Florida Woman Receives Life Sentence for Suffocating Boyfriend by Zipping Him Inside a Suitcase

A woman from Florida was sentenced to life imprisonment on Monday for murdering her boyfriend by zipping him inside a suitcase and leaving him to suffocate, following a history of domestic and alcohol-related abuse.

Circuit Judge Michael Kraynick handed down the sentence in Orlando to Sarah Boone, 47, for the 2020 death of 42-year-old Jorge Torres.

The jury took just 90 minutes on October 25 to find Boone guilty of second-degree murder after a 10-day trial. Boone maintained that she was a victim of domestic violence at the hands of Torres and declined a plea deal that offered a 15-year sentence.

During the sentencing hearing, relatives of Torres spoke about how his death has fractured their family.

“Sarah deserves to rot in jail,” stated his sister, Victoria Torres. “Sarah has caused a lifetime of pain.”

In her own remarks, Boone recounted a long history of abuse from Torres, criticized how her trial was conducted and portrayed in the media, yet she also sought forgiveness for her actions.

“I forgive myself for falling in love with a monster. I attempted to break the spell … I never stopped loving him,” Boone stated, who has spent 58 months in jail. “I didn’t intend for this to occur. I ask for forgiveness, Jorge. Forgive me, Torres family.”

Initially, Boone told investigators from the Orange County Sheriff’s Office that she and Torres had been drinking heavily and playing hide-and-seek on February 23, 2020, at their home in Winter Park, Florida, when they decided it would be funny for Torres, who weighed 103 pounds, to get inside the suitcase. Winter Park is located near Orlando.

She indicated that after drinking, she went to sleep, believing Torres could exit the suitcase by himself, according to the arrest report.

Upon waking the next morning and not finding Torres, she recalled that he was still in the suitcase. When she unzipped it, she discovered him unresponsive, according to the report.

Boone was charged with second-degree murder after investigators uncovered videos on her phone where Torres could be heard shouting from inside the suitcase that he couldn’t breathe and repeatedly calling Boone’s name, as described in the arrest report.

“She chose to keep [Torres] in the suitcase when he said he couldn’t breathe to terrorize him,” prosecutor William Jay wrote in a court filing. “She then struck him with a baseball bat.”

Boone turned down a plea deal from prosecutors that would have resulted in a 15-year sentence in exchange for a guilty plea to a lesser manslaughter charge.

During her trial, Boone testified that past violent incidents with Torres led her to feel an imminent threat, and that her actions of keeping Torres in the suitcase were taken in self-defense.

“Yeah, that’s what you do when you choke me,” Boone said in one of the cellphone videos captured that night, according to the arrest report. “Oh, that’s how I feel when you cheat on me.”

By Curt Anderson