Florida to execute killer 40 years after savage murder of elderly grocer
USA TODAY
A crack addict named Melvin Trotter fatally stabbed 70-year-old Virgie Langford in the corner grocery store she ran for 50 years.
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.
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