ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. – An ongoing murder trial in Orange County focuses on Sarah Boone, 47, who is accused of killing her boyfriend in 2020 by leaving him to asphyxiate in a zipped-up suitcase. She has pleaded not guilty.
The following is a timeline of the case, now dating back the better part of five years:
February 2020
Boone is arrested to face a charge of second-degree murder in the death of Jorge Torres Jr., 42.
According to Orange County deputies, Boone told investigators that she and Torres were drinking alcohol and playing hide-and-seek at a Winter Park apartment. She reportedly claimed to have remarked that it would have been funny if Torres climbed into the suitcase before he ultimately did so. After allegedly zipping the suitcase shut with Torres inside, Boone told deputies that she then passed out and only realized where Torres was after she woke up.
When Boone found Torres unresponsive in the suitcase, she told deputies that she called her ex-husband, who lived a few minutes away. After seeing Torres’ body, the ex-husband told Boone that she needed to call 911, records suggest.
Deputies said they found Torres’ body near the front door and a blue suitcase, noting a small laceration on his lip and bruising around his eye. Boone denied being in a physical altercation with Torres and she gave the sheriff’s office consent to allow her phone to be searched.
Two videos of note were found on her phone.
Investigators said that one of the videos shows Torres yelling at Boone and telling her he can’t breathe while Boone laughs at his yelling.
“I can’t (expletive) breathe, seriously,” Torres reportedly said in the video. Boone allegedly replied, “Yeah, that’s what you do when you choke me.”
According to the arrest affidavit, the video shows the suitcase facing downward with Torres pushing on it in an attempt to get out. The second video showed the suitcase in another position as if it had been moved, the document states.
Deputies said Boone could be heard laughing in the video and telling Torres to “shut up” as he called her name.
When she was shown the videos by investigators, Boone reportedly said she didn’t remember taking them, adding it looked “bad.”
May 2020
The Orange County Medical Examiner determined that Torres died of asphyxiation, citing the manner of his death as homicide.
Based on the medical examiner’s findings, they estimated that Torres had been in the suitcase for “up to 11 hours or more.”
A report showed that Torres had a black eye and other bruises and cuts on his head. His back and hands also had abrasions, bruises and cuts, indicating blunt impacts around the body, according to the medical examiner.
January 2023
A status hearing was continued for Boone because her attorney had allegedly recently contracted COVID-19, marking the first of what would end up being several delays in her case as a whole. Before this, the trial had been scheduled to begin on Jan. 30, 2023.
This hearing, which Boone did not appear for, was also among the first documented instances of one of Boone’s attorneys bringing up “battered spouse defense,” specifically the intent to use it at trial.
July 2023
Sarah Boone’s trial is delayed again, continued at another pretrial hearing in Orange County court.
At this point, she had also already pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder in Torres’ death.
This time though, Boone’s defense had requested the Justice Administrative Commission (JAC) pay for an expert they planned to use for Boone’s battered spouse defense, as she alleged domestic violence was an aspect of her relationship with Torres.
July 2024
After going through eight attorneys, it was determined Boone should represent herself at trial.
Patricia A. Cashman, Boone’s latest attorney at the time, was granted a motion to withdraw as her counsel several days prior. Regarding Cashman and the seven attorneys who preceded her, “irreconcilable differences” are noted as the reason for many of withdraw motions granted, with instances of Boone’s alleged “antagonism, hostility, and attacks on the professionalism” of her attorneys noted in the relevant court minutes.
Boone’s forfeiture to a court-appointed attorney was spelled out as a “judicial response that adapts the course of the legal proceedings to the defendant’s choice to engage in misconduct that undermines the legitimate exercise of the right to counsel,” with the judge stating Boone’s attorneys were largely required to withdraw due to her behavior toward them.
Examples of this behavior included Boone’s alleged attempts to contact an attorney as much as 10 times per day, being difficult to work with in that she took “nonviable legal positions,” walking out of multiple meetings, lobbing derogatory statements and at one point accusing Cashman of using a “pretend judge” to oversee them.
August 2024
Boone requested a motion of continuance to push the trial date from Oct. 7, 2024, and she retained new legal counsel with James Owens, of James Owens Attorney at Law, who court documents show had met with Boone four times at the Orange County jail between Aug. 20 and 27.
A motion had been filed earlier to dismiss the case altogether on grounds that the 6th Amendment — specifically Boone’s right to a speedy trial — had been violated, stating, “Unafective (sic) substandard state provided attorneys should have made this request long ago proving this as a fact.”
The motion to dismiss was stricken, with scans attached to the initial filing suggesting the request was mailed directly to Orange County Clerk of Courts Tiffany Moore Russell from a law firm in Bakersfield, California. Thus, the court struck the motion on the grounds it was filed by a non-party.
Boone’s three-week jury trial remained scheduled to begin Oct. 7.
September 2024
Owens, Boone’s ninth attorney in the case, speaks out for the first time to News 6.
“Sarah Boone needed a lawyer. I mean, I can’t imagine our system, the case is an aberration,” Owens said. “Sarah has been sitting in jail for a while. She’s looking for her day in court and we all want justice to be served. I’m a criminal defense lawyer. I’ve been doing it for a long time. The state has the burden of proof, they have to prove their case. I know there is some strong evidence in the case.”
Owens explained he learned about Boone’s case through social media and Court TV and, after speaking with her, he said it still took a few days to decide whether or not he wanted to take the case.
October 2024
Before the trial began, a judge denied the defense’s request 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.
The defense’s request went on to describe how Boone was later asked to retrieve her cellphone at the sheriff’s office, yet was interviewed for around two hours once she arrived. The defense accused the detective of coercing Boone, alleging that the detective had read an incomplete Miranda warning to her.
The denial was issued on Thursday. That ruling, which contained the audio transcription of that same Miranda warning, denied the motion on precedent — Miller v. State (Fla. 2010) — stating that “the Florida Supreme Court and the United States Supreme Court have ‘[s]tressed that there is not a talismanic incantation required to ensure [that Miranda] warnings are sufficiently conveyed,’” i.e. the judge deemed that the detective’s Miranda warning was sound.
Further, 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).
Come Friday, Oct. 18, opening statements were presented and testimony began in Boone’s murder trial.
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.
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.
The trial is scheduled to continue on Monday, Oct. 21, 2024.
Get today’s headlines in minutes with Your Florida Daily: