Business dispute turns deadly after court loss in murder case

Willard Gary Black lost the court fight in the afternoon. Hours later, prosecutors say, the 85-year-old went back to Old Hickory Tannery in Newton, North Carolina, and shot his business partner, Robert Roger Arguelles, four times in a dispute that had already been reduced to a six-figure judgment.

Newton police said officers were called around 3:18 p.m. on Wednesday, June 17, 2026, to the plant on Locust Street and found Arguelles with gunshot wounds to the chest and back. He died at the scene despite life-saving efforts. Police said more than a dozen employees were inside the office when the shooting happened, and the weapon was recovered at the scene.

The case turned on a long-running financial fight between the two men. Court records say Black sold Arguelles 49.9% of the stock in Old Hickory Tannery in 2018, then Arguelles later said he loaned Black $280,000, with only $23,876.19 repaid. The dispute grew into a settlement of $310,882.74. On June 17, Judge Nathaniel Poovey denied Black’s request to withdraw consent to the settlement and ordered him to pay the full amount. Prosecutors say that ruling was the trigger for what followed.

About four hours after the court order, the argument resumed at the business and ended in gunfire, according to investigators. Black was accused of saying, “I shot that guy,” when police arrived. He was then charged with second-degree murder and ordered held on a $2.5 million bond. If he posts it, he would still remain under house arrest pending trial.

Arguelles was not just a private business figure. Local reporting identified him as a member of the Alexander County Board of Education representing District 1 in Wittenburg, with a term that began in 2022 and was slated to end this year. Alexander County Schools Superintendent Bill Griffin mourned him publicly, saying, “It is with heavy hearts that we mourn alongside the Alexander County Schools’ family, friends, and the entire community...” and describing Arguelles as a father, husband, and board member.

Old Hickory Tannery says its furniture business dates to 1972, which makes the shooting even more jarring: a decades-old company, a civil judgment, and a fatal confrontation all collapsed into the same afternoon. Prosecutors now have to prove the settlement loss was more than a business defeat, and that it was the moment that pushed the case from court records to a homicide scene.