Florida executes killer of Miami newspaper employee

A 48-year-old man was executed by lethal injection in the southern US state of Florida on Tuesday for the 2000 murder of a newspaper employee who was abducted while on her lunch break.

Michael Tanzi was put to death shortly after 6:00 pm (2200 GMT) at the Florida State Prison in Raiford for the murder of Janet Acosta, 49, prison officials said in a statement.

Tanzi is the third Death Row inmate to be executed in Florida this year and the 11th in the United States.

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Tanzi confessed to the murder of Acosta, an employee of the Miami Herald newspaper, and was sentenced to death in 2003.

He kidnapped Acosta while she was eating lunch in her van, forced her to withdraw money from ATM machines and sexually assaulted her before strangling her and dumping her body.

He also confessed -- but was never charged -- with the murder of another woman, and a police detective described Tanzi to the Miami Herald as a "fledgling serial killer."

Tanzi's lawyers had tried to halt his execution arguing that there could be problems with the lethal injection because he was "morbidly obese."

Tanzi's execution is one of two scheduled to be carried out in the United States this week.

Mikal Mahdi, 42, is to be executed by firing squad in South Carolina on Friday for the 2004 murder of an off-duty police officer.

Mahdi would be the second person executed by firing squad in South Carolina this year.

The vast majority of US executions since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976 have been performed using lethal injection.

There were 25 executions in the United States last year.

The death penalty has been abolished in 23 of the 50 US states, while three others -- California, Oregon and Pennsylvania -- have moratoriums in place.

President Donald Trump is a proponent of capital punishment and on his first day in office called for an expansion of its use "for the vilest crimes."

Attorney General Pam Bondi announced last week that federal prosecutors would seek the death penalty for Luigi Mangione, charged with the December 4 murder in New York of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson.