to life imprisonment, noting a plea offer of 15 years in jail on manslaughter charges had been conditioned on her accepting responsibility and remorse for Torres’ death, which he said hadn’t been demonstrated.
