The 48-year-old death row inmate who abducted and killed a woman in 2000 was put to death Tuesday night in Florida, the 11th execution in the US this year and the third in the state in 2025.
According to a statement from the Florida Department of Corrections, Michael A. Tanzi was declared deceased at 6:12 p.m. EDT. Forty-five miles west of Jacksonville, at the Florida State Prison at Raiford, he was murdered.
There was no indication of the execution technique. Executions in Florida are carried out either electric chair or lethal injection.
Tanzi was put to death for killing Janet Acosta in April 2000. According to court documents, Acosta was assaulted on April 25, 2000.
Before striking her in the face and robbing her of her automobile, Tanzi asked her for a cigarette and the time while she was reading a book in her van parked at Miami’s Japanese Gardens during her lunch break.
Tanzi drove her toward his home in the Florida Keys, a razor blade pressed to her throat.
Along the way, he sexually abused Acosta, used her ATM to take money out of her bank account, wrapped her with rope, and gagged her with a towel.
Tanzi killed Acosta by strangulation and dumped her body in a forested spot in the lower Florida Keys.
Two days later, while still operating Acosta’s van—which police were searching for after friends and coworkers reported the woman missing—he was taken into custody.
Receipts for withdrawals from Acosta’s bank accounts were on him. In addition to confessing to the crime, he showed the police where he had disposed of Acosta’s body and where he had thrown away the rope and duct tape he had used.
After being found guilty of first-degree murder, carjacking with a deadly weapon, kidnapping, and robbery with a pistol or deadly weapon, Tanzi was given the death penalty on April 11, 2003.
Last month, Tanzi’s execution warrant was signed by Governor Ron DeSantis.
Hours before the scheduled execution at 6 p.m., the death row convict had exhausted his appeals, and a last-minute plea to have the Supreme Court step in was denied.
A tiny group of opponents of the death sentence staged a prayer vigil outside the Florida State Prison, which was broadcast live online.
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“Tonight, we the people of the State of Florida executed Michael Tanzi,” Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty stated. “The State wants you to believe we did so in the name of ‘justice.’ To anyone who is paying attention, the death penalty is not justice. It is not justice to take a physically and mentally broken man, strap him to a gurney and commit premeditated murder.”
“This is revenge, plain and simple,” it read.
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The group maintained that Tanzi attempted suicide as a young adult because he had been sexually and physically abused as a youngster. He was going to murder Acosta three years later.
“As we always do, we grieve alongside the family of the victim,” the group stated. “We condemn the brutality of Michael’s actions unequivocally. We too want to see justice done for all.”
After James Ford was slain on February 14 and Edward James on March 20, Tanzi is the third person to be executed in Florida this year.
As of right moment, 11 executions have taken place across the US in 2025.
Source: UPI
