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Boyfriend suffocated in suitcase: Woman sentenced to murder

Sarah Boone had to stand trial for letting her boyfriend suffocate in this blue suitcase.

(Bild: Krone KREATIV/APA/AP)

The gruesome case made headlines around the world four years ago. Sarah Boone had locked her boyfriend Jorge Torres Jr. in a suitcase. The woman from Florida then used her cell phone to record the 42-year-old begging for his life - before he suffocated in agony. A jury in Orlando now only needed 90 minutes to find the defendant guilty of murder.

Her own video recordings, which the prosecutor played to the jury, proved to be Boone's undoing. At first, only a medium-sized blue suitcase can be seen moving. Then a male voice can be heard. It is Torres, who implores his girlfriend in a still very calm tone of voice to let him out: "Sarah, I can't breathe."

Victim: "I can't breathe!"
Then Boone's voice is heard from behind the camera: "That's for everything you've done to me." To then add after a spiteful laugh, "Fuck you. Stupid!" Torres continues to try to get her to unzip her pants in an imploring tone, "Sarah, Sarah, I can't breathe! Babe!" She replies with contempt: "It's your fault. This is how I feel when you cheat on me."

In this segment, prosecutor William Jay explains how the victim fit into the medium-sized suitcase:

Toward the end, Torres' voice sounds increasingly desperate and gets louder: "Sarah please, I'm begging you!" But she only replied with a "Shh" and then left the room for several hours while Torres suffocated. It wasn't until the next morning that Boone called 911 - the ambulance service could only determine that the man had died.

Accused had high wear and tear with lawyers
Boone was charged with murder, but the trial has been postponed a total of 17 times (!) since 2021. The reason: Eight defense attorneys had resigned after being insulted or fired by Boone as "idiots" or "intellectually inferior" during hearings.

Boone spoke of drunken hide-and-seek
When the trial finally began in mid-October, Boone insisted on taking the stand herself. The 35-year-old claimed that she and her lover had decided to play hide-and-seek "while drunk" on the night of February 23, 2020. According to her statement, Torres had placed herself in the suitcase and pulled the zipper closed except for a gap. During cross-examination, the prosecution confronted her with the fact that Torres had tried to open the zipper again later - and that the defendant had forcibly prevented him from doing so.

Boone also had to demonstrate in court how she had locked her boyfriend in the suitcase: 

Victim's hand maltreated with baseball bat
Boone was confronted with autopsy photos showing the victim's hand swollen blue. She confessed to repeatedly hitting her boyfriend's hand with a baseball bat so that he would not open the zipper. Her reason: "He threatened me and scared me. That's why I turned the suitcase over so he couldn't get out. But I never wanted to kill him."

Boone rejected a deal for "only" 15 years in prison
The jury didn't buy that. Boone accepted her guilty verdict with a petrified expression. The sentence is to be announced on December 2 - she could spend the rest of her life behind bars. Shortly before the trial began, Boone had rejected the prosecutor's offer to plead guilty to manslaughter. She would have received "only" 15 years in prison for this.

Prosecutor Andrew Bain told Fox35 TV after the verdict was announced that justice had been served: "It was a terrible murder. No human being should ever have to go through such a fight for their life and end up dying alone in such agony."