It started with a frantic 911 call from a distressed woman claiming her boyfriend had got into a suitcase but had subsequently suffocated. This lady is Sarah Boone and right off the bat she starts her defense stating on the phone that they were playing.
When police arrived on the scene they found Sarah in a panicked state outside the house. Inside the house was a little more shocking as they found Jorge Torres Junior (Sarah’s boyfriend) lying inside having suffocated to death. Immediately on the scene Sarah began describing what had happened the night before. Her description seemed innocent with her claiming that they were playing ‘hide and seek’ therefore her boyfriend got into a large suitcase. This still doesn’t tell us how he ended up dead but it gives us a good first impression of Sarah.
She then goes on to describe how she zipped him up in there as a ‘joke’. She then explains how she fell asleep and forgot to unlock him from the suitcase. Given she was heavily intoxicated at the time this could be true however so damning evidence comes out later to dash these claims.
Sarah is then asked to come back to the station a full 12 hours later to have an interview given she is not yet under arrest. This is interesting as she is given time to prepare her story and she even has a list of questions for detectives, which we will talk about later…
Right away the detectives waste no time in detailing the injuries that Jorge sustained, throwing doubt upon Sarah’s story straight away. It seems difficult to believe that this was a complete accident when the long list of injuries is read out. Sarah adimentally denies causing the injuries and states they cannot have been sustained that night, the autopsy tells a different story…
We then move onto the finer details of the relationship such as the fact police had been called to the home on multiple occasions due to Jorge abusing Sarah. Just one month before the murder police were called because Jorge had beaten her with a curtain rod. Obviously this is a very serious situation however as with lots of domestic abuse charges they were dropped by Sarah and she forgave Jorge for the incident. Below is Sarah talking about how she coped with the abuse.
Despite this Sarah did emphasize that Jorge had been trying to better himself in recent weeks and also stating ‘I really love him.’ Moving forward she then describes how they had had a good evening by doing puzzles and painting before hide and seek was suggested. However detectives are not buying the story and decide to confront her with some damning evidence. Sarah had made 2 video just 11 minutes apart of Jorge in the suitcase while he screamed and begged for help. Sarah, clearly intoxicated, berated him with abuse saying ‘this is for everything you’ve done to me’ and ‘this is what it feels like when you are choking me.’
Instantly Sarah claims to not remember making those, although this is not surprising given the level of intoxication. Sarah then states that it was not her ‘intention’ to leave him in there but fell asleep before she could let him out. This theory is not becoming rather weak given the two videos detectives have just shown her however she sticks to the story valiantly.
She then continues to justify her choices by stating it was ‘its the boy calling wolf’ and how she never meant to go to sleep. Given all these ‘reasons’ Sarah still thinks this is enough to justify her actions and that she will be heading home. This next clip is quite interesting as Sarah begins to read from her list of questions, first asking whether she will get her phone back. This again speaks to the fact she thinks she is going home after this.
The detectives then feel they have gained everything they need from the interview and place Sarah under arrest. She seems to be in disbelief that this is happening, unable to comprehend what is happening. She continually asks ‘why is this happening?’
Overall this is a very interesting case as we won’t fully know Sarah’s intentions or whether she really did it out of revenge. Despite this it is clear Sarah’s actions lead to the death of Jorge. I believe it is also important to mention that domestic abuse was a serious factor in this case and had it stopped this murder could have been prevented. Unfortunately not enough is done to protect domestic abuse victims and this can have tragic impacts such as this. Obviously this doesn’t justify murder but this death was avoidable. Her trial for second-degree murder will take place on October 2nd 2023 having originally been scheduled to take place in July.
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