Suspect In Janet Acosta's killing May Be Linked To Two Other Vicious Murders!
Slimpickins
another
BY GAIL EPSTEIN NIEVES
geps...@herald.com
In August and in February, two women
working alone in distant clothes-cleaning
establishments -- the first south of Boston,
the second in St. Petersburg -- were
robbed, beaten and killed in vicious attacks
that shocked both communities.
No one thought to link the two cases until
last week, when yet a third slaying -- that of
Miami Herald employee Janet Acosta -- led
police to itinerant music salesman Michael
Tanzi. Miami Police said Tanzi confessed in
stomach-wrenching detail to killing both
Acosta and the Massachusetts woman. He
also told them he visited the Tampa Bay
area in February.
Now St. Petersburg police want to
know: Is Tanzi the person who beat to
death Elizabeth Swanson, a 38-year-old
mother who was attacked behind a
dry-cleaning counter there Feb. 11?
``We know there are similarities in the two
murders, and we know he was in the area
on or about the time of our homicide.
Those two things certainly make us want to
look at him closely,'' said detective Sgt.
Michael Puetz with the St. Petersburg
Police Department.
Detectives from St. Petersburg traveled to
Key West, where Tanzi, 23, is being held in
connection with Acosta's slaying, to
interview him Tuesday, Puetz said.
Investigators also plan to compare Tanzi's fingerprints to those found
at
the Palms Cleaners and Laundromat, where a customer found Swanson
clinging to life.
Swanson died later at the hospital of blunt-force trauma to her head
and
upper body. She is survived by her husband of 16 years, Peter Swanson,
and their 9-year-old son, Peyton.
Police caught up with Tanzi last Thursday in Key West, where they
spotted
him preparing to enter Acosta's stolen van. They charged him with
murder
and kidnapping in her Tuesday disappearance and death. The 49-year-old
Herald supervisor never returned from a lunch break on Watson Island.
Police traced withdrawals made with her ATM card to find Tanzi. He then
led police to Acosta's fully clothed body on Cudjoe Key.
Detectives said Tanzi bragged and laughed about punching Acosta in the
face and strangling her. Then, they said, he surprised them with
another
confession: the Aug. 11, 1999, killing in Brockton, Mass., of Caroline
Holder, 37, a wife and mother of two who worked for a laundry company.
Holder's co-workers discovered her body beneath sacks of dirty laundry.
She had been beaten about her head, strangled, stabbed in the neck and
stomped in broad daylight at the downtown laundromat. Tanzi told police
he poured bleach over her body and the scene after he finished, Miami
Police Detective Frank Casanovas said.
Tanzi had been out of jail for a week on burglary charges when Holder
was
murdered.
Witnesses told Brockton police that they had seen a tall, heavyset
white
male in his 20s or 30s hanging around the business the morning of the
murder. Tanzi is 6-feet-3, 230 pounds.
But Tanzi offered police no surprise confessions on Tuesday, Puetz
said.
``He hasn't implicated himself in the homicide here,'' Puetz said
Wednesday. ``He spoke freely of the other cases, and when they asked
him about specifics as to his activities in St. Petersburg, he provided
responses, but he did not make any admissions as to contact with our
victim here. Whether there's a connection between our homicide and what
they're investigating is still a question mark.''
To answer that question, and check for other possible killings, police
are
tracing Tanzi's steps. He traveled south from Manhattan this year with
two
street musician friends, who worked at festivals along the way. He sold
their music tapes to the crowds.
One stop: the Gasparilla celebration, a series of parades and other
festivities held every February in the Tampa area.
Swanson died Feb. 11, after the daylight attack in a strip mall five
doors
from a police substation and a sliding door away from five customers
using
the adjacent coin laundry. No witness came forward.
Though Tanzi acknowledged being in the Tampa Bay area at that time,
``whether or not he was [near the murder scene] or not he couldn't
state
specifically,'' Puetz said. The investigation continues.
Swanson's killer was especially brazen, he said, because the attack
occurred in the front of the store, where anybody walking by would have
been a witness. Also, a video camera in the store was aimed at the
front
counter with a sign reading: ``Warning. All transactions are video and
audio recorded.''
But on that day, they were not.
Given the way Tanzi brazenly confessed to two slayings, some officers
don't see what he would have to lose by confessing to more. Monroe
County Sheriff Rick Roth said he suspects that Tanzi may have stopped
after the two, but detectives are still looking at his travels in
Florida.
St. Petersburg's Puetz said it's hard to judge whether Tanzi is telling
the
truth at this stage. Other officers said suspects often stop
volunteering
information after they sit in jail and get a lawyer.
Herald Staff writer Lisa Fuss contributed to this report.