What did Steven Lorenzo do? Suspect pleads guilty to Tampa double murders after 19 years

On Tuesday, December 6, Steven Lorenzo pleaded guilty to killing and s*xually torturing two members of the LGBTQ+ community, nineteen years after they were murdered in Tampa.

Years after fighting the charges, Steven Lorenzo asked the judge for the death penalty and waived his right to appeal for assaulting and torturing two LGBTQ+ men identified as Jason Galehouse and Michael Wachholtz.

Steven Lorenzo, 63, had vehemently denied the allegations despite being convicted in 2005, along with co-conspirator Scott Schweickert, for giving several men, including the victims GHB, known as a date-r**e drug. Lorenzo is presently serving a 200-year sentence.

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Steven Lorenzo confessed to killing two victims after losing control during an interlude

In December 2003, Jason Galehouse and Michael Wachholtz disappeared after Steven Lorenzo brought them to his Seminole Heights home in Tampa. In court on Tuesday, Lorenzo said that he and Schweickert decided to murder the victims after they lost control while participating in illicit games. He told the court:

"But anyway, he lost control, and the kid started to scream and get all upset. We did the video and put a gas mask on him because he did not want to be identified while being videotaped, so that's why the gas mask went on."

Lorenzo confessed that they decided to kill the victim as they feared that he would alert the authorities.

“We realized the kid was probably going to call the police on all of us. So we had a pow-wow and said, 'this kid can't leave.”

While Lorenzo and Schweickert were convicted on federal drug charges in 2005, it took a decade for authorities to collate the evidence and charge them with murder. In 2016, Schweickert admitted to the murders and agreed to testify against Lorenzo in exchange for waiving the death penalty. Lorenzo, however, maintained his innocence until he wrote a letter to the court explaining why he would like to be considered for capital punishment. He said:

“As far as I’m concerned … Everybody who’s born from the womb was born with a death sentence. Everybody in this room is on death row. We’re all going to go some time.”

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On Tuesday, the judge said that he would grant the request if he deemed it appropriate. The judge, warning Lorenzo about the gravity of the situation, said,

“You realize that there are only two possible sentences to your plea?” “Life or execution at the hands of the Department of Corrections?”

Lorenzo responded affirmatively to the above statements, emphasizing his awareness of the gravity of the situation.

It should be noted that while Lorenzo admitted to killing two victims, he denied murdering others from the LGBTQ+ community who went missing at the time. However, officials maintain that there are indeed many more victims.