Killer And Rapist Of Multiple Florida Gay Men Thanks Judge For Imposing Death Penalty As He’d Requested

Law & Crime reports:

A 64-year-old admitted double murderer who insisted upon receiving the death penalty in Florida bizarrely thanked his trial judge for the capital sentence Friday and asserted this his “soul is fine.”

Steven Lorenzo had already confessed in December to murdering Jason Galehouse and Michael Wachholtz, both 26, in 2003. Prosecutors said that Lorenzo drugged, sexually assaulted, and murdered the victims after encountering them at a gay club on separate nights in West Tampa.

Because Lorenzo is already serving a 200-year federal sentence for drugging and raping 9 men, including Galehouse and Wachholtz, and because Lorenzo has already pleaded guilty to murder, there was never any doubt that he would spend the rest of his days in prison.

Tampa’s ABC affiliate reports:



In 2003, two young men, Jason Galehouse and Michael Wachholtz, disappeared after meeting Lorenzo at a Tampa nightclub. Their deaths were discovered days later, sending shockwaves of fear through the city’s gay community.

Evidence shows Lorenzo kidnapped, drugged, sexually tortured the men with the help of his roommate, Scott Schweicker. Schweicker told the court that they cut up Galehouse’s body, stuffed the parts into trash bags, then ditched the remains in garbage bins around the city. Schweickert pleaded guilty to the crimes in 2016 and was sentenced to life in prison and agreed to testify against Lorenzo.

The confessed killer asked to be sentenced to death because death row at Florida State Prison is “a lot more comfortable” than federal prison. “You get your own private cell, you get your own TV, you get your computer, you get all this stuff,” Lorenzo said. The 64-year-old insisted he will die in prison anyway and wants to “go out on (his) own terms.”