Florida serial killer to be performed on Tuesday for the death of the newspaper employee

Michael Tanzi, prisoner of Florida’s arm of the death, will be performed through lethal injection on Tuesday for the brutal murder of a newspaper employee 24 years ago.

In 2003, a judge sentenced Tanzi, 48 years old, to death for killing Janet Acosta, a 49 -year -old Miami Herald employee.

Acosta was spending the lunch break in his car at the Japanese gardens of Miami on April 25, 2000, when Tanzi saw it in the vehicle.

Tanzi approached her as he read a book and asked for a cigarette. He was blocked in Miami and needed a passage for Key West, about 159 miles away.

While he was distracted, he gave her a handful in the face until he got entry into the car. He moved away with Acosta, threatening it with a razor blade, say the court documents. Then he stopped in a petrol station in Homestead, grabbing a rope and a towel to tie it and gather it.

He said to Acosta if he had made noise, he would “cut it from one ear to the other”. Also, while he was at the petrol station, he forced her to have oral sex and further threatened to kill her if it injured him.

Tanzi continued to drive until he joined the Florida Keys. He stopped at Tavernier around 5.15 pm to withdraw money from the Bank account of Acosta. He had stolen $ 53 from her before to buy cigarettes and a soda at the petrol station. To use his basic card, he threatened it again and got the pin. Later, he stopped in a hardware store to buy adhesive tape and more razor blades.

An hour later, Tanzi decided that he needed to get rid of Acosta because “he was putting himself in the middle”, according to the documents.

“He also knew he would be captured quickly if he had freed her alive.”

Upon arrival in an isolated area in Cudjoe Key, Tanzi said to Acosta that he would kill him, and crossed a piece of rope and began to strangle her. To suffocate the noise, he stopped to position the adhesive tape over his mouth, nose and eyes. He strangled her until he died and ordered his body in an area where he thought he would go unnoticed, according to the records.

In the next few days, Tanzi spent time in Key West, shopping, eating, smoking marijuana and visiting friends, all while using the ATCA card of Acosta. He planned to access more money, sleep in a hotel, buy drugs and change the appearance of the van.

But on April 27, 2000, the police saw him return to the car, who had been put under surveillance after his friends and Acosta family reported that his disappearance.

The police arrested Tanzi and obtained the revenue from his pocket showing samples and purchases with the Acosta card. After the police approached him, he said that “he knew what it was”, adding that he wanted to talk “about a negative thing he had done”.

Tanzi told the officers that he attacked, robbed, kidnapped, sexually affected and killed acostic, repeating his confession several times on audio and video. He showed the police where he had eliminated his body and the adhesive tape he used in the murder.

The man was offending for first -degree murder and accused of autumn of a weapon, kidnapping to facilitate a crime with a weapon, armed robbery with a mortal weapon and two counts for sexual battery with a deadly weapon.

Initially he declared himself not guilty, but entered a reason for guilt for first -degree murder, car theft, kidnapping and armed robbery just before the process.

The officials collected the two counts of the remaining sexual batteries. A jury unanimously recommended a death sentence and the chastened judge agreed.

Tanzi is detained in the prison of the State of Florida in Raiford, where he is scheduled to be performed at 18:00.

In March, his lawyers presented a movement With the Supreme Court of the State to remain its execution, claiming that it should not be put to death because they have not been able to obtain substantial documents in case and their client suffers from sciatica, morbid obesity and uncontrolled hypertension and gastroesophageal reflux disease.

His doctor in prison has established that lying on his back for a long time is very likely to cause severe pain due to his size of 380 pounds. Tanzi should be performed through lethal injection. It is known that the method fails or takes several hours if the drugs are not administered correctly.

Dr. Joel Zivot, a associate professor at the Department of Anesthesiology and Surgery of Emory University, established that Tanzi should have remained stopped while laying slowly during the execution.

“Any movement of the excess body risks removing catheters,” he said. “To protect Mr Tanzi’s body from the movement, an extremely high quantity of moderation will be applied … strong restriction and a supine posture expose it to unnecessary suffering, cruelty and pain.”

The court denied the motion at the beginning of this month. Subsequently, his lawyers submitted a request for stay to the United States Supreme Court. In response to that motion, the state lawyers claimed that the case of Tanzi did not provide a unique topic as to why a last minute stay is guaranteed that would have passed the interest of the state to enforce the law.

Friends and family described Acosta like a library mouse who liked to travel, hike and outdoors, second USA today.

After Tanzi was condemned to death, the woman’s sister, Julie Andrew, told Herald her family “wanted to see the justice made for my sister. And we wanted to make sure that no one else should cross what we have passed”.

The prisoner also confessed that he had killed Caroline Holder in Brockton, Massachusetts, a few months before the murder of Acosta.