ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. – Opening statements were presented and testimony began Friday in the murder trial of Sarah Boone, an Orlando woman accused of letting her boyfriend die in a zipped-up suitcase.
Boone, 47, was arrested in 2020 following the death of 42-year-old Jorge Torres Jr., her boyfriend, that February at a Winter Park apartment.
Boone, who faces a charge of second-degree murder, is accused of leaving Torres to die of asphyxiation in a zipped suitcase for up to 11 hours as he called out for her. She has pleaded not guilty.
Orange County Circuit Judge Michael S. Kraynick on Thursday swore in a jury of six, with eight alternates.
The jury heard opening statements Friday morning, with the state claiming that Boone murdered her boyfriend, while the defense said it was self-defense.
The prosecution’s opening statement was delivered by Assistant State Attorney William Jay, who said, “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.”
He also spoke about Boone’s 911 call the next day.
“What you will not hear are tears. ... You will not hear sorrow,” Jay said.
Boone told detectives after Torres’ death that the two were playing a drunken game of hide-and seek when she fell asleep and later found his body. Investigators found that she recorded videos on her phone and Torres could be heard saying that he could not breathe.
Prosecutors said Boone showed no regard for Torres’ life, but her attorneys claimed that she was the victim of battered spouse syndrome and locked Torres in the suitcase because of prior abuse.
The state said Boone never mentioned self-defense when first questioned by authorities.
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Boone is represented by James Owens, her ninth attorney.
Earlier this month, records show a judge denied the defense’s request in September to exclude certain evidence, specifically recorded statements that Boone made while being interviewed at the Orange County Sheriff’s Office in 2020. In that request, the defense apparently wished to argue that Boone felt tricked by a detective who had responded to her initial 911 call.
Boone’s attorney had also requested in September to rely on “battered spouse syndrome” for the defense, claiming it was “a result of the physical and psychological abuse the defendant sustained at the hands of the alleged victim” and including the names and addresses of at least six witnesses, one of them a doctor.
A judge on Sept. 20 denied the state’s request to prevent Boone from using battered spouse syndrome in her defense and opening statements and granted a motion for Boone to submit to an examination by an expert of the state’s choosing, referencing Dillbeck v. State (Fla. 1994).
ClickOrlando.com will stream the trial live at the top of this story.
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