On June 13, 2008, 59-year-old Donna Barnhardt, who worked as an office manager at the Sun-Drop Bottling Company in Concord, North Carolina, was preparing to leave work early to travel to Myrtle Beach for a family vacation. Sun-Drop company president John King, his wife Connie, and their daughter were also on vacation at Oak Island in North Carolina. John was surprised that day to receive a call from another employee at the company asking whether he had seen the news. He had no idea two people had been shot and killed by an unidentified suspect. One of the victims, he later learned, was Donna Barnhardt, who had worked for the company for 18 years. John immediately got off the phone, telephoned his wife, and drove back to Concord.
There, it would be three hours before police let him into the scene of the crime. He later learned the other victim was 44-year-old Darrell Wayne Noles of Concord. Darrell had stopped by Sun-Drop that morning to drop off a job application while his wife waited in their car. There were two other employees in the building that morning, located at Branchview Drive and Cabarrus Avenue, and they were the ones who quickly learned something was wrong when they heard gunshots coming from the front office.
Local dispatchers called 911 at 10 a.m. that morning alerting authorities to the shooting. Around the same time, an eyewitness saw a black male leaving the building, carrying what looked like a box. He was described as being between the ages of 25 to 30, around five feet three inches tall, with shoulder-length dreadlocks. He was wearing blue jeans and a white t-shirt.
A North Carolina Highway Patrol helicopter and a police dog immediately joined police officers in searching for the suspect. When news of the shooting began to spread throughout town, many businesses in downtown Concord locked their doors.
A Town in Mourning
The residents of Concord were stunned and heartbroken when they learned about the two victims who appeared only to have been at the wrong place at the wrong time. Donna was a proud and doting grandmother who enjoyed traveling to places like the beach and Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. She was generous with those she loved, hosting easter egg hunts at her home and leaving notes in special eggs for prizes like televisions. Her obituary highlighted Donna’s colorful personality. She’d grown up in California, went to church with Red Skelton in her younger years, and babysit for actor Jim Backus, who played the character of Thurston Howell III on the show “Gilligan’s Island.” She met John Kennedy before he became president of the United States. She joined the Navy after high school and served for three years during the Vietnam War. She worked on military intelligence through the Pentagon and graduated first in her class at radiomen school. This was almost unheard of at the time because there were 65 men and two women in the school.
Donna eventually relocated to Concord with her husband Preston, attended UNC-Charlotte and earned a degree in sociology. She taught at Central Cabarrus and Northwest High Schools, eventually landing in her role at Sun-Drop Bottling Company.
Reverend Donnie Tomlin, who was related to Darrell Noles, said he was a family man who loved sports and hunting. Darrell was a Concord native who had worked as a fiber splicer with the Concord Telephone Company. He was married to his wife, Tressy, and they had two children and two grandchildren. He was also the song leader at the Bright Light Baptist Church in Concord.
Sun Drop Bottling Company History
At the time, Sun Drop was known as a small bottling company that was officially founded in 1954. The King family had been involved in running it as far back as 1904, when a man named John Thomas Honeycutt began making soda deliveries in a horse-drawn truck. In 1954, he purchased the Big Gem Bottling Company and the Sun Drop drink. Margaret King, John Honeycutt’s niece, took over operations in 1964. She racked up a list of accomplishments in the local community, including being elected the first woman president of the Concord-Cabarrus Chamber of Commerce and was the first female members of the North Carolina Bottlers Association.
Just a few years prior to the murders, The Charlotte Observer had reported the company had 28 employees, annual gross sales of about $6 million, and produced up to 5,000 cases of soda a day.
Police later revealed the gunman had walked into the office, stole an undisclosed amount of money from the petty cash and change from the vending machine, and gunned down Donna and Darrell.
On the evening of Friday, June 20, community members held a prayer vigil for the victims outside the bottling company plant. Officers with the Concord Police planned to stop motorists in the area and pass out fliers asking people who regularly traveled that route to offer up any information they had.
In August of 2008, John and Connie King sat for an interview with The Charlotte Observer. John wore a red plastic bracelets on his wrist that read JusticeForDonna.com, which her family had created. Darrell Noles’ widow, 43-year-old Tressy Hackett Noles, had been arrested the month before on an unrelated charge. Her former employer Spectrum Sales in Concord, accused her of embezzling more than $60,000 from the company between the years of 2004 and 2008. Tressy was charged with five counts of embezzlement. She had worked at Spectrum for 13 years before leaving in February 2008. By April, the company had noticed financial irregularities and called the police. In fact, local police were about to charge her around the same time her husband was murdered. They initially held off on serving the warrants to her out of respect for her and their grieving family. But eventually, they followed through on the indictments. Up until that point, Tressy Noles had no criminal record in the state of North Carolina. In The Charlotte Observer article, the Kings mentioned they had postponed a fundraiser planned for the Noles family after learning about the embezzlement charges, but held no will ill towards Tressy Noles. “She has been through so much,” Connie said. “I don’t want people to forget what happened to Donna and Darrell, and the people that they were.”
Concord Police Chief said although it was an odd chain of events, they didn’t believe Tressy’s charges were related to the shooting at Sun-Drop Bottling Company.
That September the City of Concord announced a $75,000 reward for information leading to arrests and convictions in the double homicide and Governor Mike Easley added a $10,000 reward from the state on top of that.
Suspect Sketch Released
The same month, police released a sketch of a man they said could be linked to the double homicide in Concord. They did not disclose whether they believed the killings were random, or if they had zeroed in on a motive.
I looked at court records related to Tressy Noles’ embezzlement case, and it appears as though she was found guilty and ordered to pay back the money she stole from Spectrum. She has been in and out of the courts over the years trying to get the judgement overturned and the company in turn, was still trying to work out restitution as of several years ago.
“America’s Most Wanted” featured the crime and suspect on their show in the months following the murders. But in the years that followed, no new leads other than the initial suspect description and sketch turned up.
Until this past week.
On May 21, a 43-year-old man named Johnny Steven Talbert was arrested in Port Angeles, in Washington State, and charged with the murders of Donna Barnhardt and Darrell Noles and one count of robbery with a firearm. It’s been almost 18 years since that devastating day in 2008. According to reporting by news outlet WBTV, Concord police said a big break in the case occurred in late 2025, after what they called “meticulous reexamination of evidence and the pursuit of previously undeveloped leads.” Concord detectives flew out to Port Angeles to continue their investigation, and three days later, they arrested Talbert. Detectives believe Talbert entered the place of business to steal money and the two people in the front office were shot during the course of that robbery.
Talbert will be extradited back to North Carolina. Of course, the first thing I did was look at that police sketch of the suspect from the early months of the investigation. I could definitely see a resemblance between the suspect sketch and photos throughout the years of Johnny Steven Talbert.
Talbert has been no stranger to crime while living in Washington. Since November of 2011, the local police department had made approximately 288 contacts with the man, including 14 arrests. Of those 14 arrests, two involved felony charges.
The Concord Police Department has asked that anyone with additional information on the Sun Drop Murder Case call 704-920-5000 or 704-93-CRIME to remain anonymous.
Show Sources:
Sun Drop Murders
June 2008
Charlotte Observer
June 13, 2008
Police search for man who killed 2 at bottling plant
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The Charlotte Observer
Hunt on for person who shot 2 to death
https://www.newspapers.com/image/632588999
The Charlotte Observer
June 20, 2008
Vigil planned for Sun drop victims
https://www.newspapers.com/image/632521921
The Charlotte Observer
August 15, 2008
Owner of Sun Drop describes a difficult 2 months since murders at soda bottler
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The Charlotte Observer
September 8, 2008
Police seek man regarding Sun Drop killings
https://www.newspapers.com/image/646156788
The Charlotte Observer
September 10, 2008
Gov. Mike Easley announced Wednesday
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The Charlotte Observer
June 26, 2009
Grief still marks senseless killings
https://www.newspapers.com/image/645983073
The Charlotte Observer
August 2, 2008
Widow is arrested in embezzlement case
https://www.newspapers.com/image/632559859
https://websleuths.com/threads/nc-donna-barnhardt-59-darrell-noles-44-concord-13-june-2008.140288
https://www.wcnc.com/article/news/local/police-release-sketch-in-sun-drop-shootings/275-374773920
