Woman who left boyfriend to suffocate inside zipped up suitcase guilty of murder
A woman who left her boyfriend to die in a zipped up suitcase has been found guilty of murder.
Sarah Boone was first arrested four years ago following the death of Jorge Torres in Winter Park, Florida.
On Friday, the jury delivered its verdict and previously Boone had pleaded not guilty to the murder.
She initially told detectives she and Torres were playing hide-and-seek on February 23, 2020, in their home when they thought it would be funny for Torres to get into the suitcase.
They had been drinking and she decided to go to sleep, thinking her boyfriend could get out of the suitcase on his own.
When she woke up the next morning, she didn’t find Torres but then remembered he was in the suitcase.
She unzipped the suitcase and found him unresponsive.
Boone was charged with murder after they found videos on her phone showing Torres yelling from inside the suitcase.
He was yelling that he couldn’t breathe and repeatedly called out Boone’s name.
She testified that past violent incidents between her and Torres caused her to perceive a threat of imminent harm.
She said she acted in self-defence by keeping him in the suitcase.
‘Yeah that’s what you do when you choke me,’ Boone said in one of the videos.
‘Oh, that’s what I feel like when you cheat on me.’
An autopsy report said Torres had scratches on his back and neck and contusions to his shoulder, skull and forehead from blunt force trauma, as well as a cut near his busted lip.
Boone had gone through several attorneys since her arrest, contributing to the delay in her trial, which lasted 10 days.
She will be sentenced on December 2 and faces up to life in prison.
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