Florida executes man for 1986 Palmetto grocery store murder 38 years later
A man convicted of killing a Palmetto grocery store owner during a 1986 robbery was executed Tuesday evening at Florida State Prison, according to the Florida Department of Corrections.
Melvin Trotter, 65, received a lethal injection after Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a death warrant last month. A medic declared him dead at 6:15 p.m., the department said. Trotter declined to make a final statement.
About two dozen witnesses were present in the viewing room, according to ABC7. Demonstrators also gathered outside the prison ahead of the execution in opposition to the death penalty. Trotter spent 38 years on Florida’s death row before the execution, DOC records show.
Trotter was convicted of first-degree murder in the killing of 70-year-old Virgie Langford, who owned a grocery store in Palmetto.
Investigators said Trotter went to Langford’s store on June 16, 1986, intending to rob it. According to court records, he went behind the counter and began taking money from the cash register. Langford confronted him while holding a knife, and a struggle followed.
Man executed in Palmetto murder case
Trotter took the knife from her and stabbed her multiple times before fleeing the store with about $100, investigators said. A truck driver later found Langford bleeding inside the store. According to an arrest report, Langford suffered seven stab wounds, including a large abdominal wound, and died hours later after going into cardiac arrest following surgery.
Witnesses identified Trotter after seeing him run from the store, and detectives said he later gave a recorded confession admitting to the robbery and killing.
A jury convicted Trotter of first-degree murder in 1987, and a judge sentenced him to death, according to court records. The Florida Supreme Court later ordered a resentencing, finding errors in how the trial court weighed aggravating factors. After a second sentencing proceeding in 1993, a judge again sentenced him to death. The Florida Supreme Court upheld that sentence in 1996.
In the years that followed, Trotter filed multiple appeals in state and federal court, including claims that he was intellectually disabled and therefore ineligible for execution.
In his final appeals, his attorneys did not challenge Florida’s lethal injection protocol itself but argued that corrections officials could “maladminister” it. They cited records they said suggested the possible use of expired drugs and argued that his age of 65 should exempt him from execution, according to court documents.
U.S. Supreme Court denies final appeal
The Florida Supreme Court denied Trotter’s latest state appeal in the days before the execution, according to court records. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected his final appeal Tuesday afternoon.
In a statement accompanying the order, Justice Sonia Sotomayor criticized Florida’s handling of execution records, writing that “by continuing to shroud its executions in secrecy, Florida undermines both the integrity of its own execution process” and the Court’s ability to ensure constitutional compliance.
In addition to Tuesday’s protesters, an online petition circulated by Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty urging clemency for Trotter had collected nearly 5,000 signatures before the execution.
Trotter’s execution marked Florida’s second this year. The state carried out 19 executions in 2025, the most in a single year since the death penalty resumed in 1976. As of Wednesday, 250 people were listed on Florida’s death row, with two more set to be executed in March, according to the DOC.
Florida carries out executions using a three-drug lethal injection protocol, according to corrections officials.
