Sarah Boone, a Florida woman, was sentenced to life in prison for the 2020 killing of her boyfriend, Jorge Torres. Torres was zipped into a suitcase and left to suffocate, with Boone convicted of second-degree murder after a 10-day trial. Despite claiming she was herself a victim of domestic violence, Boone rejected a plea deal and was sentenced to life in prison.
During the hearing, Torres’ family members expressed their pain over his death, with his sister stating that Sarah deserved to “rot in jail.” Boone, who has been in jail for 58 months, expressed regret and asked for forgiveness in her statement, blaming the abusive behavior of Torres for her actions.
Boone initially claimed that she and Torres had been drinking and playing hide-and-seek when he climbed into the suitcase. She went to sleep assuming he could get out on his own, only to find him unresponsive the next morning. Investigators found videos on Boone’s cellphone in which Torres can be heard yelling for help from inside the suitcase.
Prosecutors argued that Boone deliberately kept Torres in the suitcase to terrorize him and struck him with a baseball bat. Boone rejected a plea deal that would have given her a 15-year sentence, claiming self-defense due to past violent incidents between her and Torres. In one of the videos, Boone is heard referencing past abuse as a justification for her actions.
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