Trotter was initially convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death in 1987. According to court records, the Florida Supreme Court later found that the trial court had erred in handling the aggravating factors in his case and ordered a new sentencing hearing. Trotter was resentenced to death in 1993.
According to court records, Trotter strangled and stabbed Langford at her grocery store in Palmetto during a robbery in 1986. A truck driver discovered Langford alive after the attack. Before she died at a hospital, Langford was able to describe her attacker, providing details about a Tropicana employee badge bearing the name “Melvin.”
Police investigating the crime found physical evidence linking Trotter to the death. A T-shirt bearing Langford’s blood type was discovered at Trotter’s home, and his handprint was found on a meat cooler inside the store.
Attorneys for Trotter are expected to file appeals to both the Florida Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court.
Another death row inmate, Ronald Palmer Heath, 64, was scheduled to be executed on February 10, 2026, two weeks before Trotter.
Nationally, 47 people were executed in the United States in 2025, the highest total since 2009. Florida led the nation in capital punishment, with DeSantis’s 19 executions in 2025 far exceeding the previous state record of eight executions in a single year, set in 2014.