ORLANDO, Fla. — Sarah Boone took the stand during her murder trial Tuesday and said she kept her abusive boyfriend trapped in a suitcase out of fear for her life — making a convincing enough case that the judge ruled she can continue to claim hers were the actions of a battered spouse.

On the witness stand in an Orlando courtroom, Boone, dressed in a black jacket and blue blouse, testified she didn’t mean for boyfriend Jorge Torres Jr. to die, believing he was lying when he said he couldn’t breathe inside the zipped suitcase.

For nearly an hour, she spoke about the highly-charged interaction on that February day in 2020 between her and Torres, part of which she recorded using her cellphone.

Boone said she was terrified of him possibly escaping, recalling he threatened to “f***ing end me.” At one point, she noticed his hands slipping out of the suitcase, so she tried jabbing it away with a baseball bat.

“Were you in fear?” asked her lawyer James Owens. “Always,” Boone replied, calling the move a “split-second decision.” “Like he used to tell me, he would have made me unrecognizable or I would have lost my life.”

Prosecutors and defense attorneys have argued over whether to allow past instances of abuse during trial.

“If she let him out of the suitcase, she was going to be harmed,” Owens told Circuit Judge Michael Kraynick after the jury was sent out of the courtroom. It was “based on him trying to get out with his hand, based on the threats he made while he was trying to get out and based on the threats he made as she was trying to get upstairs.”

Kraynick agreed, saying Boone’s testimony was sufficient to allow her to argue she suffered from Battered Spouse Syndrome, which affected her decision-making and may have made her perceive threats and take actions differently that a fully rational person would have.

During her testimony, Boone said that on Feb. 24, 2020, the date Torres died, the two of them spent what was otherwise a normal day together. She said they tidied up the house together, made a trip to Publix to buy a bottle of wine and spent most of the afternoon drinking and smoking.

That evening, they worked on a puzzle, doodled, danced and drank some more. Then, after hiding in the shower while playing tag, Boone said she found Torres — standing at 5 feet, 3 inches and weighing about 100 pounds — wiggling his way into a suitcase.

Boone said the two laughed about it, but she suddenly realized he was struggling to get out and began recording it.

“I wanted him to understand that right now I feel safe, and right now I have the ability to speak to you in a way that I normally wouldn’t have the ability to do,” Boone said.

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