Florida woman found guilty of murder for leaving boyfriend to die in suitcase

Prosecutor Dave Cacciatore Jr. pulls out a suitcase of evidence as he begins closing arguments in the trial of defendant Sarah Boone on Oct. 25 at the Orange County Courthouse in Orlando, Fla. (AP).

ORLANDO, Fla., Oct. 27 (AP): A woman accused of leaving her boyfriend to die after he was zipped up in a suitcase at their home was found guilty of second-degree murder by a jury in central Florida. Four years after Sarah Boone was arrested in connection with the death of Jorge Torres, a jury returned a verdict against her Friday night after deliberating for about 90 minutes.

Boone has pleaded not guilty. Boone initially told Orange County Sheriff’s Office detectives that she and Torres were playing hide and seek on February 23, 2020, at their residence in Winter Park, Florida, when they thought it would be funny for Torres to get into a suitcase. . They had been drinking and she decided to go to bed, thinking her boyfriend would be able to climb out of the suitcase on his own, she told detectives, according to the arrest report.

When she woke up the next morning, she did not find Torres, but remembered that he was in the suitcase. She unzipped the suitcase and found him unresponsive, the arrest report states. Detectives charged Boone with murder after they found videos on her cellphone of Torres screaming from inside a suitcase that she couldn’t breathe and repeatedly screaming Boone’s name, according to the arrest report.

During the trial, Boone testified that past violent incidents between her and Torres made her feel threatened by imminent harm and that she acted in self-defense by keeping him in the suitcase. “Yeah, that’s what you do when you choke me,” Boone said in one of the cellphone videos taken that night, according to the arrest report. “Oh, this is how I feel when you cheat on me.”

The autopsy report said Torres had scratches on his back and neck, bruises to his shoulder, skull and forehead from blunt force trauma, and a cut near his split lip. Since her arrest, Boone has had several attorneys, which contributed to the 10-day delay of her trial. She will be sentenced on December 2 and faces life in prison.