{"id":131104,"date":"2026-01-25T08:59:54","date_gmt":"2026-01-25T08:59:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/131104\/"},"modified":"2026-01-25T08:59:54","modified_gmt":"2026-01-25T08:59:54","slug":"florida-sets-execution-date-for-man-convicted-of-killing-tampa-bay-grocery-store-owner-in-1986","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/131104\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida sets execution date for man convicted of killing Tampa Bay grocery store owner in 1986"},"content":{"rendered":"

A man convicted of killing a grocery store owner during a robbery is set to become Florida’s second execution of 2026 under a death warrant signed Friday by Gov. Ron DeSantis, who signed off on a record 19 executions last year<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Melvin Trotter, 65, is scheduled to die by lethal injection Feb. 24 at Florida State Prison. DeSantis, a Republican, oversaw more executions in a single year in 2025 than any other Florida governor since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. The previous record was set in 2014 with eight executions. <\/p>\n

After taking a break for January, Florida appears to be resuming its pattern of two executions a month, which it maintained from May to December last year. Ronald Palmer Heath<\/a>, 64, is scheduled to die on Feb. 10, two weeks before Trotter.<\/p>\n

A Tampa Bay woman was strangled to death at her grocery store<\/p>\n

Trotter was initially convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death in 1987. The Florida Supreme Court found that the trial court erred in handling the aggravating factors of his case and ordered a new sentencing. Trotter was resentenced to death in 1993.<\/p>\n

According to court records, Trotter strangled and stabbed Virgie Langford in 1986 at her store in Palmetto. A truck driver found Langford alive after the attack, and she was able to describe her attacker before eventually dying at a hospital.<\/p>\n

Besides Trotter’s physical appearance, Langford described the attacker’s Tropicana employee badge with the name “Melvin” on it. According to court records, police later found a T-shirt with Langford’s blood type at Trotter’s home and Trotter’s handprint on a meat cooler at the grocery store.<\/p>\n

Attorneys for Trotter are expected to file appeals to the Florida Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

Forty-seven people<\/a> were executed in the U.S. in 2025, the highest total since 2009. Florida led the way with a flurry of death warrants signed by DeSantis. <\/p>\n

In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man convicted of killing a grocery store owner during a robbery is set to become Florida’s second…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":131105,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[265,2195,28,412,135,137,136],"class_list":["post-131104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-crime","tag-execution","tag-florida","tag-ron-desantis","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131104"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131104\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}