A Florida woman who fatally shot a man during an argument in the parking lot of a Walmart will not be charged. Melissa Payne fatally shot Bart Diguglielmo on Tuesday, June 30, during a dispute over a parking space in North Lauderdale.
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Florida Woman Not Charged Following Fatal Walmart Parking Lot Shooting
Melissa Payne will not be charged after she shot a man dead at point-blank range. Payne will not be charged for the shooting death of 62-year-old Bart Diguglielmo, due to the state’s stand-your-ground law, per ABC News. The shooting occurred in a North Lauderdale, Florida, parking lot in June over a parking spot dispute.
Broward State Attorney’s Office Homicide Trial Unit Division Chief Stephen Zaccor announced the decision in a memo on Tuesday, September 3.
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“A dispute over a parking space,” wrote Zaccor. “In a Walmart parking lot. The facts surrounding the June 30, 2026, homicide of Bart DiGuglielmo are as tragic as they are absurd. There is relatively no dispute about what actually happened because the entire incident was captured by various video recording devices.”
The Broward County State Attorney’s Office said that prosecutors were not able to prove Payne wasn’t in fear of great bodily harm or for her life during the altercation, according to The Miami Herald.
Video Captures Walmart Parking Lot Shooting
Video of the dispute and subsequent shooting shows Diguglielmo leave his car in a travel lane after he tried to take the same spot as Payne. In addition, multiple witnesses said they heard him threaten her. Additionally, one witness claimed he was “visibly angry” as he looked at Payne.
DiGuglielmo reportedly threatened to “mess her car up” and “**** her sh*t up” before he got back into his car and sped off, only to return soon after. Payne was with her niece and niece’s baby at the time of the altercation, and she got out of her car with a gun in her hand. She held her phone in the other hand as she reportedly spoke to her husband. Payne told DiGuglielmo to leave her alone. In addition, the video shows her backing away repeatedly as she points the gun at him. However, he didn’t stop moving until Payne fired.
The memo states:
“If you keep coming up to me,” said Payne, per the ABC. “I’m going to ******* shoot you!”
Zaccor also said in the memo that Payne was in a public place where she had a right to be.
“A Walmart parking lot, and therefore was in a place she had a right to be…. therefore she was not doing anything unlawful at the time she used deadly force,” he wrote.
Man Who Murdered Trayvon Martin Used Stand Your Ground Law As Defense
As The Shade Room reported, George Zimmerman, the man who murdered 17-year-old Trayvon Martin as he was walking home from the store with a bag of Skittles, used the law to argue self-defense.
Zimmerman was a neighborhood watch volunteer when he approached Trayvon on his way home back in 2012 in Stanford, Florida. An altercation reportedly ensued, and he shot the unarmed teenager to death. However, he was found not guilty of second-degree murder and manslaughter. Zimmerman claimed he feared for his life under the stand-your-ground law.
A Miami-Dade Circuit Judge later ruled that lawmakers overstepped their authority when they modified the law that year to force prosecutors to disprove self-defense claims.
