Serial Killer Set To Be Executed In FL Rape, Strangulation

RAIFORD, FL — Florida authorities are set to execute a man convicted of strangling, raping and killing a Miami Herald staffer, according to media reports.

Florida prison records show Michael A. Tanzi, 48, was sentenced to the death penalty on April 11, 2003, after being convicted of premeditated or attempted first-degree murder.

His conviction was in connection to the strangling death of Janet Acosta, 49, the Miami Herald reported.

He is scheduled to be put to death at 6 p.m. Tuesday at Florida State Prison in Raiford. The Florida Supreme Court declined to reverse Tanzi's death sentence, and Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the death warrant on March 10, the Herald reported.

“What we have here is a fledgling serial killer,” Miami police detective Frank Casanovas told the Herald in 2003.

Tanzi will be the third inmate in Florida to be executed this year behind James D. Ford and Edward James.

He was "an investigative lead" in the beating death of St. Petersburg woman Elizabeth Swanson in February 2000, the Tampa Times reported, and he was also linked to a woman's murder in Massachusetts.

Florida uses lethal injection or the electric chair to carry out its executions, according to the Florida Department of Corrections.

Sometime around Acosta's death, Tanzi traveled to South Florida from New York City, the Tampa Bay Times reported.

Acosta, who supervised page design at the Herald, was on her lunch break when Tanzi kidnapped her on April 25, 2000, the news outlet reported.

Tanzi forced Acosta into her van and threatened her before driving her to Florida City, where he raped her at a gas station that afternoon, USAToday reported.

"I told her I'd slice her neck," he told police, per the USAToday report. "I told her that I'd cut her from ear to ear."

Tanzi then drove Acosta to Cudjoe Key, using her bank card along the way, and strangled her to death before burying her, the national outlet reported. Four hours spanned between the kidnapping and Acosta's death.

When Acosta did not return from lunch, the Herald reported coworkers began searching for her — contacting her bank to retrieve information and reaching out to the police.

“I knew something was wrong when she didn’t come back,” coworker Carolyn Green said in the Herald report. “But for God’s sake, I didn’t know this would be it.”

Monroe County deputies and Key West officers found Tanzi two days later near Acosta's van and located Acosta's body near some mangroves, the Herald reported.

After killing her, USAToday reported Tanzi shopped for food, new clothing and food for two days.

“If I had let her go, I was gonna get caught quicker," he told police, USAToday reported. "I didn’t want to get caught. I was having too much fun ... I told her, I says, 'I can’t let you go. If I let you go, then I’m gonna be in a lot of trouble.’”

In addition to the death penalty for murder, Tanzi was sentenced to life in prison on charges of armed robbery, kidnapping and carjacking with a deadly weapon, prison records showed.

Tanzi was connected to two other killings, one in St. Petersburg and another in his home state of Massachusetts.

USAToday reported he acknowledged killing Caroline Holder in Brockton, Mass. a few months before Acosta's death.

Holder, a laundromat worker, was beaten and fatally stabbed while alone at the laundry business, the Tampa Bay Times reported.

The death sentence in Monroe County superseded an extradition to Massachusetts in Holder's case, USAToday reported.