Raiford, Florida — On Tuesday evening, Michael Tanzi, 48, was executed at Florida State Prison for the 2000 murder of Janet Acosta, a production worker at the Miami Herald. Acosta was abducted during her lunch break and later killed in a brutal crime that stunned South Florida.
Tanzi was pronounced dead at 6:12 p.m. following a three-drug lethal injection. In a final statement, he offered a faint apology to Acosta’s family and quoted a verse from the Bible.
Acosta, who had been reading a book in her van during her break, was approached by Tanzi, assaulted, and forced to drive to multiple locations, including the Florida Keys, before being murdered on Cudjoe Key. Her body was discovered after Tanzi confessed and led investigators to the remote site.
Convicted of first-degree murder, carjacking, kidnapping, and armed robbery, Tanzi received a unanimous death sentence in 2001. Multiple appeals failed, including a final request to the U.S. Supreme Court just hours before his execution.
Tanzi becomes the third person executed in Florida in 2025. Nationwide, eight others have been executed this year, and more executions are scheduled in the coming months.
