USA. The 42-year-old died in a suitcase. After four years, the verdict was passed. Sarah Boone sentenced to life in prison

An Orange County Circuit Court sentenced Sarah Boone to life in prison, State's Attorney Andrew A. Bain announced in a news release. “Boone rejected the prosecutor's offer, which included a 15-year prison sentence as part of the plea agreement in exchange for a guilty plea,” NBC News reported on Tuesday.

Before the verdict was handed down, the relatives of the victim, Jorge Torres, among others, spoke out. – Not only did she kill my son, she killed my father, my brother, my uncle – said the tearful mother, Blanca Torres, about the convicted person. – Sometimes, when I look out the window, I wait for him to come and say: “Mom, I love you,” she added.

Torres' sister, Victoria Torres, said Boone “caused a lifetime of pain.” And one of his daughters, Ana Victoria Torres, said the death of her “amazing father” left her with chronic depression and anxiety. During the first year after his death, she woke up “screaming every morning or night, thinking I was having a nightmare, only to wake up and remember my father was gone,” she said.

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Sarah Boone called 911 in February 2020 saying her partner, 42-year-old Jorge Torres, was trapped in a suitcase and died while playing hide and seek in a Winter Park home. However, materials discovered during the investigation challenged Boone's version.

The now 47-year-old woman initially testified that she was drinking wine and doing a puzzle when she thought “it would be fun” to hide in a suitcase as part of a game of hide and seek. reported in February 2020 by CNNciting a statement from the Orange County Sheriff's Office. The woman locked her boyfriend in a blue suitcase. Two of his fingers were sticking out of it, so she assumed “he would be able to open it,” she later explained.

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Boone's trial began in April 2023. During the trial, the defendant testified that she had no intention of killing her boyfriend and that she acted in self-defense as a victim of the beaten woman syndrome. The woman was found guilty of murdering her partner at the end of October this year. “Evidence presented at trial included videos found on Boone's phone in which Torres could be heard desperately begging to be released while Boone laughed and repeatedly refused to help him.” reported prosecutor Andrew A. Bain in the message.

It added that in the videos recorded by Boone, “the victim could be heard telling the defendant that she couldn't breathe and asking to be let out of the suitcase.” “It's up to you. This is how I feel when you cheat on me,” the woman allegedly replied. The recording shows Torres trying to get out of the suitcase, representatives of the prosecutor's office noted.

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