ORLANDO, Fla. – Sarah Boone, the Orlando woman sentenced last week to life in prison for the 2020 “suitcase murder” of Jorge Torres, appears intent to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court.
Boone sent a 27-page letter to Judge Michael Kraynick several days after the sentencing, a handwritten document in which she lashes out at multiple judges and attorneys, the jury, the media, Torres’ family and even Torres himself for the fact she’s behind bars.
Boone sporadically forgives these subjects while also accusing them of various things. One line — part of a list of items she claims to be forgiving Torres for, beginning with “I forgive Jorge for beating me senseless for trying to sleep because I had to go to work or my son’s field trip the next day“ — states that she forgives Torres “for destroying my reputation and integrity, for my ‘M’ for murderer scarlet letter.”
The letter starts with several pages juxtaposing Kraynick with claims of his judicial errors and “black robe disease,” accusing him of “blindness and impartiality,” “clear error and full-blown, unfair bias” and of having a personal wish that she spends the rest of her life in prison.
“For me unfortunately, and regardless of whom I had speak on my behalf, or the number of, your ignorant mind was already made up,” she wrote, still including an instance of “I forgive you” in the midst. “(...)You will never admit your many judicial errors, nor will the prosecutors theirs, and I will never admit to what you have wrongfully accused me of and judged me as. I am not a murderer. I am survivor.”
Boone rambles in the letter, appealing to “the wisdom of Kintsukuroi” as a means to ask for forgiveness, quoting the Roman politician Cicero and the Bouvier Law Dictionary to lecture the judge on his profession, accusing some of her nine attorneys throughout the case of perjury, claiming her First and Sixth amendment rights were violated and stating the prosecutors used “imaginary space adventures and fictional characters to blind and bedazzle” the jury.
I forgive the jury, truly, for being weary from this confusion and dysfunction, also from being hungry and tired and wanting to go home to their families after being away from in full capacity for 2 full weeks. I understand. (sic)
From this, and their brash, misguided, corrupted decision, I was wrongfully judged a murderer instead of a survivor. For this, all is forgiven. For this I can still survive and stand tall, having an even greater, the greatest opportunity, to finally be understood in the Supreme Court for my appeal.
I didn’t lose. God just wanted me to win in a different way. Freedom in forgiveness.
Sarah Boone's letter to Judge Michael Kraynick, Dec. 6, 2024, page 18 (excerpt)
Read the letter below.
Boone Letter by Brandon Hogan on Scribd
Get today’s headlines in minutes with Your Florida Daily: