Florida to execute killer 40 years after savage murder of elderly grocer

Amanda Lee Myers, USA TODAYTue, February 24, 2026 at 2:43 AM UTC

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Virgie Langford was ready for retirement.

For five decades, the 70-year-old ran a mom-and-pop grocery store in Palmetto along Florida's Gulf Coast. The neighborhood had gotten dangerous, Langford got tired, and her four children convinced her it was time to enjoy retirement and her new house in the suburbs.

But she hadn't quite closed up shop yet. On June 16, 1986, Langford was selling some of the last of her inventory when a crack addict named Melvin Trotter walked into Langford's Grocery Store and started stealing from the cash register. Soon after, he stabbed Langford seven times with a butcher knife that had a nearly foot-long blade, according to archived news reports.

Now 40 years later − decades longer than her loved ones thought it would take − Florida is set to execute Trotter, now 65, by lethal injection on Tuesday, Feb. 24. It will be the fourth execution in the U.S. this year and the second in Florida, which broke a state record last year when it carried out 19 executions.

Langford's family has waited so long for justice, obituaries show that at least one of her four children died 15 years ago at the age of 72.

"I think he deserves to burn," one of Langford's daughters, Liz Matthews, told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune in 1987. Her other daughter told the newspaper that she was a Christian, but firmly believed that Trotter deserved to be executed.

"My mom, she was a fine lady," Christine McKnight told the newspaper. "She worked hard all her life and she didn't deserve to die the way that she did."

Here's what you about the execution.

Melvin Trotter is pictured.When is the execution?

Melvin Trotter is set to be executed by lethal injection at 6 p.m. ET on Tuesday, Feb. 24, at the Florida State Prison in Raiford.

What was Melvin Trotter convicted of?

On June 16, 1986, 70-year-old Virgie Langford was alone in her grocery store in Palmetto, Florida, and cutting meat in the back, according to archived reports in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.

Melvin Trotter walked in and began rifling through the cash register, grabbing about $100 and some food stamps.

It's unclear whether Langford then confronted Trotter or whether he sought her out. But somehow, he ended up with the butcher knife she had been using to cut meat and then using it to stab the grandmother seven times, archived news reports say.

"What he did was brutal and sadistic," prosecutor Baron Given told jurors at trial, the Herald-Tribune reported.

Trotter fled the scene and used the stolen money to buy rock cocaine. Langford initially survived the stabbing and identified her attacker before dying of cardiac arrest on the way to emergency surgery.

Trotter's attorneys argued that he should be spared because he was high on crack when he committed the murder and had no control over his behavior.

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"Premeditated first-degree murder is not committed in the manner that the state would have you believe Virgie Langford met her death," Trotter's attorney, Peter Dubensky, told jurors, according to the newspaper. "One does not premeditate murder when one arrives at the scene unarmed."

Who was Virgie Langford?

Virgie Langford was a hard-working mother of four who loved running her corner grocery store and continued doing so after she divorced her children's father, according to a community message written by the children and published in the Bradenton Herald.

"How sad that we had finally convinced our mother to retire ... and enjoy the house in the suburbs she had worked so hard for and had recently purchased," they wrote. "How sad that in a moment of rage due to the need for money, drugs, or reasons that we cannot comprehend, an innocent person should die in such a savage manner."

Langford had operated the store since the late 1930s, seeing it through wars, political assassinations and the tensions of the Civil rights era. But Langford never judged her customers based on race, her children said.

"She taught all four of her children as we were growing up and doing our tour of duty in the family business one thing: 'You observe and listen to the words and actions coming from within,' no matter what color their skin may be or what language they spoke," the wrote in the Herald.

They partly blamed their mother's death on the "bureaucratic do-gooders of rehabilitation," referencing how Trotter was able to commit the murder because he was sentenced to house arrest for a 1985 robbery in which he had pinned a victim to the ground.

On the day Trotter was sentenced to death, Langford's family told the Herald that they were prepared to wait up to 15 years for the execution. They had no idea it would take 40.

Those family members who spoke to reporters about the case were strongly supportive of the death sentence, though they would not all live to see the day.

Langford's son-in-law, Gene Matthews, told the Herald in 1987: "I want to be there to see him burn."

At the time, Florida death row inmates were executed by the electric chair, a practice that ended in the state in 1999 after a series of issues with the state's chair known as "Old Sparky."

In 1997 as an inmate named Pedro Molina was executed, flames shot from his head, causing officials to decide to replace the chair, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. When a new chair was used on inmate Allen Davis in 1999, witnesses reported that blood poured from his mouth, indicating he was in an unusual amount of pain before dying, a violation against U.S. constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment for all Americans, even death row inmates.

Aaron Dickson, president of the board of directors of the Texas Prison Museum, is pictured on on November 19, 2002, standing with "Old Sparky," the Texas electric chair in which 361 inmates were executed. Many states used to call its electric chairs "Old Sparky," including Florida.When is the next execution?

The next execution in the U.S. will be on March 3, when Florida is set to execute Billy Leon Kearse for the murder of Fort Pierce Police Officer Danny Parrish on Jan. 18, 1991. Kearse was convicted of fatally shooting Parrish with his own service weapon 13 times after disarming the officer during a traffic stop.

It will be Florida's third execution of the year, more than any other state. Last year, Florida set a state record by putting 19 inmates to death as Gov. Ron DeSantis has made the death penalty a recent priority. The previous state record had been eight executions.

Amanda Lee Myers is a senior crime reporter who covers cold case investigations, breaking news and the death penalty for USA TODAY. Follow her on X at @amandaleeusat.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Florida execution of Melvin Trotter comes 40 years after grandma's murder

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