STARKE, Fla. (WWSB) – Florida executed Melvin Trotter, 65, Tuesday evening for the 1986 murder of Virgie Langford, a 72-year-old Palmetto grocery store owner.
Jordan Kirkland, communications director for the Florida Department of Corrections, said the sentence was carried out at 6:15 p.m. Feb. 24, 2026, and that the execution took place without incident.
According to Kirkland, a truck driver entered Lankford’s Grocery Store in Palmetto on June 16, 1986, and found Langford on the floor at the back of the store. Langford told the driver she had been stabbed and robbed. She had suffered seven stab wounds, including a large abdominal wound. Langford died of cardiac arrest several hours after surgery…