Florida to Execute Melvin Trotter for 1986 Grocery Store Murder Amid Appeals

Melvin Trotter, 65, is set to be executed by three-drug lethal injection at Florida State Prison in Raiford, near Starke, at 6:00 p.m. ET on Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2026, after the U.S. Supreme Court denied emergency relief on Tuesday afternoon. Justice Sonia Sotomayor issued a separate opinion saying she “hopes going forward the state and its courts ‘will recognize the paramount importance of ensuring that it conducts executions consistently’ with the proper protocols.”

The case traces to the June 16, 1986 stabbing and slaying of Virgie Langford, then about 70, who owned Langford’s Grocery Store in Palmetto and had run the mom-and-pop shop for five decades while preparing to retire. Langford was cutting meat in the back of the store when a man entered, rifled the cash register and stole about $100 and some food stamps. Court records and archived reporting describe multiple stab wounds, with one account citing seven stabbings by a nearly foot-long butcher knife and other records noting strangulation along with stabbings.

Investigators built a case on eyewitness and physical evidence. Langford, alive after the attack, told police her attacker wore a Tropicana employee badge bearing the name “Melvin.” Witnesses later identified Trotter in a police lineup. Officers recovered a T-shirt at Trotter’s home stained with Langford’s blood type and lifted a handprint belonging to Trotter from a meat cooler inside the store, details reflected in court files used at trial.

Trotter was convicted of first-degree murder in 1987 and sentenced to death. The Florida Supreme Court later found errors in how the trial court handled aggravating factors and ordered a new sentencing, and a 1993 resentencing again imposed the death penalty. In the weeks leading to Tuesday’s date, Trotter’s lawyers argued state corrections officials had mismanaged lethal-injection procedures and that his advanced age should exempt him from execution. They framed the claim as a risk that Florida could “maladminister” the protocol rather than a facial challenge to the method itself.

Officials have scheduled the execution under the three-drug protocol. Media witnesses will be transported under heavy security, pass checks and view the proceedings from an area separated from the chamber by glass, ABC7 reporter Summer Smith described: “It’s almost like a medical procedure. Not a lot of words are spoken, communication between the parties. It’s just very quick. They announce the time of death once the inmate has passed away.”

Langford’s family has waited decades for closure. Christine McKnight said, “My mom, she was a fine lady. She worked hard all her life and she didn't deserve to die the way that she did.” An archival quote from 1987 by daughter Liz Matthews said, “I think he deserves to burn.” Anti-death-penalty advocate Hanna urged continued opposition, saying, “We have continued to shape the public understanding of the death penalty, and it is so expensive and accident-prone. It doesn’t bring victims the level of closure they were promised.”

The execution comes amid a surge in Florida capital activity; the state carried out a record 19 executions last year while the U.S. tallied 47 executions in 2025. At 6:00 p.m. ET Tuesday, the state will carry out a sentence that closes a legal chapter stretching back four decades and reopens longstanding debate over procedure and the use of capital punishment.