Every US Prisoner EXECUTED in January & February 2026 | Crimes, Final Meals & Last Words
The first shot was some over 6 to 8 ft away. It’s just a big blur after that. She got in the middle of us fighting. It happened so fast. >> A blur. That’s what he called it. But the evidence told a very different story. Because Chuck didn’t fire from 6 to 8 ft away in some confused struggle, he kicked in the front door, walked into the bedroom, and stood over Darren while he fired four rounds into his neck and chest.
And Denise didn’t get in the middle. She screamed and tried to get away, but there was nowhere to go. Chuck told her, “I can shoot you too.” While he reloaded, aimed, and fired. The bullet hit her in the face. entering through her cheek. It shattered her dentures, nearly severed her tongue, and caused catastrophic internal damage. Denise dropped to the floor, badly hurt, but somehow she was still alive.
At that exact moment, Catherine’s son was heading out the door for school when he heard the gunshots. And not long after, Catherine heard pounding on her front door. When she stepped outside, she saw Denise on the ground, struggling to breathe and unable to speak. Denise lifted her hands and mimicked someone firing a gun, desperately trying to show Catherine what had just happened.
When Deputy William Coker rushed back to the apartment complex, the calm from earlier was gone. Now it was chaos. William knelt beside Denise and asked, “Did Chuck shoot you?” And Denise nodded. When William looked up, Chuck was nowhere in sight. He had already fled the scene. On his way out, he tossed the gun into a nearby creek and tried to disappear, but he didn’t go very far.
Instead, he drove to the home of a friend, Diane Zernia, arriving as she was getting her daughter ready for school. She let him in, and Chuck sat down in the living room. You might expect him to be pacing, panicking, but instead, he did something almost unreal. He fell asleep. After Diane’s daughter left for school, the house went quiet.
Diane turned on the news and that’s when she saw it. A story about the shooting at Denise’s apartment. She sat there watching while Chuck slept just a few feet away. Then hours later, he finally woke up. Trying to break the tension, Diane made a joke about his black eye and said, “I hope the other guy looks worse.” And Chuck answered, “He does.
I shot him.” He later called his father and told him what had happened. His father convinced him to turn himself in. And that same morning, Chuck walked into the police station and was arrested on the spot, initially charged with manslaughter. Back at the apartment, paramedics had done everything they could.
Darren was already gone while Denise was barely clinging to life. She was airlifted to Herman Hospital where doctors struggled to save her. The gunshot had severely damaged her airway and swelling made it hard to get a breathing tube in place. A week later, with no hope of recovery, her family made the heartbreaking decision to remove life support.
Denise died on May 6th, 1998. But Denise’s death didn’t just end her life. It changed Chuck’s fate entirely because now he wasn’t just facing assault charges, he was facing the death penalty. At his trial in 1999, Chuck admitted he fired the shots. His defense tried an unusual argument. They blamed the hospital, claiming doctors botched Denise’s breathing tube and that the lack of oxygen, not the gunshot, caused her death.
But even the defense’s own medical expert eventually admitted on cross-examination that Denise probably would have died without any treatment at all. The jury saw through it. On April 14th, 1999, Charles Thompson was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death. But getting sentenced to death wasn’t enough to stop Chuck because from behind bars, he tried to arrange another murder.
During the sentencing phase, the prosecution had presented evidence that Chuck posed a future danger to society. And they had proof. While Chuck was being held in the Harris County Jail awaiting trial, he didn’t lay low. Instead, he approached other inmates with a disturbing request. He wanted someone to kill Diane Zernia, the friend he had confessed to after the shooting.
She could directly link him to the crime, and he wanted her silenced permanently. An undercover investigator named Gary Johnson posed as a hitman and met with Chuck in a visitor’s booth wearing a hidden wire. >> Need to get rid of her. She’s the state’s witness. She’s the only witness they got. >> Okay.
During their recorded conversation, Chuck offered him $1,500 to retrieve the gun from the creek and murder Diane. He even drew a map to her house, described her family, her vehicles, and even the layout of her home. All to help this hitman carry out the job. But in 2001, an appeals court threw out his death sentence on a technicality, ruling the undercover operation violated his rights.
A new sentencing trial was ordered. In 2005, prosecutors proved his dangerousness again using testimony from another jailhouse witness who said Chuck had given him a hit list of people to kill. On October 28th, 2005, Chuck was sentenced to death for the second time. And what he did next is the reason this case made national headlines.
Just days after receiving his second death sentence, he pulled off one of the most audacious jail escapes in Texas history. On November 3rd, 2005, Chuck was still being held in the Harris County Jail, waiting to be transferred to death row at the Palinsky unit in Livingston. But what no one knew was that he had been planning his escape for weeks.
Inmates were allowed to keep a legal binder in their cells, and Chuck used his like a tool kit. Hidden inside were a handcuff key, a fake ID badge, and a full set of civilian clothes, khaki pants, a dark blue shirt, and white tennis shoes. That afternoon, Chuck told guards he had a meeting with his attorney.
They escorted him to a visitor room, cuffed like any other inmate. But once he was alone, he slipped out of the handcuffs, changed clothes, and walked toward the exit. As he reached the jail security checkpoints, guards stopped him just like they were supposed to. But Chuck didn’t panic. He flashed the fake ID badge, which claimed he was a state investigator with the attorney general’s office. And unbelievably, it worked.
He repeated this four times, bluffing his way past guard after guard until he reached the front entrance. Then just like that, he stepped through the door of a maximum security jail in broad daylight and no one stopped him. >> A drag net over Houston as police search for a convicted killer, a death row inmate who they say simply walked out of jail in Houston.
How >> Thompson smuggled street clothes that he wore for a court appearance back to his jail cell and then found a way to change in a booth like this one. A booth used for meetings between attorneys and inmates. Later, even he admitted he couldn’t believe it. “I was stunned that I made it out without being swarmed by deputies,” he told reporters.
Once he was free, Chuck hopped onto a freight train heading toward East Texas. Spent the night in an open box car. Then made his way to Shrivefeport, Louisiana. There, he stole a bike and pretended to be a Hurricane Katrina evacuee to get money from strangers, planning to collect enough cash to reach Canada.
But he didn’t make it. On November 6th, just 3 days after his escape, Chuck’s freedom came to an end. Acting on a tip, police found Chuck intoxicated at a pay phone outside a liquor store in Shreveport. He was trying to call friends overseas to arrange a wire transfer. He was arrested without a fight and sent back to Texas.
For the next 20 years, Chuck sat on death row. Every appeal was denied. And in 2025, his death warrant was finally signed. For the families of Denise Heslip and Darren Kaine, the wait had been long and painful. 27 years had passed since that brutal night. When the death warrant was signed, friends and family of Darren were in the courtroom.
And according to the prosecutor, they had been looking forward to this day very much. In the weeks leading up to his scheduled execution, Chuck gave interviews from death row and expressed deep remorse for what he had done. It’s tragic what happened. He said, “I regret it. I have remorse. I want people to be able to heal and move past it.
I pray for them and I’ve asked them to forgive me.” But he also continued to insist that the hospital had some responsibility for Denise’s death. “If she had survived, my maximum sentence would have been life in prison,” he said. Chuck talked to his parents often, but they hadn’t visited in person in years.
He had a daughter, now 34, and a son, 31. He and his daughter had stayed close. But in his final days, it wasn’t family sitting with him. It was his pen pals. The day before his execution, one supporter sat with him in the visiting room for 9 hours. And when the sun came up on January 28th, they came back. They were there by 8:00 a.m.
sitting with him again while everyone waited on a lastminute ruling from the Court of Criminal Appeals. Even with a few hours left to live, he was calm, steady, and still holding on to hope. Outside the prison, his pen pals were refreshing court dockets and news feeds. But the stay never came. The preparations continued. Under Texas law, inmates can no longer request a special last meal.
He was offered a meal from the day’s prison menu that featured fried chicken, scrambled eggs, and other items. By 6:00 p.m., he was strapped to the gurnie. In his final words, Chuck turned to the families of his victims and asked them to find it in their hearts to forgive him, saying he hoped they could begin to heal and move past this.
There are no winners in this situation, he said after a spiritual adviser prayed over him for several minutes and just before the lethal dose of pentobarbatital was administered. He told the witnesses that his execution creates more victims and traumatizes more people 28 years later. I’m sorry for what I did.
I’m sorry for what happened, he added. And I want to tell all of you all I love you and to keep Jesus in your life. Keep Jesus first. As the injection began to take effect, Chuck took a series of heavy breaths, then grew quiet and still. 22 minutes later, at 6:50 p.m., Charles Victor Thompson was pronounced dead.
He was 55 years old. Chuck Thompson never got a second chance, but the next man on this list did, and within 6 months, he threw it away. Ronnie was just 16 years old when he killed for the first time. His first victim was a man named Michael Lee Green. Ronnie stabbed him 23 times, crushed his skull, and burned his car.
He was convicted of seconddegree murder, and sentenced to 30 years, of which he served only 10. And when he got out in 1988, everyone assumed he had learned his lesson. But he hadn’t. 6 months after his release, Ronnie killed again. His victim was a 33-year-old traveling salesman named Michael Sheridan. Outgoing, friendly, the kind of guy who would strike up a conversation with anyone.
He was on a routine business trip in Gainesville, Florida, with a family back home waiting for him. On the evening of May 23rd, 1989, Michael walked into the Purple Porpus Lounge, a bar near the University of Florida campus. He was already a few drinks in and feeling social. But what Michael didn’t know was that his friendliness was about to cost him his life because sitting in a booth just a few feet away were two brothers and one of them had already killed before.
Ronald Palmer Heath was 28 and his younger brother Kenneth was 24. Kenneth struck up a conversation with Michael. They talked about baseball, about life, about nothing in particular. Michael was friendly, generous even. And then he made a gesture that would seal his fate. He offered to buy them drinks.
And by the end of the night, Michael had paid the entire bar tab for both brothers with his credit card. Eventually, Michael asked Kenneth a simple question. Do you get high? Do you have any marijuana? Kenneth told him that his brother Ronnie did. But here’s the thing about Ronnie. He wasn’t just making small talk.
He was watching, calculating. Michael was wearing gold chains, a watch, and a bracelet. He was clearly drunk. He was alone, and he had just shown that he had money. Ronnie pulled Kenneth aside and made a suggestion. If they could get Michael to leave with them, they could rob him. And Kenneth agreed just like that.
The three men left the purple porpus together shortly after midnight. They got into Kenneth’s car with Ronnie behind the wheel and drove out of town. Michael thought they were going somewhere to smoke. He thought he was making friends. He had no idea what was really about to happen. Ronnie drove them to a remote dirt road in Alakua County, far from any houses or street lights.
They parked, got out of the car, and lit a joint. Michael was relaxed, unsuspecting. But then Ronnie made a gesture, a motion with his hand, like he was holding a gun, and he said to Kenneth, “Did you get it? Kenneth knew exactly what he meant. He reached under the car seat and pulled out a small caliber handgun. He pointed it directly at Michael and told him he was being robbed.
He ordered Michael to hand over his wallet and remove his jewelry. Michael looked at them in disbelief. Y’all aren’t serious, are you? But they were. And when Michael refused to comply, when he said he wasn’t going to give them anything, Kenneth pulled the trigger. The bullet hit Michael in the chest. He stumbled backward and sat down on the ground, clutching his wound, and he said that it hurt.
But Ronnie wasn’t done. He walked over to Michael and demanded his wallet, his chains, his watch. And when Michael started to reach for his belongings, Ronnie began kicking him hard and repeatedly as he lay wounded on the ground. Ronnie stripped Michael of everything. His wallet, his gold chains, his watch.
But there was one piece of jewelry he couldn’t find. A bracelet he had seen earlier. Ronnie told Michael, “You give me the bracelet and we’ll get you to a hospital.” But Michael couldn’t give it. Either he didn’t have it or he couldn’t reach it in his condition. Frustrated, Ronnie walked back to the car and when he returned, he was holding a hunting knife.
He walked up to Michael and stabbed him in the neck. He tried to slit his throat, jabbing the blade in and attempting to cut, but the knife wasn’t sharp enough. It didn’t work, so Ronnie turned to Kenneth and gave him an order. Shoot him in the head. Kenneth fired twice. Two bullets entered Michael’s skull from the front just above his left eyebrow. And that was it.
Michael collapsed and died there in the dirt. All for a watch, some chains, and a wallet. But the brothers weren’t done yet. And what they did next is what eventually led investigators straight to them. They picked up Michael’s body and carried it deeper into the woods, dumping it where they hoped it wouldn’t be found for a long time.
Ronnie wiped the knife clean and put it back in the car. Then they drove back to the purple porpus. Michael’s rental car was still sitting in the parking lot. Ronnie handed Kenneth the keys and told him to follow. They drove the rental car to another remote dirt road, removed some items from the vehicle, cut the gas line, and set it on fire.
They left the knife inside the burning car, letting the flames consumed the evidence. The next day, the brothers went shopping like nothing had happened. They used Michael’s stolen credit cards at the Oaks Mall in Gainesville, buying clothes, shoes, and anything they wanted. Ronnie told Kenneth to sign all the receipts because his handwriting was better.
But when a store clerk got suspicious, they fled. On the way home, they threw the handgun into the St. John’s River. It was never recovered. Michael’s body was found 6 days later. Investigators traced the credit card purchases back to the brothers and store clerks identified Kenneth from photo lineups.
Several weeks after the murder, police arrested Ronnie at his trailer in Georgia. They found clothes and items bought with Michael’s cards. But one piece of evidence sealed his fate. Michael’s stolen watch still on Ronnie’s wrist. Both Ronnie and Kenneth were charged with firstdegree murder, armed robbery, and multiple forgery related charges.
After his arrest, Kenneth made a deal. He agreed to testify against his older brother in exchange for a reduced sentence. In 1990, he pleaded guilty to all charges and received life in prison without eligibility for parole for 25 years. The judge’s sentencing order noted that Kenneth had acted under the power of his older brother.
Kenneth Heath remains in prison to this day. Ronnie went to trial in 1990 and the prosecution presented overwhelming evidence. the credit card receipts, the testimony of store clerks who identified Kenneth, the stolen watch found in Ronnie’s trailer, and most damning of all, Kenneth’s detailed testimony about what happened that night.
Kenneth admitted to pulling the trigger, but he painted a clear picture. Ronnie was the mastermind. Ronnie had suggested the robbery. Ronnie had driven to the remote location. Ronnie had kicked and stabbed Michael as he lay wounded, and Ronnie had ordered Kenneth to shoot Michael in the head.
The defense tried to argue that Kenneth was the more culpable party, that Ronnie had only played a secondary role, but the jury didn’t buy it. They found Ronnie guilty on all counts. During the penalty phase, the jury heard about Ronnie’s violent past, his conviction for seconddegree murder at age 16, his decade in prison, and his release just 6 months before this crime.
The prosecution argued that he posed a continuing danger to society, that he had been given a second chance and had immediately returned to violence. The jury voted 10 to two to recommend the death penalty and without hesitation, the judge agreed. Ronald Palmer Heath was sentenced to die in Florida’s electric chair.
For the next 35 years, every appeal was denied. The evidence was overwhelming and the courts never wavered. And in 2026, his time was up. On February 10th, Ronnie’s final day came. He woke up at 5:07 a.m. in his cell at Florida State Prison. In nearly every letter he wrote while on death watch, Ronnie asked the same thing.
Please look after my mother. Later that day, two people came to say goodbye, his mother and a friend. He did not meet with a spiritual adviser. And when officials offered him a special last meal, he declined. After 35 years on death row, Ronnie ate the same standard tray as every other inmate. At 6:00 p.m.
, the curtain to the execution chamber went up. Ronnie was already strapped to the gurnie, an IV line inserted in his arm. The warden asked if he had any final words. Ronnie looked up and said, “I’m sorry. That’s all I can say. Thank you. 35 years, and that was all he had.” As the drugs began flowing, Ronnie showed little reaction.
He closed his eyes. His breathing slowed, and then he was still. About 8 minutes later, a medic was called in. 2 minutes after that, at 6:12 p.m., Ronald Palmer Heath was pronounced dead. He was 64 years old. The next execution was carried out just 2 days later in Oklahoma. And the reason Kendrick Simpson ended up on death row.
Someone said something about his hat. That’s all it took. A passing comment about a Chicago Cubs baseball cap inside a hiphop club in Oklahoma City. By the end of that night, two men were dead, shot with an AK-47 on a highway, and a third barely survived. But this wasn’t just a nightclub shooting. What investigators later uncovered about Kendrick’s past made this case one of the most disturbing on Oklahoma’s death row. This is what he did.
It was the evening of January 15th, 2006. 26-year-old Kendrick and two friends, Jonathan Dalton and Latango Robertson, were getting ready to go out to Fritzies, a hiphop club in Oklahoma City. But before they left, they stopped at Kendrick’s house so he could change clothes. And while he was inside, Kendrick grabbed something else, an AK-47 assault rifle.
The three men drove to a house party first where they spent hours drinking alcohol and using drugs. They didn’t arrive at Fritzies until sometime between midnight and 1:00 a.m. on January 16th. And once inside, Kendrick and Jonathan took and got drinks. Jonathan and Latango sat down at a table while Kendrick walked around the club.
As he moved through the crowd, he walked past three men he didn’t know. London Johnson, Anthony Jones, and Glenn Palmer. They were close friends, had known each other since they were kids. Glenn was 20 years old and Anthony was just 19. And as Kendrick passed them, one of them said something about the Chicago Cubs baseball cap he was wearing.
It was a passing comment, nothing serious, but Kendrick didn’t take it that way. He went back to his table and told Jonathan and Latango that some guy had given him a hard time about his cap. Then he approached the three men again. This time his tone was different. He told them he was going to chop them up.
street slang for shooting them with a chopper, an AK-47. It was a direct threat, and the three men heard it loud and clear. But a few moments later, he walked up to Glenn, acted like nothing happened, extended his hand, and said, “We cool?” But Glenn didn’t buy it. He hit Kendrick in the mouth, knocking him to the floor. Kendrick got up, walked back to his friends, and told them he wanted to leave.
The three men left the club and ended up at a 7-Eleven on Northwest 23rd Street with some girls they had been talking to in the parking lot. And as they sat in their Monte Carlo, another car pulled into the lot, a Chevy Caprice. Inside that Caprice were London, Anthony, and Glenn. Kendrick recognized Glenn immediately as the one who had hit him at Fritzies.
Jonathan told Kendrick to chill out, but Kendrick wasn’t listening. What happened next would be the reason he spent the rest of his life behind bars. When Glenn drove out of the parking lot and merged onto Interstate 44, Kendrick told Jonathan to follow them. As they drove behind the Caprice, Kendrick turned to Latango in the back seat and told him to hand over the gun.
Latango hesitated, but Kendrick made it clear if he had to reach back and get it himself, there would be trouble. Glenn exited the interstate onto Pennsylvania Avenue, and Jonathan followed. As they drove down Pennsylvania, Jonathan pulled the Monte Carlo into the left lane beside the Caprice. Glenn was driving.
Anthony was in the front passenger seat and London was in the back. And then Kendrick pointed the assault rifle out the open window and started firing. The shots came fast, about 20 rounds in rapid succession. London heard the gunfire and immediately dropped to the floor of the car. He didn’t see the shooter, but he saw the white vehicle pull up beside them.
And he heard the bullets tearing into the car. The Caprice jumped the curb, hit an electric pole and a fence, and came to a stop. Glenn had been shot in the chest while Anthony took rounds to the side of his head and torso. Anthony was unconscious, but Glenn wasn’t. He was still awake. He knew he had been shot and he was terrified the shooters were going to come back and finish the job.
London, trapped in the back seat with his dying friends, tried to give them CPR, but Glenn’s breathing grew heavier and slower, and London could only sit there and watch as his best friend slipped away. London flagged down a passing car and asked the driver to get help. But by the time paramedics arrived, it was too late.
Glenn and Anthony died right there on Pennsylvania Avenue. They had walked into that club a few hours earlier with their whole lives ahead of them, not knowing they would be dead hours later, all because of a dispute over a baseball cap. Meanwhile, back in the Monte Carlo, Kendrick said, “I’m a monster. I just shot the car up.
” But then he added, “They shouldn’t play with me like that.” Jonathan kept driving until they reached his house in Midwest City. there. They dropped off the gun, switched cars, and went to meet the girls from Fritzies, acting like nothing had happened. But this wasn’t Kendrick’s first time shooting someone, and what came out at trial would prove that this was a pattern, not a one-time explosion.
Police quickly identified Kendrick as the shooter. Latango and Jonathan were arrested as accessories, and each pleaded guilty to 20 years. They served six. But for Kendrick, prosecutors weren’t offering any deal. In their eyes, only one sentence would be enough. The defense argued Kendrick suffered from severe PTSD, that he had magnified the threat from Glenn and the others because he was hypervigilant and paranoid.
And to understand why, they took the jury back to the beginning. Kendrick, who fled to Oklahoma as a hurricane Katrina refugee in 2005, was born in New Orleans in 1980. He grew up surrounded by drugs and violence. He wasly assaulted as a child and when he turned 16, a friend asked him to kill a government witness.
Kendrick refused and because of that refusal, the friend ambushed him and shot him five times. He spent two months in the hospital, much of it in a coma. And over the next seven months, he underwent 16 surgeries. The trauma left him paranoid and hypervigilant, and a psychologist diagnosed him with PTSD. But the jury would later hear something during sentencing that made the PTSD defense almost irrelevant.
Before the murders at Fritz, Kendrick and two other men had forced their way into the home of a man named Hung Pam. Kendrick had shoved a gun in Hung’s face, then beat him with it and forced him into a bathroom closet, demanding money. But when Hung told them there was nothing left, Kendrick raised the gun and shot him in the head at point blank range.
Then the three men walked out, leaving Hung on the bathroom floor, bleeding and unconscious. Against all odds, Hung survived. Kendrick was convicted for that robbery and sentenced to 7 and 12 years in prison, but he was released early just months before the night at Fritz. Now in the sentencing phase of the murder trial, Hung Fam took the stand.
He described how Kendrick had beaten him with a gun and shot him in the head. “He hurt me a lot,” he said. “I remember forever.” The prosecution also called a jailhouse informant named Roy Collins. Roy testified that Kendrick had tried to hire him to kill London and assault two pregnant women who were state witnesses.
He said Kendrick would smile and laugh when talking about the murders and thought he was a gangster like Tupac or Biggie Smalls. And that Kendrick told him he couldn’t believe the victim’s families were crying because the victims were the life they lived. That’s the life they chose. The jury found him guilty on all counts.
They voted unanimously for death. Kendrick Antonio Simpson was sentenced to die by lethal injection. For the next 18 years, Kendrick sat on death row at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in Mallister. And during that time, something changed, or so they said. He earned his GED, took college courses, and became an award-winning poet.
He also maintained close relationships with his family, including his sons, who said he had stayed a part of their lives despite being in prison. Over those 18 years, Kendrick came to terms with what he had done. “I’m responsible for their deaths,” he said. “I don’t make any excuses.
I don’t blame others, and they didn’t deserve what happened to them. I’m ashamed of causing much pain and hurt, the type of pain and hurt that lives forever.” But none of that changed what happened. And in 2026, his death warrant was signed. On January 14th, Kendrick appeared before the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board via video conference from death row.
>> I’m ashamed of my actions. I’m ashamed of the destruction my actions cause. I’m ashamed of being a murderer. >> He also added, I’m not the worst of the worst. I’m not a monster. Remember what he said in that car 18 years earlier? I’m a monster. Now he stood before the board saying, “I’m not a monster.
Whether the change was real or performed, only he knows.” But the victim’s families were also there, and they saw it differently. He was literally a monster in that nightclub looking for somebody’s life to take, said Crystal Allison, Glenn’s sister. My brothers meant the world to me. They were the stars of the family. They were the center of our family.
London Johnson, the sole survivor, told the board, “Part of me died in that car as well. Those were my best friends, my brothers.” He added, “So many endless tears and sleepless nights of images of my friends laying there bleeding out, suffering.” But Kendrick’s attorney asked for mercy. >> Kendrick’s trauma does not absolve him from his responsibility.
I think it does provide context for the actions and a reason for compassion. The board voted 3 to2 to deny clemency and Governor Kevin Stit upheld the decision. >> Clemency is denied. >> The execution would proceed as scheduled. What do you think? Did Kendrick deserve a second chance or was the death penalty the right call? On February 12th, 2026, his final day came.
For his last meal, Kendrick requested a bacon cheeseburger, large onion rings, and a strawberry milkshake. Just before 10:00 a.m., he was strapped to the gurnie. When asked for his final words, he looked at the people who had come to support him and said, “Love y’all. Thanks for being here to support me. That’s it.” He didn’t say anything about Glenn.
He didn’t say anything about Anthony. And he didn’t say a word to their families. His spiritual adviser began reading from the Bible. Kendrick closed his eyes. Then he opened them one last time, looked at his supporters, smiled, and gave them a thumbs up. The lethal injection began. By 10:12, he was unconscious.
Two tears fell from his left eye and rolled over the two teardrop tattoos on his cheek. He was pronounced dead at 10:19 a.m. Kendrick Antonio Simpson was 45 years old. After the execution, Crystal Allison, Glenn’s sister, spoke to reporters. on his deathbed. He’s still smiling, she said. A very big disappointment. Kendrick Simpson spent 18 years on death row, but the last man executed in February had been waiting nearly twice as long.
Melvin Troder had been on Florida’s death row since 1986, almost 40 years. And the crime that put him there happened inside a small grocery store in Palmetto, Florida. It was a Monday afternoon, June 16th, 1986. 70-year-old Vie Langford was alone inside Langford’s grocery store in Palmetto, Florida. She had owned and operated the store for years.
It was her livelihood, her identity, and a fixture in the community. The last customer had gone for the day, and the store was quiet. But someone was watching. 25-year-old Melvin Troder had been waiting outside for exactly this moment. Melvin was already on community control, a form of strict supervised release for a prior robbery and burglary conviction.
But it didn’t seem like he had learned his lesson. He was broke and he was addicted and he needed money fast. He was wearing a Tropicana employee badge with the name Melvin on it. His own first name right there on his chest. And as soon as the last customer was gone, he walked inside. He immediately grabbed Virgie by the neck and forced her toward the back of the store.
He reached for a 16-in butcher knife taken from the store itself and stabbed her seven times. He cut 8 in deep into her abdomen, disembowing her. But Vie was still conscious. And while she lay there bleeding on the floor of her own store, Melvin walked to the register, emptied it, and left. But how he spent the next few hours and what Vie did before she died is what eventually put him on death row.
A woman named Eleanor Oats later testified that she saw Melvin running from the direction of Langford’s store that afternoon. He asked her where to buy Coke. She went with him to buy it and the two of them went back to his mother’s house where they spent the rest of the afternoon smoking and watching television. Oats said that Melvin had money and food stamps tied up in a red bandana.
And when she asked where he got them, he told her he had gotten the money for doing a job. Meanwhile, a truck driver walked into Langford’s grocery and found Vie lying on the floor bleeding. She was rushed to the hospital and taken into emergency surgery. And despite everything she had just been through, she was conscious long enough to describe her attacker to police, including the Tropicana badge with the name Melvin on it.
But the damage was too severe. Hours after surgery, Vie Langford died of cardiac arrest. She was 70 years old. The police moved quickly. With Virgil’s description and the name on the badge, investigators identified Melvin Troder as a suspect. They searched his home and found a t-shirt stained with blood matching Vie’s type.
And at the store, forensic teams lifted a handprint from the meat cooler that matched his. He was arrested and charged with first-degree murder, robbery with a deadly weapon, and burglary. But what came out at trial about the life that led him to that store would divide the jury and then do something the defense never expected.
Melvin was born as the result of he never knew his father and his mother was an alcoholic who was physically abusive and emotionally absent. When he was 9 years old, the state stepped in and placed him in foster care. But that didn’t bring stability. His foster father was eventually jailed for aggravated battery, leaving Melvin to be raised solely by his foster mother.
The one bright spot in his life was his sister. The only close family relationship he ever had. But when Melvin was in his late teens, she was shot and killed. Whatever anchor he had left was gone. After his arrest, a psychiatrist found Melvin had an IQ of 72 and the mental age of a 12-year-old.
He couldn’t plan ahead, struggled to understand consequences, and his use made it worse. His attorneys laid all of it out in front of the jury. But underneath the sympathy was a detail that complicated everything. The state had already tried to help him. Melvin had a prior conviction for robbery and burglary, and instead of sending him to prison, the courts placed him on community control, supervised release.
That Tropicana job, the one whose badge he wore into Langford store he had gotten while he was on it. The system gave him a second chance. He used both the freedom and the badge to find a 70-year-old woman alone in a store. At trial in 1987, the jury found him guilty on all counts. Despite the mitigating factors, they recommended death by a vote of 9 to3 and the judge agreed.
But a ruling from Florida’s Supreme Court was about to change everything, at least for a while. On appeal, the Florida Supreme Court ruled in Melvin’s favor. They found that community control was not the same as a sentence of imprisonment under the law, which meant one of the aggravating factors shouldn’t have been used. They threw out his death sentence and ordered a new sentencing hearing.
But then something unusual happened. Before the new hearing could even be scheduled, the Florida legislature changed the law to specifically include community control as an aggravating factor. Exactly the factor the Supreme Court had just ruled couldn’t be used against Melvin. Now it could.
At the reentencing, Vie’s family took the stand. The new jury heard all of it. And this time, the vote was even more decisive. 11 to1 for death. Melvin’s attorneys appealed again, arguing the new law had been applied retroactively and violated his constitutional rights. And the Florida Supreme Court did something they almost never do.
They reversed their own earlier ruling, the one that had saved Melvin’s life and declared that the original trial had been error-free all along. The decision that had spared him, they took it back. His death sentence stood. What do you think? Did Melvin deserve to be executed or should his background have been enough to spare his life? Let us know in the comments.
For nearly 40 years, Melvin Troder sat on Florida’s death row. In all that time, he received a single disciplinary writeup, just one, for spoken threats in 1995. Other than that, nothing. For the family of Vie Langford, none of that mattered. On June 16th, 1986, a man walked into her store and took everything for $100 and a few food stamps tied up in a red bandana.
Then in January 2026, Governor DeSantis signed his death warrant. Every appeal was denied. On February 24th, 2026, Melbourne’s final day came. He woke up at 3:20 in the morning and according to the Department of Corrections, he remained compliant throughout the day. He had one visitor but did not meet with a spiritual adviser.
For his last meal, Melvin requested fish, rice, cornbread, an omelette, cake, and a soda. At 6:00 p.m., the curtain to the execution chamber went up. Melvin was already strapped to the gurnie, an IV line inserted in his arm. When asked for his final words, Melvin declined to give a statement. No apology, no explanation. Then two minutes later, the drugs began to flow.
Within minutes, his breathing grew heavy. His body twitched. And then it slowed. The warden walked over, checked his face, and shouted his name. There was no reaction. A medic was called in at 6:14. Melvin Troder was pronounced dead at 6:15 p.m. He was 65 years old. That concludes all executions carried out in January and February 2026. If you like this video, make sure to check out the next one because just when you thought it couldn’t get worse, well, it can.
And the next cases are even more disturbing.
