Woman accused in suitcase killing asks Orange judge to nix statements it was accidental

The lawyer for Sarah Boone, accused of leaving boyfriend Jorge Torres Jr. to suffocate in a suitcase, is asking a judge to suppress her statements to Orange County detectives that the death was an accident.

Core to the argument, according to the five-page motion filed Tuesday, is that detectives left out the final question after telling her about her Miranda rights to remain silent during interviews with Boone: “Having these rights in mind, do you wish to talk to us now?”

The filing attached a copy of what appears to be a card detailing the Sheriff’s Office’s standard reading of a suspect’s rights, which includes the question, that a detective read off of when interrogating Boone the day of her arrest.

Because detectives didn’t ask that final question, Boone’s lawyer James Owens concluded, the entire two-hour interrogation is inadmissible.

“Based on all the circumstances surrounding this interrogation, the defendant’s statement was coerced and not freely and voluntarily given. The defendant did not freely and knowingly waive her rights under Miranda,” Owens wrote.

The motion is the latest development ahead of Boone’s murder trial in the 2020 killing, which has taken four years to bring before a jury as Boone, 46, has gone through eight attorneys. Each has quit the case, leading a judge in July to force her to represent herself.

Owens agreed to take the case weeks before trial, with jury selection set to begin Oct. 7. As Boone’s lawyer, he filed a series of motions in her defense, including one which would allow him to claim she suffered from “battered spouse syndrome,” leading her to let Torres die after he was trapped in the suitcase.

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Boone told investigators Torres locked himself in the suitcase while the two drank and played hide-and-seek. But a search of her phone yielded a video Boone took taunting Torres — with whom she had a tumultuous, and at times violent, relationship — that he deserved it as he begged her to let him out.

Boone later went to bed with Torres still inside the suitcase — finding him dead the next day.

“I can’t [expletive] breathe. Seriously,” Torres pleaded according to the video. She replied, “Yeah, that’s what you do when you choke me.”

Prosecutors unsuccessfully pushed back on Boone’s upcoming defense, arguing there’s been no evidence she was acting in self-defense. Rather, citing in their motion her statements to detectives, it was “an accident.”

They further argued there’s no evidence Boone doesn’t meet criteria to be diagnosed with battered spouse syndrome, as her violent relationship with Torres “no more describes the criteria for Battered Spouse Syndrome than a mental illness describes insanity” under legal rules.

Though Circuit Judge Michael Kraynick allowed the defense’s strategy — one that was successfully used earlier this year — he also allowed prosecutors to submit Boone to an examination by an expert of their choosing.