Florida Executes Man for 1986 Murder

A man convicted of killing a 70-year-old grocery store owner was executed Tuesday in Florida, marking the second execution in the state this year following a record 19 in 2025.

Melvin Trotter, 65, was pronounced dead at 6:15 p.m. at Florida State Prison near Starke after receiving a lethal injection for the 1986 stabbing death of Virgie Langford, authorities said. Alex Lanfranconi, a spokesperson for Gov. Ron DeSantis, reported that the execution proceeded without complications.

Trotter was originally convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death in 1987. After the Florida Supreme Court found errors in the trial court’s handling of aggravating factors, he was resentenced to death in 1993. Court records show that Trotter stabbed and strangled Langford on June 16, 1986, at her store in Palmetto, near the southern edge of Tampa Bay. A truck driver discovered Langford bleeding but still alive; she provided crucial information about her attacker before dying at a hospital.

Langford recalled Trotter’s appearance and noted that he wore a Tropicana employee badge with the name “Melvin.” Police later recovered a T-shirt at Trotter’s home with Langford’s blood type and found his handprint on a meat cooler at the store.

Trotter’s attorneys argued in appeals that execution protocols were mishandled and that his age should spare him from the death penalty. Both the Florida Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court rejected his appeals, with the latter denying his final request Tuesday.

Earlier this month, Ronald Palmer Heath, 64, became the first person executed in Florida this year for the 1989 killing of traveling salesperson Michael Sheridan. Two more executions are scheduled in March, beginning with Billy Leon Kearse on March 3 and Michael Lee King on March 17.

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