WPBN: A Florida woman with a history of domestic and alcohol abuse was given a life sentence on Monday for suffocating her lover by squeezing him inside a suitcase.
In Orlando, Circuit Judge Michael Kraynick sentenced 47-year-old Sarah Boone for the 2020 murder of 42-year-old Jorge Torres.
After a 10-day trial, a jury found Boone guilty of Jorge Torres’ second-degree murder on October 25 after just 90 minutes of deliberation.
Boone had refused a plea agreement offer of a 15-year sentence because she believed that she had been the victim of domestic abuse at the hands of Torres.
During the hearing, Torres’ family members testified that they were devastated by his passing. Victoria Torres, a sister, said, “Sarah deserves to rot in jail. Sarah has caused a lifetime of pain.”
In her own statement, Boone detailed the long list of abuses she said Torres had inflicted on her, criticized the way the media handled and reported on her trial, and begged for forgiveness for her acts.
Boone, who has been incarcerated for 58 months, stated that, “I forgive myself for falling in love with a monster. I tried breaking the spell … I never stopped loving him. I didn’t mean for this to happen. Forgive me Jorge. Forgive me Torres family.”
“I accept that I fell in love with a monster. I attempted to break the spell. Boone, who has been incarcerated for 58 months, stated, “I never stopped loving him.” “I didn’t intend for this to occur. Please pardon me, Jorge. Please pardon me, Torres family.
Initially, Boone told detectives from the Orange County Sheriff’s Office that on February 23, 2020, she and Torres had been playing hide-and-seek and drinking a lot in their Winter Park, Florida, home when they thought it would be funny for the 103-pound Torres to get inside the bag.
In an arrest report, she informed officers that she had gone to bed after they had consumed alcohol, assuming Torres would be able to exit the suitcase by himself.
She knew Torres was in the bag when she woke up the following morning, but she couldn’t find him. According to the arrest report, she discovered him unconscious when she opened the suitcase.
Following the discovery of footage on her cellphone showing Torres screaming from within the suitcase that he was unable to breathe and continuously crying out Boone’s name, authorities charged Boone with second-degree murder, according to the arrest report.
“She decided to keep (Torres) in the suitcase when he said he could not breathe in it to terrorize him,” prosecutor William Jay stated. “She then struck him with a baseball bat.”
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In exchange for her guilty plea to a reduced manslaughter charge, Boone turned down a plea deal from the prosecution that would have sentenced her to 15 years in jail.
Boone said during her trial that she kept Torres in the bag out of self-defense and because she felt threatened by the violent past events between her and Torres.
According to the police report, Boone stated in one of the cellphone recordings from that evening, “Yeah, that’s what you do when you choke me. Oh, that’s what I feel like when you cheat on me.”
