Convicted suitcase killer Sarah Boone was sentenced to life in prison Monday.
In October, Boone, 46, was convicted in the second-degree murder of Jorge Torres Jr., 42, during an alleged game of hide-and-seek at her Winter Park, Florida apartment in 2020, authorities said.
Boone kept Torres trapped in a zippered suitcase.
"I don't hate her for what she did," Torres' mother told the court while delivering her victim impact statement during Monday's sentencing hearing. "She not only killed my son, she killed a father, brother, an uncle."
Boone also took the stand to deliver a final statement.
"I forgive George [Torres] for beating me senseless for trying to sleep because I had to go to work or my son's field trip the next day," she said in part, "for breaking or removing the locks from all of the doors and sometimes the knobs altogether so I had nowhere to feel safe, including the sacred space of my son's room where he beat me bloody on his bed."
"I also forgive the Torres family, his mother and father foremost also his two ex wives and daughters all for knowing who George was capable of and has done in the past, his history of violence, and where he learned it been to keep turning a blind eye when I would ask for help," said Boone. "In the end, I forgive myself for not choosing my life sooner, for not being more brave, vigilant, bolder and outspoken."
"I forgive myself for falling in love with a monster, and no matter how grotesque he may have become, I still loved him, hoped and forgave. I tried breaking the spell so he wouldn't be a monster anymore. I saw who he was inside."
"I think of him every day and still speak to him when alone on the backyard, I ask his forgiveness and that he looks for me at the gates of heaven so I can tell him how sorry I am endlessly, and that I never stopped loving him in all of it."
"I am a survivor," she added.
Last month, Boone confessed she "zipped him up" in the suitcase he was found dead, according to Newsweek. "We thought it was funny, and we're joking about how he was small enough to fit inside of the suitcase."
When she noticed Torres' hand coming out of the suitcase, she admitted she struck it with a baseball bat.
Boone recorded herself teasing her boyfriend when he begged her to unzip the suitcase because he claimed he could not breathe.
He was found dead the next morning, according to investigators.
"Jorge Torres was murdered in this box," prosecutor Dave Cacciatore said during closing arguments, while the defense claimed Boone's actions were a justifiable use of force and that she suffered from battered spouse syndrome, as reported by WKMG-TV.
During the trial, the prosecution hinted toward a history of abuse perpetrated by Boone by unveiling police body cam footage from a call placed sometime before Torres' death, during which he claimed Boone often "snaps out of nowhere."
"She hits me, and I'm the one who gets locked up," Torres told the responding officer, WOFL previously reported.
