The disturbing phone call Sarah Boone made 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, faces a second-degree murder charge after her boyfriend, Jorge Torres, 42, died after being locked inside a suitcase.
In Boone’s chilling 911 call to police, the court heard Boone emotionlessly recount what had happened.
When asked the nature of her emergency, Boone calmly said, “My boyfriend is dead.”
Boone, 47, faces a second-degree murder charge after her boyfriend, Jorge Torres, 42, died after being stuffed inside a suitcase.
Jorge Torres, 42, was found dead inside a suitcase. Boone said in the 911 call that he was “stiff and purple”
Boone’s chilling 911 call allowed the court to hear her emotionlessly tell the operator that she had found Torres dead.
“Then I fell asleep and I 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 coming out of his mouth.
“It’s stiff and purple,” he exclaimed to the operator, frequently reiterating the same description throughout the phone call.
The operator then spoke to Boone about CPR.
He counted out loud and continually said that he had already tried CPR and protested, 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 had testified that the couple had been playing drunken hide-and-seek and Torres voluntarily climbed into the suitcase, before zipping it up and going to sleep.
Torres was later found dead, which was later determined to be a result of positional asphyxiation.
On Tuesday, Boone testified: “I looked over and saw him settling into the suitcase. I zipped it up. We thought it was funny and joked that it was small enough to fit inside the suitcase.’
Boone also claimed that Torres abused her and took the opportunity while she was in the suitcase to talk to him about it since she “couldn’t get out.”
Boone had said he found Torres with blood coming out of his mouth and that he was “stiff and purple.”
The operator taught Boone how to do CPR, but he protested for much of it and asked them to “hurry up.”
He had also taken two videos of Torres in the suitcase; Footage showed him writhing as he told her: “I can’t breathe.”
Boone can be heard laughing and saying, “Yeah, that’s what you do when you choke me… Oh, this is what I feel like when you cheat on me… For everything you’ve done to me, fuck you.” idiot.’
She told the court: “His hand started coming out so I shook the suitcase to try and get it back in. I told him to please stop doing this to me.”
Torres could be heard telling Boone that he couldn’t breathe, while Boone laughed and said, ‘that’s what you do when you choke me.’
Boone said that Torres had been trying to escape by force and that he was angry with her, expressing that she “was always afraid.”
“He used to tell me that he would make me unrecognizable, or I would have lost my life,” he added before telling the court that he used a baseball bat to reach into her and hit her.
“I started with his hand and he was still trying to get out, so I started pushing the suitcase hoping his hand would retract and go back in,” she added. “Finally, he calmed down and retracted his hand.”
Boone had said her “split-second decision” saved her from being attacked by Torres.
It was then that he went to sleep upstairs and when he woke up the next day he discovered that his body was still inside the suitcase. She had said she feared she would have been attacked if she had let him out.
“I don’t think I’ve ever experienced anything like it before. I was horrified and I can’t describe the feeling of terror. It was purple,” he told the court.
Prosecutors have argued that Boone now showed respect for Torres’ life, and her lawyers have claimed that she was a victim of battered spouse syndrome.
Boone described her boyfriend’s hand coming out of the suitcase and how he used a baseball bat to make his hand retract.
Boone was arrested in 2018 on a battery charge for strangling her boyfriend, and Torres was charged with battery for an alcohol-fueled altercation inside her home.
A former neighbor testified that she saw marks on Boone’s arm or neck, and in the conversation, Boone talked about his abuse, she reported. Orlando News 6.
During questioning, she said she wanted him to know how she felt living with his alleged abuse.
In response to a detective who noted that she refused to release him while he “begged her to let him out,” he said, “It wasn’t intentional.” I will put my hand on the Bible. “It wasn’t intentional.”
Boone has represented herself for much of her time on the court and is currently its ninth attorney after eight others were removed or resigned.
She also boldly requested to have professional hair and makeup for her murder trial, which was denied.
Boone testified that he left Torres in the suitcase and went to sleep upstairs after videotaping him hitting himself and yelling at him that he couldn’t breathe.
Both Boone and Torres have had a history of violence. Boone was arrested in 2018 on a battery charge for strangling her boyfriend, and Torres was charged with battery for an alcohol-fueled altercation inside her home.
According to the affidavit, Torres told an officer that Boone put his hands around his neck trying to strangle him after an argument, which led him to kick her.
Then, a year later, Torres was arrested twice in two months on charges of assault and date violence.
It was revealed that Torres is the father of three children, his girlfriend has a son from a previous marriage.