Warning: This article contains discussion of rape which some readers may find distressing.
A 48-year-old death row inmate in Florida is set to face the lethal injection after carrying out crimes that prompted one detective to describe him as a 'fledgling serial killer'.
Michael Tanzi was only in his early 20s when he targeted 49-year-old Janet Acosta on April 25, 2000, while she was on her lunch break from the Miami Herald newspaper.
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Decades after being convicted, Tanzi is set to face the lethal injection today (April 8), however, his lawyers have attempted to put a stop to the execution by claiming his health could cause complications.
In a filing with the Florida Supreme Court, Tanzi’s lawyers said the inmate is morbidly obese and suffers with sciatica; a nerve condition which the lawyers claims could cause Tanzi pain if he has to lie down and be restrained for the lethal injection.
“Being in this position and suffering 'severe sciatic nerve pain' would require DOC ‘to torture him simply to establish and maintain two working intravenous sites'," the lawyers said.
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The team also claimed that Tanzi's size could mean that a sedative intended to numb any pain may not be effective.
However, the Florida Attorney General’s Office argued that Tanzi and his team had nothing to support their 'groundless assertion' that the sedative would not work.
Should Tanzi still hope to delay the execution, he would have to find support from the US Supreme Court or through a pardon by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Tanzi's death sentence came after he pleaded guilty to first-degree murder, carjacking, kidnapping and armed robbery following Acosta's death.
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Acosta had been eating lunch in her van near the Japanese Rock Gardens in Miami when Tanzi forced his way into her van and tied her up, threatening to kill her if she resisted.
According to prosecutors working on the case, Tanzi then drove Acosta to Florida City, where he raped her and threatened that he would 'slice her neck'.
He then drove the van towards Key West, stopping to withdraw cash using Acosta's card along the way, and approximately four hours after the ordeal began Tanzi strangled Acosta and buried her in a secluded place.
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A few days later, Tanzi was caught after police spotted him returning to Acosta's car, which had been placed under surveillance after her friends and family reported her missing.
After Tanzi's arrest for Acosta's murder, police say he also confessed to killing of a woman named Caroline Holder, in Brockton, Massachusetts, just a few months earlier. He was never extradited over the Holder case due to his death sentence for Acosta's murder.
At the time, Miami police Detective Frank Casanovas told the Miami Herald: "What we have here is a fledgling serial killer."
If you've been affected by any of the issues in this article, you can contact The National Sexual Assault Hotline on 800.656.HOPE (4673), available 24/7. Or you can chat online via online.rainn.org
Emily Brown