A 47-year-old American woman, Sarah Boone, was sentenced this Monday, December 2, to a life sentence by a court in Florida (United States) for the murder of her boyfriend, whom she had locked in a suitcase until 'until he died of asphyxiation, reports CNN.
Many family members of the victim, Jorge Torres Jr, were present to witness the sentencing, almost two months after the verdict which established the guilt of the accused. “She not only killed my son, she killed a father, a brother, an uncle,” denounced Blanca Torres, mother of the 42-year-old man.
She didn't call for help until the next day.
The events took place on February 23, 2020. Sarah Boone explained that the couple had drunk alcohol and were playing hide and seek, details a press release from the Orange County prosecutor. She claimed that Jorge Torres Jr had placed himself in the suitcase voluntarily, because he found it “funny” to try this experiment as part of their game.
The forty-year-old then locked the man up, then shot a video in which she was seen taunting him, while he asked to go out. She would have said to him in particular that: “This is what you deserve” or even “This is how I feel when you cheat on me”. She then left him overnight in the bag, where he ended up suffocating from the lack of oxygen.
Without realizing her partner's state, Sarah Boone had gone to sleep. It was only the next morning that she called for help when she found the man's lifeless body in the suitcase. After initially telling investigators that she did not think he was stuck in the suitcase, she ended up admitting her actions by putting it down to alcohol.
The accused denounces acts of domestic violence
During her trial, Sarah Boone denied having wanted to kill Jorge Torres, but claimed that he was violent towards her and that she suffered from “battered woman syndrome”. At her sentencing hearing, she said he “kicked, punched, raped, stabbed and choked” her during their relationship.
She also clarified that she thought he would be able to get out of the suitcase on his own because two of his fingers were sticking out. However, the videos taken on the evening of the incident and broadcast at the trial prove that the man was trying to get out and insistently asking her to release him because he could not breathe.
One of his daughters, Ana Victoria Torres, said the death of her “incredible father” had plunged her into a deep depression. In the year following his death, she would wake up “screaming every morning and night, thinking she was having a nightmare, only to remember again that my father is no longer here,” she said. she declared.
