Michael Tanzi to be executed in Florida today for Miami woman's murder. What to know.

USA Today

08-04-2025

Michael Tanzi to be executed in Florida today for Miami woman's murder. What to know.
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Firing squad executes Brad Keith Sigmon in South Carolina
A firing squad in South Carolina executed Brad Keith Sigmon for the beating deaths of his ex-girlfriend's parents in 2001.
Michael Tanzi is scheduled to be executed in Florida on Tuesday for the 2000 murder of Janet Acosta.
Tanzi's lawyers argued against the execution, citing developmental issues and health problems.
Acosta's family remembers her as a kind and caring person who loved to travel and had a dog named Murphy Brown.
Florida is set to execute Death Row inmate Michael Tanzi on Tuesday for the murder of a beloved Miami Herald employee who was attacked on her lunch break.
Tanzi, 48, is set to be executed by lethal injection for the 2000 murder of Janet Acosta, who was 49 at the time of her murder.
If the execution moves forward, Tanzi will be the third inmate executed in Florida this year and the 11th in the U.S.
His lawyers have argued that the death penalty should not be applied to Tanzi due to his developmental issues, as well as health problems from being morbidly obese. Prosecutors say Tanzi doesn't deserve mercy and that Acosta's murder can 'only be described as horrific.'
Here's what you need to know about Tuesday's execution.
When and where is the execution?
Michael Tanzi is set to be executed at the Florida State Prison in Raiford, Florida, at 6 p.m. ET on Tuesday, April 8.
What happened to Janet Acosta?
On April 25, 2000, Tanzi attacked Acosta while she was sitting in her car eating lunch, according to court records.
He raped her 30 miles south of Miami in Florida City before continuing to drive south, forcing her to help him withdraw money using her ATM card, he confessed to police.
"I told her I'd slice her neck," he told police. ""I told her that I'd cut her from ear to ear."
When they reached Cudjoe Key, about 20 miles shy of Key West, he strangled Acosta and buried her in a secluded place.
Tanzi spent the next two days shopping, buying a new wardrobe, marijuana and food. Police officers arrested Tanzi after seeing him get into Acosta's van in downtown Key West.
Police recovered Acosta's body after Tanzi confessed to the murder and showed them where he buried Acosta.
After Tanzi's arrest for Acosta's murder, police say he confessed to killing Caroline Holder in Brockton, Massachusetts just a few months earlier, according to court records.
Holder was stabbed to death and beaten while she was working at a laundromat, according to reporting from the Tampa Bay Times.
"What we have here is a fledgling serial killer," Miami police Detective Frank Casanovas said at the time, according to an archived story in the Miami Herald.
Tanzi never faced extradition for Holder's killing because of his death sentence for Acosta's murder.
Who was Janet Acosta?
Acosta was the middle of three sisters: Joanie, Janet and Julie. Because their parents were alcoholics, Acosta all but raised her younger sister, Julie Andrew, according to Andrew's testimony during Tanzi's trial.
'When we were children, we used to be awakened at night because my parents would be arguing and fighting,' she said. 'Janet would hug me and we would hold on to each other until either we fell asleep or they quit arguing.'
All three sisters remained close as they became adults.
"Besides being my sister, she was my best friend," Andrew testified. "We were very close."
Andrew described Acosta as a gentle soul, typically giving her dog Murphy Brown half her lunch and volunteering for Habitat for Humanity, which allowed her to meet former President Jimmy Carter.
Andrew said that Acosta had a special bond with Andrew's daughter, Jennifer.
"She taught her how to fish. She encouraged her interest in art," Andrew said. "She told Jennifer it was OK to be a tomboy and to be whoever you wanted to be."
Who was Michael Tanzi?
Born in 1977 in the suburbs of Boston, Tanzi's attorneys describe his childhood as one full of loss, abuse and a lack of stability. They say he was sexually molested by a childhood friend and physically and emotionally abused by his father.
Tanzi's father became more violent toward his son as he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. According to Tanzi's mother, the abuse made Tanzi become more disruptive, angry and troublesome, according to court records.
One of Tanzi's friends said that Tanzi's father once slammed the boy's head into the side of a truck, according to court records. Meanwhile, his mother was "not home that much," according to the friend.
When Tanzi was around 11, his mother tried to take him to a meeting for sexual abuse victims, something he was vehemently against.
'He didn't want to face it," she said. "He didn't want to talk to people about anything that had happened to him."
Does Tanzi still have hope for a reprieve?
Tanzi's lawyers have argued that he shouldn't be executed because of his complicated health condition, describing him as a morbidly obese man with sciatica, a nerve condition they say affects his back and could cause him to suffer pain leading up to a lethal injection because he'd have to lie down and be restrained.
'Being in this position and suffering 'severe sciatic nerve pain' would require DOC 'to torture him simply to establish and maintain two working intravenous sites,'' Tanzi's defense lawyers said.
They also argued that Tanzi's size could cause a sedative to not work, which would allow him to experience pain.
However, the Florida Supreme Court sided with the state and rejected Tanzi's concerns last week. That means that Tanzi's last hope for a reprieve lis with the U.S. Supreme Court or through a pardon by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, who signed Tanzi's death warrant in March.
Fernando Cervantes Jr. is a trending news reporter for USA TODAY. Reach him at [e-mail] and follow him on X @fern_cerv_.