Harps Food Stores has denied illegally selling a handgun to convicted murderer Nicholas Roos only a day before he shot and killed an elderly Midway couple during a robbery at their home on County Road 508 in early November 2015.
The denial came in an answer to a lawsuit brought by the estates of the murdered couple — 75-year-old Donald Rice and 71-year-old LaDonna Rice. The Harps’ answer was filed Friday in Washington County Circuit Court. Harps Food Stores is headquartered in Springdale located in Washington County.
The lawsuit filed by the estates alleges Roos and a companion, Talmadge Pendergrass, went to the Harps store at 924 Highway 62 East in Mountain Home and purchased the .9 millimeter handgun used to kill the Rice couple.
The Rice home was ransacked and then set ablaze. It took several days of sifting through the ashes of the large residence before the couple could be identified.
The Rice estates allege Harps’ personnel failed to recognize a type of purchase prohibited by law in which one person buys a weapon for another who is not eligible to make the purchase for a variety of reasons. Roos is alleged to have told Pendergrass he could not buy the gun because of a prior commitment for mental problems, including a suicide attempt.
Scenes from Harps’ own video surveillance system shows the purchase as it unfolds, including a picture of Roos examining various handguns, handing money to Pendergrass to pay for the weapon and Pendergrass filling out paperwork which should have been completed by Roos as the actual purchaser of the weapon.
In the lawsuit against Harps, it is alleged the clerk who made the sale was a 17-year-old high school senior. It appears from published rules and regulations governing the selling of weapons, a person under 18 can sell them if they have written permission from a parent or guardian and has the document with them at all times.
The answer filed by Harps admits only the clerk was an employee acting in the course and scope of his employment with the company, but denies allegations the clerk failed to recognize the allegedly illegal purchase.
In the lawsuit by the Rice estates, it is noted Harps sells firearms at three of its stores — including the one on U.S. 62 East in Mountain Home. The company’s answer says currently only two stores located in Mountain Home and Marshall sell weapons.
In one section of the company’s answer, the attorney for Harps writes the company is without sufficient information to address the truth or falsity of the statement contained in the lawsuit filed by the Rice estates that the gun sold at Harps was the one used to kill the couple.
Harps is represented by the Barber Law Firm in Little Rock. The families are represented by the Little Rock law firm of McMath and Woods and two attorneys from Washington, D.C., including one with the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence.
Electronic court records do no yet contain a scheduling order, setting out dates when various events in the suit are to occur.
The lawsuit filed by the Rice estates does not mention a specific dollar figure being sought in damages.
Roos was convicted of the double murder of Donald and LaDonna Rice, robbing and burning their home in late May 2016 and sentenced to life in prison without parole. He is appealing that conviction, alleging ineffective assistance by the lawyers who were appointed to defend him from the State Public Defender’s Commission. Pendergrass was convicted of making a false statement in acquiring a firearm in November last year in federal court and was sentenced to 16 months in federal prison.
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