A death-row inmate who kidnapped, assaulted and killed a stranger on her lunch break 25 years ago died via lethal injection on Tuesday in Florida as dozens of fervent demonstrators protested the nation’s eleventh execution in 2025.

Michael Anthony Tanzi, 48, was pronounced dead at 6:12 p.m. local time after receiving a three-drug protocol at Florida State Prison in Raiford, about 45 miles west of Jacksonville. He made a final statement inside the execution chamber in front of several witnesses, including the sister of his 49-year-old victim, Janet Acosta. Newsweek also witnessed the execution.

Tanzi’s last words and final meal

In his final breaths before he was given the first of three drugs that would stop his heart, Tanzi apologized to the relatives of Acosta, as well as those of Caroline Holder, a 37-year-old woman he confessed to killing in Brockton, Massachusetts, in 1999.

“I want to apologize to the family of Janet Acosta and Caroline Holder for taking their lives,” he said through a speaker piped into the witness area.

“Heavenly Father, please do not blame those who do not know what they’re doing.”

Tanzi — an imposing inmate listed in court documents as 6 feet 3 inches tall and weighing as much as 383 pounds — breathed deeply as prison officials administered the lethal-injection cocktail. Within moments, he stopped moving and exhaled for a final time.

Attorneys for Tanzi, who pleaded guilty to abducting and murdering Acosta, had unsuccessfully argued in court filings that Florida’s lethal injection procedure would violate a constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment for the “morbidly obese” inmate who had severe chronic sciatica, among other medical issues.

Tanzi’s last meal included a fried pork chop, bacon, a baked potato, corn, ice cream, a candy bar and soda, corrections officials told Newsweek.

“Inmate Tanzi woke up this morning at 4:45 a.m., he was provided his last meal and he has remained compliant,” Florida Department of Corrections spokesman Ted Veerman said hours before the execution.

Tanzi also met with a spiritual adviser in his final hours, Veerman said.

Protesters and counter-protesters

On a warm early spring evening in northern Florida, about 50 anti-death penalty demonstrators descended on the prison complex in Raiford to protest the execution, the state’s third this year. Nationwide, Tanzi is the eleventh man to face capital punishment in 2025.

“I believe whoever is going to be killed tonight, Michael, is one of God’s creatures,” one protester told Newsweek. “He’s loved by God just like I am. It’s not up to me to judge how his life ends.”

The group Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty said in a statement that “the death penalty is not justice,” and that Florida was “selling a false bill of goods when it tells murder victims’ family members that the death penalty is the best and only way to achieve 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.” The lengthy statement also noted the abuse Tanzi suffered at the hands of his mother and father starting at the age of 2.

One counter-protester outside the prison told Newsweek he came out to voice his support for the execution.

“Getting rid of one psycho killer, gotta go, can’t keep these guys around,” said Bill Campbell, of Marion County. “This guy murdered two women – women are the favorite targets of these psycho killers, so somebody’s gotta do something to stop this stuff. I do believe capital punishment is a deterrent.”

“It’s a beautiful day today,” Campbell concluded.

The abduction and murder of Janet Acosta

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed Tanzi’s death warrant last month, condemning him for strangling Acosta, a veteran employee at the Miami Herald, after kidnapping her as she sat in her van on a lunch break at the Japanese Garden on Watson Island on April 25, 2000, court records show.

Tanzi, then 23, attacked Acosta after asking her for a cigarette as she sat alone “in her favorite place.” He then promised not to hurt her if she cooperated, but threatened to “cut her from ear to ear” with a razor if she resisted, court documents indicate.

Tanzi proceeded to drive Acosta through Miami, heading south to Florida City, where he forced her to perform oral sex and warned he’d cut her if she “bit him,” court document show.

Tanzi then drove more than 130 miles in Acosta’s van into the Florida Keys as she was bound and gagged with ropes before strangling her on Cudjoe Key, roughly four hours later. He proceeded to dump her body in a secluded area masked by mangroves and went on a shopping spree using his victim’s ATM card.

Two days later, as Tanzi was arrested in Key West, he told detectives why he killed Acosta, according to court documents.

“If I had let her go, I was gonna get caught quicker,” Tanzi said. “I didn’t want to get caught. I was having too much fun.”

Weeks prior to Tanzi’s death sentence, Florida prison officials executed Edward Thomas James, 63, for the 1993 murders of Elizabeth Dick and her 8-year-old granddaughter, whom he also raped, court documents show.

Jeffrey Hutchinson, a 59-year-old Gulf War veteran convicted of killing his girlfriend and her three children in 1998, is set to die via lethal injection at Florida State Prison on May 1.

Other upcoming executions in April and May have been scheduled in South Carolina, Texas, Alabama, Tennessee and Louisiana.

Family and colleagues remember Janet Acosta

Acosta, 49, worked at the Miami Herald for 25 years, advancing to the role of supervisor in the newspaper’s layout department. When she didn’t return from lunch, a coworker pulled her personnel records to get her banking information and soon learned her card had been used in Key West.

“She would lay out the newspaper and manage what stories would get into print and where the ads would go,” said Miami Herald reporter Grethel Aguila. “Everyone remembers her as a diligent worker, a quiet person but she would always get the job done. She was always willing to just lay everything out and get the paper done every day.”

Acosta’s coworkers then notified Miami police and assisted investigators in helping to track down Tanzi, Aguila said.

“The Herald was a tight-knit place and people immediately noticed that it was strange that she didn’t come back from her lunch break,” Aguila said. “She was like clockwork. She would go on her break and come back not a minute late.”

Almost 25 years later to the day, her killer would be dead.

After Tanzi’s execution, Jennifer Vanderwier, Acosta’s niece, said the family was “relieved to finally have closure on this horrific event.”

“She always told us, there’s a lot of world out that needs to be lived. You need to go out there and see everything you can see, experience everything you can experience and have adventures — that’s what life’s all about. And so that’s how my mom and I lived our lives, especially after her passing. She was an exceptional daughter, sister, aunt, friend, coworker — and just overall human being.”

“There is now basically a sense of closure and a sense of peace,” said Julie Andrew, Acosta’s sister, during a brief press conference in front of the prison after Tanzi was pronounced dead.

“One of the things that when this first happened, I said to my sister at her memorial and when we spread her ashes, was that I would do everything I could to make sure that she got justice and I would be there until the bitter end. It’s taken a while — I was getting a little nervous because I’m not a spring chicken — but the fact is we were able to do that today.”

“It’s over, it’s done,” Andrew said. “Justice for Janet happened and my heart just felt lighter, and I could breathe again.”