Sarah Boone trial: Judge refuses to suppress accused suitcase killer's police interview

Silas Morgan, Orlando Sentinel on Oct 4, 2024

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ORLANDO, Fla. — An Orange County judge refused to suppress accused suitcase killer Sarah Boone’s initial interview with police, in which she made statements that could undermine her planned “battered spouse” defense.

Judge Michael Kraynick’s order showed up on the court’s website this morning. The ruling, coming in the final hours before Boone’s trial starts on Monday, follows a lengthy court hearing Wednesday where Boone’s attorney James Owens and prosecutors debated whether statements Boone made to police prior to her arrest were properly gathered.

Owens, Boone’s ninth attorney, has indicated he intends to argue at trial that Boone is a victim of battered spouse syndrome who acted in self-defense by intentionally leaving her boyfriend, Jorge Torres, to die in a suitcase. Prosecutors noted that contradicts statements she made to the Orange County Sheriff’s Office the day following Torres’ death that the pair had been playing hide-and-seek when he became trapped in the suitcase and accidentally suffocated.

Owens argued Wednesday that Orange County Sheriff’s Office homicide detective Chelsey Koepsell, the lead investigator in the case, improperly read Boone her Miranda rights and coerced her statements, invalidating Boone’s initial waiver of her right to demand an attorney and making the entire two-hour interrogation inadmissible.

But Kraynick found that Boone made “a voluntary, knowing, and intelligent waiver and this waiver was the result of a free choice on the part of Defendant and was not the product of intimidation, coercion, or deception, and that the waiver was made with full awareness of the nature of the right being abandoned.”

Jury selection in the trial begins Monday.

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