Sarah Boone will need to take stand in trial for boyfriend's hide & seek suitcase death for crucial reason, expert warns
Andrew Hansen
Published Sep 10, 2026
A DEFENSE lawyer has warned that Sarah Boone needs to take the stand in the trial for her boyfriend's murder if she wants the jury to side with her.
Boone, now 45, was arrested in February 2020 after she allegedly zipped her boyfriend, Jorge Torres Jr., 42, inside a suitcase and did not return for hours, despite his pleas for help.
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Boone reportedly said that the two of them had been drinking the night before she called the police to report her boyfriend dead.
They thought it would be funny if Torres got into the suitcase during a game of hide and seek, according to the arrest affidavit.
Boone went upstairs after zipping Torres in the suitcase and fell asleep. The next morning she found him unresponsive in the luggage.
The Florida woman will face trial in July for second-degree murder, where her attorney reportedly plans to use a battered spouse defense.
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This defense has been used by domestic violence victims who believed their only way of escaping life-threatening abuse was to kill their partner.
Mark NeJame, a defense lawyer from NeJame Law who has no affiliation with Boone's case, exclusively told The U.S. Sun that if Boone's attorney was to argue battered spouse syndrome, Boone would have to gain sympathy from the jury.
NeJame said that Boone will "have to be able to show that she was a victim of this ongoing cycle of violence."
He added that Boone will need to testify in order to prove that she was a victim of domestic violence and that she felt there was no other way out.
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“Since there are not any third-party witnesses to really tell that story, it's gonna rely on her," NeJame said.
The defense lawyer added: “If she has any other people that would be actual eyewitnesses ... to the actual acts of violence, you should have those on a witness list.”
“If there's anybody that saw the after-effects of black eyes, bruising," that could be helpful to "build a case so that there's a measure of sympathy," NeJame said.
However, "if she presents herself as other than sympathetic then it's entirely possible that that makes that defense all the more difficult," according to NeJame.
Video evidence found on Boone's phone, which reportedly showed Torres crying out for help saying he could not breathe, may work against her in a self-defense argument at trial.
Boone could reportedly be heard laughing in the footage, saying things like: “That’s what you do when you choke me."
"There’s no question that hurts" Boone's case, NeJame said referring to the video.
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