Florida Woman Accused of Killing Boyfriend By Zipping Him In Suitcase Takes Stand

Sarah Boone was arrested again in 2020 in connection to the demise of boyfriend Jorge Torres Jr. On the time, she claimed the 2 have been taking part in a drunken sport of hide-and-seek, and that she fell asleep after zipping him in. When she awoke the subsequent day, she mentioned, he was useless.

She was charged with second diploma homicide.

Per FOX 35, testimony from witnesses for the prosecution claimed Torres’ physique confirmed indicators of blunt pressure trauma. Her protection group, in the meantime, has alleged Boone suffered from Battered Partner Syndrome, saying Torres’ demise was in self-defense.

Giving testimony, Boone mentioned she was launched to Torres at a bar by a mutual good friend, after she stopped attempting to “patch issues up” together with her then-husband. “I by no means thought he would keen on somebody like me,” she mentioned of assembly him, calling him “good-looking,” “humorous” and “good.” The 2 shortly moved in collectively after her divorce, she mentioned, and have been collectively for 3.5 years earlier than his demise.

On February 23, 2020, Boone mentioned the pair had plans to get pleasure from their day, “loosen up and glide” after cleansing up the home that morning … and began consuming. Together with her son coming to stick with her the subsequent day, Boone mentioned she determined they need to keep in that evening, and picked up some extra wine at Publix.

As they stored consuming, per Boone, additionally they labored on a puzzle, did some artwork and listened to music. At that time, she mentioned they have been intoxicated, earlier than he tapped her on the knee and mentioned, “You are it,” initiating a sport of cover and search. “I regarded over and I noticed him settling himself within the suitcase,” mentioned Boone, “In my head I mentioned, ‘Oh man, we’re clearly not going to be going to sleep anytime quickly.'”

“He was attempting to get himself flat so I could not inform he was there,” she continued. “I zipped him up, we thought it was humorous and have been joking about how he was sufficiently small to suit inside the suitcase.”

Boone mentioned she moved the suitcase round whereas he was in it, as the 2 continued to chortle, earlier than she zipped him up inside. “He thought it was humorous,” she mentioned, claiming they stored laughing as she did so, earlier than she grabbed her cellphone to file “for him to know that proper now I really feel protected and proper now I’ve the flexibility to really communicate to you in a way that usually I’d not have the flexibility to do.”

She acknowledged she knew he couldn’t get out on the time … but additionally mentioned she did not bear in mind even making the video the subsequent morning.  She admitted she was indignant and needed him to really feel some “uncomfort.” Per Boone, “his tone modified” the longer he was within the suitcase and so they started arguing, claiming “the issues that [Torres] was saying very a lot frightened me and cursing at me and threatening me.”

“It obtained very heated in a short time … my concern was that he was going to interrupt out of the suitcase … his hand began to return by means of … so I shook the suitcase, attempting to get his hand to return in, shaking it, telling him, ‘Please cease doing this to me!'” she continued, saying she was “all the time” in concern and believed he “in all probability would have made me unrecognizable or I’d have misplaced my life.”

Boone then admitted to grabbing a baseball bat and “was attempting to poke his hand to return in,” saying she “hit his hand” with the bat, inflicting bruising. When his hand would not retract, she stored poking across the suitcase. “So in your thoughts, did you forestall him from attacking you?” requested protection, as she mentioned, “Completely,” claiming he mentioned “he was foing to f–king finish me.”

Boone mentioned his hand lastly went again in and that is when she turned the suitcase upright. She testified she believed he might breathe contained in the suitcase, including she did not imagine he might die and by no means needed to kill him. Then, she went upstairs, referred to as her ex husband and “ended up going to sleep.” Boone mentioned she believed she awakened round midday the subsequent day.

“I figured Jorge was downstairs consuming or in search of jobs or could have simply left,” she mentioned, saying it was “very quiet” when she went downstairs and he or she started to search for him. “I noticed the suitcase and remembered in regards to the evening prior and I unzipped the suitcase …. I do not suppose I’ve skilled something like that earlier than. I used to be aghast and simply cannot describe the sensation of terror, to a sure diploma.”

“And he was nonetheless in there,” she recalled, saying she then unzipped the suitcase totally and started screaming his identify and attempting to do CRP whereas checking for a pulse. “He was purple,” she mentioned, telling the court docket she referred to as her ex, instructed him she thought Torres was useless and requested him to return over.

She additionally denied placing Torres within the suitcase herself, earlier than pushing it down the steps.

“Jorge was very passionate, Jorge was good to me, on the nice days. Jorge complimented me. Jorge and I have been two our bodies with one soul, he and I’d all the time say,” she mentioned of the sufferer, who she additionally claimed had good and “unhealthy” traits.

A type of unhealthy traits, she mentioned, was him consuming all day … including that he would “very often” get violent together with her. Pictures have been additionally proven to the court docket of quite a few accidents she mentioned have been brought on by the sufferer, together with one event she claimed he “stabbed me within the leg [and] I nearly bled to demise.”

She detailed a number of alleged assaults and claimed he was jealous, saying he would even generally “go along with” her to the toilet. Throughout one other alleged prevalence, she claimed she hit him with a steel curtain rod within the brow, however was “not allowed to go to the hospital.” Boone mentioned he additionally threatened to make her “unrecognizable” in a single incident, accusing her of being intimate together with her ex-husband.

Pictures additionally purportedly confirmed him taking a bat to her tv throughout one alleged outburst, earlier than allegedly he handed out on the sofa, bat in hand. She additionally claimed he would threaten to go away the gate on the property open so she might discover her blind canine’s “bloated physique” in a close-by lake or run over.

She admitted she lied to police after Torres’ demise, saying she was “extraordinarily petrified of being arrested.” She added she was “all the time fearful” of Torres due to his alleged historical past of abuse, saying their relationship “wasn’t enjoyable anymore” as a result of she knew “one thing was going to occur to me, a method or one other.”

Underneath cross examination, she was requested how shortly she went upstairs after the second video through which he was calling for assist. Prosecutors questioned if she referred to as 911 to allow them to know Torres was caught in a suitcase, with Boone telling them she didn’t.

She was additionally requested once more about mendacity to police — admitting she wasn’t truthful about inflicting a few of the accidents on Torres’ physique — and mentioned there have been occasions up to now the place she went to the hospital and “inform them issues that weren’t true.”

Revisiting the evening of the alleged “cover and search” sport, Boone stepped down from the stand to exhibit how she zipped the suitcase shut. She was additionally requested if she did “something to flee the predicament you zipped him up in?”, with Boone saying “No,” earlier than prosecutors rested.

In response to her arrest affidavit, Boone instructed deputies the couple had been consuming in the course of the evening, and agreed it might be humorous if Torres climbed contained in the suitcase. She mentioned she handed out on the mattress and woke hours later to search out him unresponsive inside, earlier than calling 911.

Police discovered his physique mendacity close to the blue suitcase, noting a small laceration on his lip and bruising round his eye, Click on Orlando reported. Boone gave deputies consent to go looking her cellphone, the place they discovered two movies; they confirmed Boone laughing whereas Torres repeatedly instructed her he could not breathe, investigators mentioned.

The video in query, seen above, exhibits Boone laughing, taunting Torres Jr. and accusing him of abusing her and dishonest whereas he struggled to get out, telling her he could not breathe.

“For every part you’ve got completed to me. F–k you. F–k you. Silly,” she might be heard saying, as he tells her, “I can not f–king breathe, Sarah.”

“That is my identify, do not put on it out!” she says at one level.

Whereas being interrogated, Boone claimed she did not bear in mind making the movies and mentioned she did not imagine Torres Jr. was caught contained in the suitcase when she went upstairs.

“I did not utterly lock it. I opened it with one finger, I left sufficient in there for him to get out. And I wasn’t planning on going upstairs and going to sleep,” she instructed police. “My intention was to not depart him in there. I believed he was okay. That is how we’re with one another. No person understands our relationship.”

In a listening to final month, her latest legal professional, James Owens, instructed the choose they plan to make use of the “battered partner syndrome for the protection.”

Per CourtTV, the trial has been delayed 17 occasions, as eight of Boone’s attorneys have withdrawn from the case over her alleged habits.