Sarah Boone Trial: State Claims ‘Malicious Intent To Punish’ Her Boyfriend

Opening statements in the trial of Sarah Boone, who is accused of murdering her boyfriend by trapping him in a suitcase, began on Friday.
The 46-year-old is charged with second-degree murder in the 2020 death of her boyfriend, 42-year-old Jorge Torres Jr. She is accused of convincing her boyfriend to get inside a suitcase at a home in Florida, then zipping it shut and refusing to let him out. When she opened the suitcase the next morning, he was dead.
The jury of six, with eight alternates, was seated on Thursday after four days of jury selection.
Boone wore a black suit with a pink blouse in the courtroom.
The prosecution’s opening statement was delivered by Assistant State Attorney William Jay. During the statement, he laid out the state’s view of what happened on the night Torres was trapped inside of the suitcase.
“She did this with the malicious intent to punish him and then she went up to sleep and left him to take his final breaths on this Earth alone,” Jay said.
He also spoke about Boone’s 911 call the next day.
“What you will not hear are tears,” Jay said. “You will not hear sorrow.”
Throughout Jay’s opening statement, he made several comparisons in an attempt to simplify aspects of the trial to jurors. He compared experts that may be called to home inspectors and Carfax, and determining a medical diagnosis to following a recipe in a cookbook.
“You imagine it’s a cookbook, it gives you a recipe for a diagnosis,” Jay said.
He said the evidence will ultimately show that Boone did not kill Torres because she needed to for her own safety.
“What the evidence is going to show is that the defendant killed Mr. Torres because she decided he deserved to, not because the evidence will show an objective of a reasonable person in the circumstances needed,” Jay said.
The trial was originally set to begin on October 7, but Orange County Circuit Judge Michael S. Kraynick sent prospective jurors home and postponed the start date due to Hurricane Milton approaching the area.
Boone is being represented by James Owens, her ninth lawyer since her February 2020 arrest. Several of her lawyers resigned due to “irreconcilable differences.”
Owens mentioned Boone and Torres’ alcohol usage in his opening statement.
“Sarah Boone and Jorge Torres were down and out as you can be. Their lives centered around alcohol,” Owens said. “Both of them suffered from what used to be called alcoholism, now it’s called alcohol abuse syndrome. And so day to day, they struggled with the use of alcohol.”
He also alleged that Torres abused Boone throughout their three-year relationship.
“Jorge Torres physically abused Sarah Boone and she suffered from the effects, the psychological effects that one suffers from repeat violence from an intimate partner,” Owens said.
Before Owens came on the case, Boone was representing herself. In June, Kraynick ruled that Boone had forfeited her right to court-appointed counsel, since several of her lawyers had been public defenders.
“It has become apparent to the Court that Defendant will not permit herself to be represented by anyone,” Kraynick said in the ruling.
The court order also stated that the trial will not be delayed “for any reason, except by extraordinarily good cause and such extraordinarily good cause shall not include retention of counsel by the defendant.”
Boone was offered a plea deal by prosecutors before the trial began. The deal would have decreased her potential sentence to 15 years if she pleaded guilty to manslaughter. Boone rejected the deal, and will face a minimum sentence is 22-and-a-half years if convicted.
Owens indicated in court documents that he planned to argue that Boone suffered from battered spouse syndrome. The argument portrays the incident as an act of self-defense due to abuse. Boone originally claimed that Torres’ death was an accident.
Both Boone and Torres were previously arrested for battery against each other.
Boone was charged with battery by strangulation in July 2018, according to court records. Torres was charged with battery three times in 2019, including an incident where Boone said Torres punched her ear and the side of her head.
Boone is currently being held in Orange County Jail.
Boone allegedly suggested Torres get inside of the suitcase during a game of hide-and-seek after a night of drinking. Once Torres was inside, she allegedly mocked him and accused him of cheating on her while ignoring his pleas to be let out.
The fatal incident occurred at a home in Winter Park.
Videos on Boone’s phone show Torres repeating Boone’s name multiple times from inside the suitcase.
“I can’t f***ing breathe, seriously,” Torres said in one video.
Boone has written over a dozen letters to her attorneys and the judge from her jail cell.
The first letter Boone sent to the original judge presiding over the case, Judge Wayne C. Wooten, was dated April 20, 2022. The letter came more than two years after her arrest. In the letter, Boone talked about how she was “blindsided” by her second lawyer, Mauricio Padilla, requesting to withdraw from the case.
“Forgive me if this is the wrong approach in contacting you directly, but I wanted you to be fully aware of the magnitude of my shock and disappointment in the betrayal of Mr. Padilla as I have not in any way, by anyone been provided any explanation for the aforementioned withdrawal,” Boone wrote.
She often complained about her lawyers in the letters. She called on Wooten to intervene in the case to ensure “proper advancement, regular communication between the attorney and client, ethical treatment of client is being upheld,” among other concerns.
Owens learned of Boone’s case through a handmade flyer for a new lawyer, which she made from jail.
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