Woman accused of zipping boyfriend up in suitcase and leaving him to suffocate found guilty of murder

A Florida woman accused of locking boyfriend in suitcase and leaving him there to suffocate was found guilty of murder on Friday, four years after what she initially described to authorities as a drunken hide-and-seek case gone wrong.

Sarah Boone was convicted by an Orange County jury of second-degree murder in the February 2020 death of Jorge Torres Jr., court records show.

Torres was found dead in their Winter Park apartment after Boone said he zipped him up in a suitcase during a game of hide-and-seek, the Orange County Sheriff’s Office said in a report from that time. Boone said he thought it was funny and that the two may have been drinking.

She said she went upstairs and passed out, and when she woke up, she realized Torres was still in the suitcase. When he opened it, Torres didn’t answer.

Boone testified at her trialtelling the court the two had been drinking outside their apartment, and when he went inside he assumed they were going to sleep, but Torres had allegedly settled into a large suitcase.

“In my mind, I was like, ‘Oh man, we’re obviously not going to sleep anytime soon.’ And I went and he tried to pay himself so I didn’t realize he was there,” she said.

Boone told the court: “I kind of hung it up, thought it was funny and joked about it being small enough to fit in the suitcase.”

She said she “moved it around a little bit” while Torres was still in the suitcase.

“We were joking and laughing about it,” she said.

Boone said at some point the suitcase fell and she decided she would talk to him about his alleged abusive behavior. She also took out her cellphone and started recording video, she told the court.

In the video clips, Boone allegedly taunted Torres as he pleaded for help, NBC affiliate WESH of Daytona Beach reported. In the clips he could be heard telling her that this was “For everything you’ve done to me”.

When Torres said he couldn’t breathe, Boone said, “That’s on you. Oh, that’s how it feels when you choke me,” the news station reported.

Boone testified that Torres’ “tone” changed while he was in the suitcase and the two began arguing.

“The things he was saying scared me a lot, cursing and threatening me,” she told the court. “He warmed up very quickly.”

Boone said Torres started pushing the suitcase and she was afraid it would fall out. After he managed to get a hand out of the suitcase, she hit his hand with a baseball bat until he put it back inside.

She told the court she went upstairs and fell asleep. When he woke up, he assumed Torres had left the apartment and then “saw the suitcase and remembered about the night before.”

The state said Boone was not in imminent danger when he refused to unzip the suitcase, according to WESH. Prosecutors said Boone killed her boyfriend because she felt he deserved to die because of his past actions.

She is due to be sentenced on December 2.

This story originally appeared on NBCNews.com.