A death row inmate who was dubbed a “fledgling serial killer” is set to be executed via lethal injection despite his lawyers claiming he is “too obese”.
Officials have decided that the execution of Michael Tanzi, 48, will go ahead on Tuesday following the murder of newspaper employee, Janet Acosta, 49, in 2003.
The Miami Herald employee was sexually assaulted and strangled to death before her body was dumped in Monroe County, Florida. 24 years later, her death row killer will be administered the legal injection.
The Florida Attorney General’s office said: “Tanzi fails to offer any support for his groundless assertion that the massive dose of etomidate, that has been repeatedly and successfully used in Florida’s lethal injection protocol, will not work for him.”
It comes after his legal team claimed the lethal injection would cause “needless suffering” due to his weight, reports People. Tanzi’s lawyers also highlighted his “severe chronic sciatica, hyperlipidemia, uncontrolled hypertension, and gastroesophageal reflux disease”.
Janet Acosta was sitting in her parked van in April 2000 when she was attacked and threatened with a razor blade by Tanzi, as per court records. The woman was bound and gagged by Tanzi who then drove her van towards the Florida Keys.
At one point, Tanzi sexually assaulted Acosta and used her bank card to withdraw cash from ATMs. Tanzi eventually took Acosta to a secluded area of Cudjoe Key, where he strangled her and left her body, officials reported. He then headed to Key West to meet friends.
As Tanzi was travelling through the Keys, Acosta’s pals reported her missing. Police identified the woman’s van and apprehended Tanzi. Tanzi’s execution would mark the state’s third this year. James Dennis Ford was executed in February for the murder of a couple in Charlotte County in 1997.
Edward James was executed on March 20 for the murder of a woman and the rape and murder of her 8-year-old granddaughter in Seminole County in 1993.
2025 has seen a surge of death row executions, and now a second inmate in South Carolina has opted for execution by firing squad, just five weeks after the state conducted its first execution using this contentious method.
Mikal Mahdi, who admitted to murdering a police officer in 2004, is slated for execution on April 11. Mahdi, 41, had the option of dying by firing squad, lethal injection or electrocution.
He’s set to be the first bloke to face execution in the state since Brad Sigmon got the bullet on March 7. A doc declared Sigmon a goner in under three minutes after three rounds blasted his ticker.
“Faced with barbaric and inhumane choices, Mikal Mahdi has chosen the lesser of three evils,” his barrister, David Weiss, stated. “Mikal chose the firing squad instead of being burned and mutilated in the electric chair, or suffering a lingering death on the lethal injection gurney.”
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