ORLANDO, Fla. (Court TV) — A woman convicted of killing her boyfriend by zipping him into a suitcase has sent another letter to the court demanding help after her attorney refused to file further documents on her behalf.
Sarah Boone is sworn in during her trial for killing her boyfriend at the Orange County Courthouse in Orlando, Fla., on Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024. (POOL/Willie J. Allen Jr./Orlando Sentinel)
Sarah Boone, 48, is currently serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole after a jury found her guilty of murder in the death of her boyfriend, Jorge Torres Jr. The couple had been playing a game of hide-and-seek while drinking in February 2020 when the victim decided to hide in a suitcase. Prosecutors said that Boone zipped Torres into the bag so he couldn’t get out and then beat him with a baseball bat when he pleaded for release.
Boone went through nine attorneys before standing trial in 2024; in the months after, three more attorneys withdrew from her case, despite no hearings or filings. In November 2025, the court appointed David Maldonado as Boone’s 13th attorney.
Despite a court warning to stop sending mail directly to the courts and to speak through her counsel, Boone sent a multipage handwritten letter asking for help because, she said, Maldonado was refusing to help her. “In my good faith efforts to abide in accordance with the order given by the DCA not to contact the courts directly, and advising me to utilize my court-appointed attorney instead, in my own advocacy, I must ignore these instructions as I do not know whom else I am to turn to in this matter,” Boone wrote in her latest letter, dated July 22, 2026.
Attached to the letter is a printed message from Maldonado to Boone, in which he explained, “I simply do not have the time or resources on this case to schedule yet another call to discuss the Brief, as the Brief is self-explanatory and I made the best arguments I could on this case in light of the circumstances.” The typed letter, dated May 21, 2026, references an appeal brief that has not appeared on the public docket.
The letter also warned Boone that Maldonado has no intention of filing a reply to any response from prosecutors. “I will not be filing any Reply Brief and also will not be scheduling any oral argument as I do not believe it is necessary in this matter (and oral arguments are generally not granted on these matters anyways from the appellate courts),” Maldonado wrote.
“My counsel predetermined no response would be filed regardless of what their response would be,” Boone wrote in her letter to the court. “His unconcerned approach heavily impedes and prejudices my appeal by restricting any new arguments, proving factual inaccuracies, legal misstatements, and my rights altogether.”
The latest order from the District Court of Appeal required any appeal to be filed by June 3, 2026.
