Ex-police chief sentenced for rape and murder escaped prison disguised as prison guard

As law officers search Arkansas’ rugged Ozark Mountains for a former police chief and convicted killer who escaped prison this weekend by impersonating a guard and walking out through a gate a guard opened for him, the sister of one of his victims is on edge.

Grant Hardin, the former police chief in the small town of Gateway near the Arkansas-Missouri border, was serving lengthy sentences for murder and rape and became known as the “Devil in the Ozarks.”

Hardin escaped Sunday from the North Central Unit — a medium-security prison also known as the Calico Rock prison — by impersonating a corrections officer “in dress and manner,” according to a court document. A prison officer opened a secure gate, allowing him to leave the facility.

Rand Champion, a spokesperson for the Arkansas Department of Corrections, described the clothes as not a standard inmate or correctional uniform.

“There’s nothing inside the prison that looks like that, so that’s one of the challenges we’re going through to find out what that was and how he was able to get that or manufacture it,” he said.

Champion said that the decision to house Hardin in a medium-security facility weighed the “needs of the different facilities and inmates” and “assessments” of his crimes.

Hardin’s escape happened days after 10 men fled a New Orleans jail by going through a hole behind a toilet. Eight of those fugitives have since been captured.

Escape into rough terrain

Cheryl Tillman, whose brother James Appleton was killed by Hardin in 2017, said she and other relatives are alarmed by Hardin’s escape since they were witnesses in his court proceedings.

“We were there at his trial when all that went down, and he seen us there, he knows,” she told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

Authorities are using canines, drones and helicopters to search the rugged northern Arkansas terrain, Champion said.

The search area has expanded as the hours have gone on, though Champion didn’t discuss exact details of the search area.

“Where this facility is located, the topography does provide challenges,” he said. “At the same time, it kind of limits where he is able to get.”

“It’s called Calico Rock for a reason, because it’s very rocky,” he added.

Video surveillance shows Hardin escaped at approximately 2:55 p.m. on Sunday, Champion said. Officials announced his escape at approximately 5 p.m. that evening.

Complicating the search effort is the heavy rain that’s fallen in recent days in the area, he said.

Hardin’s escape into a rural part of the state isn’t necessarily an advantage, according to Craig Caine, a retired inspector with the U.S. Marshals who has handled many cases involving escaped prisoners throughout his nearly 30-year career with federal law enforcement.

“At some point in time, he’s going to run out of provisions,” said Caine.

“In more rural areas, most people know one another,” Caine said, making it more likely that someone will identify Hardin and turn him in. “In that aspect, it could be detrimental to him.”

A rattled community

Izard County Sheriff Charley Melton and other local sheriffs urged residents to lock their homes and vehicles and call 911 if they notice anything suspicious.

Bryan Sexton, who prosecuted Hardin for both murder and rape, said that his office has reached out to officers who investigated Hardin and families affected by Hardin’s crimes, which were the focus of a 2023 documentary, “Devil in the Ozarks.”

“Making those contacts again with folks who have moved on with their lives for the better part of a decade now and to have to be the one who picks up the phone and reminds them of what has happened to them is something that weighs heavily on me,” Sexton said.

Gateway, the town of about 450 people where Hardin briefly was the police chief in 2016, is in the same large county as the headquarters of retail giant Walmart in Bentonville. But Gateway and the northeast part of the county is far more rural and remote than Bentonville. The landscape only gets more rugged to the east, into the heart of the Ozarks and the Buffalo National River, toward Izard County where the escape happened.

Darla Nix, a local cafe owner in nearby Pea Ridge, Arkansas, said her sons grew up around Hardin and knew him as a mostly quiet person before he was convicted.

“He was always just one of the kids, a member of the community,” Nix said.

Describing Hardin as a “very, very smart man,” Nix said she anticipates that the search for Hardin will be challenging for law enforcement.

“He knows where the caves are. He’s just a survivor. He knows how to make it. They’re going to have their hands full trying to catch him,” Nix said.

Tillman said she wasn’t surprised when she heard that Hardin had escaped. But the news suddenly added fresh pain for her and other family members after dealing with the grief from the killing.

“He’s just an evil man,” she said. “He is no good for society.”

Hardin pleaded guilty in October 2017 to first-degree murder for fatally shooting Appleton, 59. Appleton worked for the Gateway water department when he was shot in the head on Feb. 23, 2017, near Garfield. Police found Appleton’s body inside a car.

Investigators at the time did not release a motive for the killing and Hardin was sentenced to 30 years in prison. He is also serving 50 years in prison for the 1997 rape of an elementary school teacher in Rogers, north of Fayetteville.

Hardin had been held in the Calico Rock prison since 2017. The facility has a capacity of about 800 inmates, according to the Arkansas Department of Corrections.