Suspect arrested in 2008 North Carolina bottling plant double killing

An arrest in Washington has reopened one of Concord’s most notorious cold cases, nearly 18 years after two people were gunned down during what police say was a robbery at the Sun Drop Bottling Co.

Concord police identified the suspect as 43-year-old Johnny Steven Talbert of Port Angeles, Washington. He was arrested on May 21, 2026, after officers obtained a warrant charging him with two counts of first-degree murder and one count of robbery with a firearm or other dangerous weapon. He was being held without bail in Washington state while awaiting extradition to North Carolina.

The killings happened at about 10 a.m. on June 13, 2008, inside the bottling plant at 360 Old-Salisbury Concord Road near Branchview Drive and Cabarrus Avenue. Police said 59-year-old Donna Barnhardt, the company’s office manager, and 44-year-old Darrell Noles, who was there applying for a job, were shot and killed. Investigators said money was stolen from the office before the suspect fled.

For years, the case sat among Concord’s most painful unsolved crimes, drawing hundreds of tips from the community but no arrest. Concord police said the investigation broke open in late 2025 after detectives reexamined evidence and pushed previously undeveloped leads. On December 19, 2025, the department contacted the Port Angeles Police Department, and Concord detectives traveled to Washington on May 18, 2026, to continue the investigation before the warrant was served.

Police said the families of Barnhardt and Noles have been informed. The company, a longtime workplace in Concord that distributed Sun Drop and Snapple, had been described as a tightknit local operation, which helped make the shooting reverberate far beyond the plant itself. The original attack drew a large reward and national attention before fading into the ranks of unsolved violent crimes that linger for years, sometimes decades, with victims’ families left waiting for answers.

The arrest does not end the grief tied to the 2008 murders, but it does show that cold cases can still move when detectives return to old evidence with fresh scrutiny. For families who have spent years living with uncertainty, and for communities that still confront unsolved violence, the case offers a reminder that time does not erase the need for accountability.