Store Owner Allegedly Kills Business Partner Over Contract Dispute

A Newton, North Carolina, furniture manufacturer allegedly shot and killed the company’s co-owner Wednesday after an altercation over a contract.

FOX News reported that 85-year-old Willard Gary Black “allegedly shot and killed his business partner this week after a court ruled against him in a contract dispute.”

Fifty-nine-year-old Robert Roger Arguelles was shot in his chest and back and first responders tried to save him, but he died at the scene.

Queen City News pointed to a 2018 social media post which indicated “Arguelles and Black were co-owners of [Old Hickory Tannery],” which is the business where the shooting occurred.

WBTV observed that court records showed Black allegedly owed Arguelles $300,000.

Black is charged with second-degree murder.

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and the director of global marketing for Lone Star Hunts. He holds a PhD in Military History with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. He enjoys reading Philosophy and novels by Jack Carr and Nelson DeMille. He is a lever action man in an AR-15 world. Follow him on X: @awrhawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.