A Florida woman who killed her boyfriend by putting him in a bag that was closed up called jail the best thing that had ever happened to her. She was given a life sentence today for the crime.
It was found in October that Sarah Boone, 47, of Orange County, Florida, killed her boyfriend Jorge Torres Jr. by leaving him to suffocate in a bag that was closed up. On Monday afternoon, a judge gave her a life sentence.
Victim impact statements were given by Torres’s family during her sentencing process. But first, Boone talked to Torres’s family at the meeting and told them about her claims of abuse against him. He then apologized to Torres’s family.
She said, “I’m sorry.” “Words can’t describe how ashamed I am, and I don’t know what else I can say to explain what happened to the Torres family.”
“Everyone thinks this is one of the worst things that has ever happened to me, but it’s been one of the best,” she said of being arrested and jailed.
“If somebody wasn’t beating me to death, I was going to work myself to death outside.” I also never had time to read my Bible, pray, or spend time with God. I’ve had time to get closer to God and get to know him better while I’ve been locked up.
In court, Ana Torres, Torres’s sister, spoke as a victim on behalf of herself and her brothers.
“For the first year, I screamed every morning and night, wishing I was having a nightmare, only to wake up and remember that my father is dead and I’ll never hear him say he loves me again. I also know that my siblings have been changed in such a way that they are now different,” she said.
A statement from State Attorney Andrew Bain says that Torres died in February while he and Boone were drinking and playing hide-and-seek. Bain said that Boone told the police that Torres got into the bag and then zip-locked it shut. Boone said she went upstairs and fell asleep.
Boone called 911 and said she found Torres unconscious in the bag when she woke up. Police went to her house and found him dead, lying next to her bags.
Boone told police that she didn’t think he was stuck in the bag. But Bain says that video footage that Boone recorded herself shows her making fun of and laughing at Torres as he begged to be let out because he couldn’t breathe.
“Really, I can’t f****** breathe,” Torres said in the film.
In the video, Boone said, “That’s what you get.” “That’s how I feel when you cheat on me.”
Boone told the judge that she had no plans to kill Torres in court. Boone instead said she acted in self-defense because Torres had abused her before.
Boone told a lawyer, “I wanted him to try to understand how I felt so maybe he could grow and be a better person,” when asked why she didn’t unzip the suitcase, according to WESH.
Bain said that Boone’s testimony was “contradictory by statements she made and video evidence showing her making fun of the victim.”
At the same time, Boone’s lawyer asked Dr. Julie Harper, the psychologist who had evaluated Boone, to speak during the sentencing meeting.
Boone had a bad relationship with her mother as a child, and her father died when she was in high school, Harper said. These events affected Boone’s connection with Torres.
“I think there was a serious imbalance of power because both her brother and the apartment manager said they saw her being abused, either physically abused in serious ways or showing signs of abuse…” Harper said, “Ms. Boone took care of things on her own, and when other people with healthier boundaries probably would have told her to leave, she stayed long after it would have been smart for others to do so.”
WESH reports that Boone’s new lawyer, James Owens, said she was “shocked” when the jury found her guilty. The jury thought about her case for less than two hours before finding her guilty.
Owens said, “She felt like, you know, she had a defense.” “She’s just shocked.” We agreed to talk again after she has had time to think about it and I have had time to think about it too. She said she would call me in the morning. We’re very upset.
