Disturbing call Sarah Boone made to 911 played in court as she faces trial over boyfriend’s suitcase death
Sarah Boone’s disturbing call to 911 was played in court as she stands trial for the murder of her boyfriend, who was found dead in a suitcase.
Boone, 47, of Winter Park, Florida, is charged with manslaughter after her boyfriend, 42-year-old Jorge Torres, died from being zipped into a suitcase.
During Boone’s chilling 911 call to police, the court heard Boone tell an emotionless story about what happened.
When asked about the nature of her emergency, Boone calmly said, “My friend is dead.”
Boone, 47, is charged with manslaughter after her boyfriend, 42-year-old Jorge Torres, died from being zipped into a suitcase
Jorge Torres, 42, was found dead in a suitcase. Boone said in the 911 call that he was “stiff and purple.”
Boone’s chilling 911 had the court hear her emotionlessly telling the operator that she had found Torres dead
“So I fell asleep and woke up and he was dead in the suitcase, so I don’t know what happened,” she added.
Boone later said Torres was purple and had blood pouring from his mouth.
“It’s stiff and it’s purple,” she exclaimed to the operator, repeating the same description frequently during the phone call.
The operator then administered CPR to Boone.
She counted out loud and kept saying that she had already tried to perform CPR, protesting and asking them to ‘hurry up’.
Boone can later be heard asking in a more distressed tone “what happened” before emergency services arrived on the scene.
She testified that the pair had played a drunken game of hide-and-seek and Torres willingly got into the suitcase before zipping it up and going to sleep.
Torres was subsequently found dead, which was later determined to be due to positional asphyxia.
On Tuesday, Boone testified, “I looked over and saw him in the trunk. I zipped it up. We thought it was funny and joked about the fact that it was small enough to fit in the suitcase.”
Boone also claimed that Torres was abusing her and took the opportunity while in the trunk to talk to him about it since he “couldn’t get out of it.”
Boone had said she found Torres with blood coming from his mouth and that he was “stiff and purple.”
Boone was coached through CPR by the operator, but protested much of it and asked them to ‘hurry up’
She had also taken two videos of Torres in the suitcase; The footage showed him thrashing around as he told her: “I can’t fucking breathe.”
Boone can be heard laughing and saying, ‘Yes, that’s what you do when you strangle me… Oh, this is what I feel when you cheat on me… For everything you’ve done to me, f*** you stupid .’
She told the court: ‘His hand started to come through, so I shook the suitcase to try to get his hand back in. I told him don’t do this to me again.’
Torres could be heard telling Boone he couldn’t breathe, as Boone laughed and said, “that’s what you do when you strangle me.”
Boone said Torres had tried to escape by force and that he was angry with her, saying she was “always in fear.”
“He always told me he would make me unrecognizable or I would have lost my life,” she added, before telling the court she used a baseball bat to put his hand back in and hit his hand.
“I started with his hand and he was still trying to get out, so I started pushing on the suitcase hoping his hand would pull out and go back in,” she added. ‘Finally he collapsed and withdrew his hand.’
Boone had said her “split-second decision” saved her from an attack by Torres.
Then she went to sleep upstairs and woke up the next day to find his body still in the suitcase. She had said she feared she would be attacked if she released him.
‘I don’t think I’ve experienced anything like this before. I was stunned and simply cannot describe the feeling of fear. It was purple,” she told the court.
Prosecutors have argued that Boone now showed respect for Torres’ life, and her attorneys have argued that she was a victim of battered wife syndrome.
Boone described her boyfriend’s hand coming out of the suitcase, and how she used a baseball bat to pull his hand back
Boone was arrested in 2018 on a battery charge for the strangulation of her boyfriend, and Torres was charged with battery stemming from an alcohol-fueled altercation in their home
A former neighbor testified that she saw marks on Boone’s arm or neck, and in conversation Boone would discuss her abuse, reported Orlando news 6.
Under cross-examination, she said she wanted him to know how she felt living with his alleged abuse.
In response to a detective pointing out that she refused to release him when he was “begging for you to release him,” she said, “It wasn’t intentional. I’ll put my hand on the Bible. It wasn’t intentional.’
Boone has represented herself in court for most of her time and is currently on her ninth attorney after eight others were fired or resigned.
She also boldly requested professional hair and makeup for her murder trial, which was turned down.
Boone testified that she left Torres in the suitcase and went to sleep upstairs after filming him throwing around and yelling at her that he couldn’t breathe.
Both Boone and Torres have a history of violence. Boone was arrested in 2018 on a battery charge for the strangulation of her boyfriend, and Torres was charged with battery stemming from an alcohol-fueled altercation in their home.
According to the affidavit, Torres told a deputy that Boone put her hands around his neck in an attempt to strangle him after an argument, prompting him to kick her.
A year later, Torres was arrested twice in two months on charges of dating violence.
Torres turned out to be the father of three children, his girlfriend has a son from a previous marriage.