Man set to plead guilty to 2 Tampa murders, 19 years later

Steven Lorenzo, who was charged and indicted for the infamous 2003 murders of two men, now says he wants to withdraw his not-guilty pleas for killing both and wants to be sentenced to death.

In a 16-page handwritten letter filed before the Thanksgiving holiday, Lorenzo asked the court for the change because "the end results will prove to be identical" regardless of a trial. "Simply because the defendant has no intention of taking the witness stand under oath at a trial," wrote Lorenzo, referring to himself, to the judge.

He says the case would have "gone unchallenged anyway" and waived his right to an appeal.

For more than a decade, Lorenzo denied killing Jason Galehouse and Michael Wachholtz. He, too, called the state of Florida's "death penalty rhetoric...quite childish and ridiculous" in a written letter to the court in December 2021.