A quiet Tuesday morning at a small bottling company in North Carolina turned into a crime scene that haunted investigators for nearly two decades.
On June 13, 2008, a gunman walked into the Sun Drop Bottling Company in Concord and opened fire — killing two people in cold blood before grabbing cash from the front office and vanishing.
Two lives. Gone in minutes.
Donna Barnhardt, 59, had worked as the office manager at the family-owned company for nearly 20 years. That morning, she was planning to leave early — her family vacation was finally starting that day.
She never made it.
Darrell Noles, 44, was not even an employee. He had simply walked in that morning to apply for a job. He was described by people who knew him as a man of God, honest, tough, and generous to everyone around him.
“You couldn’t find a less deserving man,” a former neighbor wrote. “If this man would’ve asked, Darrell would have given him the shirt off his back.”
Police had nothing for 17 years.
Hundreds of tips came in over the years. Evidence was resubmitted to labs as technology improved. But the case stayed cold — until late 2025, when detectives made a breakthrough.
A careful reexamination of old evidence finally cracked open a lead investigators had never been able to fully develop.
It pointed them nearly 2,800 miles away — to Port Angeles, Washington.
The suspect had been living a quiet life on the other side of the country.
Detectives flew out, tracked him down, and arrested Johnny Steven Talbert, now 43 years old.
He is now charged with two counts of first-degree murder and armed robbery — and is sitting in jail waiting to be brought back to North Carolina.
For the families of Donna and Darrell, it has been a long wait.
But justice, it seems, finally showed up.
