{"id":159004,"date":"2026-02-17T22:47:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T22:47:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/159004\/"},"modified":"2026-02-17T22:47:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T22:47:09","slug":"pinellas-county-sheriffs-office-remembers-deputy-killed-by-drunk-driver-5-years-ago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/159004\/","title":{"rendered":"Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office remembers deputy killed by drunk driver 5 years ago"},"content":{"rendered":"

Feb. 17, 2021, was the day Deputy Michael Magli was killed in the line of duty when a drunk driver crashed into him.<\/p>\n

PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. \u2014 The Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office is remembering one of its deputies who was killed by a drunk driver<\/a> on this day five years ago.<\/p>\n

Feb. 17, 2021, was the day Deputy Michael Magli was killed in the line of duty<\/a> when a drunk driver crashed into him. He was 30 years old at the time and had been with PSCO for around eight years.<\/p>\n

Magli was a husband and father to two daughters.<\/p>\n

Sheriff Bob Gualtieri offered this statement to mark the fifth anniversary of Magli’s death:<\/p>\n

“Some will say that Michael was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I say nonsense. Deputy Michael J. Magli was in the right place at the right time doing what cops do every day throughout this country: protecting others even if it means grave personal danger to themselves.”<\/p>\n


\nThe night Deputy Michael Magli was killed <\/p>\n

On the night of the Magli’s death, Pinellas County Fire Rescue spotted a driver, Robert Allen Holzaepfel, slumped over and unresponsive at a red light.<\/p>\n

Gualtieri says fire crews decided to break the truck’s window to try to help him. When they broke the window, deputies said Holzaepfel drove off and led them on a chase.<\/p>\n

In an effort to stop Holzaepfel, Deputy Magli parked his car in a median in the area of East Lake Road and Forelock Road in Tarpon Springs and took “stop sticks” from his SUV to place on the road.<\/p>\n

As he did so, Holzaepfel’s truck “spun out, flipped over and very, very violently slammed into Deputy Magli and his cruiser,” the sheriff said.<\/p>\n

Magli was pinned under his SUV and died.<\/p>\n

“There’s nothing harder,” Gualtieri said during a press conference<\/a> at the time. “It’s one of those things that you can’t prepare for it. It’s one of those things you have to do. To say it’s a tragedy is an understatement. There’s no words that can make any sense of it, there’s nothing you can express.”<\/p>\n

A funeral was held for Magli six days after his death at Trinity Memorial Gardens.<\/p>\n

“I don\u2019t want to say goodbye, I\u2019m not ready,” Stephanie, his wife, said at the memorial.<\/p>\n

She was followed by Magli’s brother, who spoke on the deputy’s selfless heroism.<\/p>\n

“My family and I are proud of our hero, Deputy Michael James Magli, my big brother,” Magli’s brother said.<\/p>\n


\n \"\"<\/p>\n


\n \"\"<\/p>\n


\nSentencing of Robert Holzaepfel <\/p>\n

After Magli’s death, the sheriff said Robert Holzaepfel appeared to have been driving drunk with a suspended license and had 16 prior arrests.\u00a0<\/p>\n

His blood alcohol level registered at .230, the sheriff’s office reported.<\/p>\n

He was sentenced<\/a> in September 2022 to 35 years in prison after entering a guilty plea. He was charged with first-degree murder, DUI manslaughter and aggravated fleeing and eluding police officers.<\/p>\n


\n \"\"<\/p>\n

Previous 10 Tampa Bay News coverage contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Feb. 17, 2021, was the day Deputy Michael Magli was killed in the line of duty when a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":159005,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-159004","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159004\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}