STARKE, Fla. (AP) — A Florida man convicted of killing a Miami Herald employee who was abducted on her lunch break was executed Tuesday evening.
Michael Tanzi was pronounced dead at 6:12 p.m. following a three-drug injection at Florida State Prison for the April 2000 strangling of Janet Acosta.
A production worker at the newspaper, Acosta was attacked in her van, beaten, robbed, driven to the Florida Keys and then strangled and her body left on an island.
In a final statement, his voice barely audible, Tanzi said, “I want to apologize to the family” and then recited a verse from the Bible.
As the drugs were then administered, Tanzi’s chest heaved for about three minutes, then stopped. A corrections officer shook him by the shoulders and said his name loudly twice to determine if he was still conscious. There was no response shortly before Tanzi, 48, was declared dead.
Tanzi was the third person executed in Florida this year. Another lethal injection is scheduled May 1 under death warrants signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Court records show Acosta was on a break on April 25, 2000, when she was attacked. She was reading a book in her van when Tanzi approached, asked for a cigarette, and then began punching her in the face, the records state.
“Holding her wrist and threatening her with a razor blade,” Tanzi drove to Homestead, south of Miami, where he stopped at a gas station and bound and gagged Acosta. He took $53 in cash from her, along with her bank card, prosecutors said.
They then headed to the Florida Keys town of Tavernier where, according to the records, Tanzi used Acosta’s bank card to steal money from her account. Later, they stopped at a hardware store where Tanzi bought duct tape and razor blades, the record showed.
“He drove to an isolated area in Cudjoe Key, told her he was going to kill her, and began to strangle her,” according to a summary by the state Commission on Capital Cases. “He stopped to place duct tape over her mouth, nose and eyes in an attempt to quiet her and then strangled her until she expired.”
Elsewhere, Acosta’s friends and co-workers reported her missing when she didn’t return from her break. That led police to her van, which Tanzi had driven to Key West. Police said Tanzi confessed to the crime and showed investigators where he had left Acosta’s body in a remote area on Cudjoe Key, more than 140 miles (225 kilometers) southwest of Miami.
“If I had let her go, I was gonna get caught quicker,” Tanzi told officers, according to the court record. “I didn’t want to get caught. I was having too much fun ... I told her, I says, ‘I can’t let you go. If I let you go, then I’m gonna be in a lot of trouble.’ ”
Tanzi was subsequently convicted of first-degree murder, carjacking, kidnapping and armed robbery. A jury recommended the death sentence on a 12-0 vote.
Tanzi had filed several appeals without success, including a last-day request for a stay of execution that was rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court without comment just hours before the execution.
The Florida Supreme Court also recently rejected his claim that he shouldn’t be executed because he was “morbidly obese” and had sciatica, which could cause unconstitutional levels of pain. The court ruled his appeal was not timely because his conditions had been known since 2009.
Two other executions were carried out earlier this year in Florida. Edward James, 63, received an lethal injection March 20 for killing an 8-year-old girl and her grandmother during a night of heavy drinking and drug use. James Dennis Ford, 64, was executed Feb. 13 for killing a husband and wife at a remote Florida farm in an attack witnessed by the couple’s toddler, who was left unharmed.
Eight other people have been executed around the U.S. so far in 2025: two in South Carolina, two in Texas and one each in Alabama, Arizona, Louisiana and Oklahoma. One of the South Carolina executions used a firing squad, and another firing squad execution is scheduled Friday. About a dozen other executions are already scheduled nationwide.
The nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center said Florida uses a three-drug cocktail for its lethal injection: a sedative, a paralytic and a drug that stops the heart.
On Tuesday, prison officials said, Tanzi awoke at 4:45 a.m., had a spiritual adviser as his lone visitor and received a last meal that included a pork chop, bacon, ice cream and a candy bar.
Curt Anderson, The Associated Press
