A desperate manhunt was underway for a former Arkansas police chief who escaped prison, where he was serving a decades-long sentence for murder and rape.
Grant Hardin, 50, the former police chief of the tiny town of Gateway near the Arkansas-Missouri border was serving 30 years for murder and 50 years for the rape of an elementary school teacher.
Hardin slipped out of the North Central Unit in Calico Rock at around 2.50pm on Sunday, authorities say.
He was caught on surveillance footage escaping through the jail’s sally port wearing an Arkansas Division of Correction and the Division of Community Correction Uniform, according to the Stone County Sheriff’s Office.
It remains unclear how Hardin managed to get a hold of one of the uniforms, and the Division of Correction is now following up on leads along with local, state and federal law enforcement agencies.
In the meantime, the Arkansas State Police is asking anyone with any information about Hardin’s whereabouts to contact local law enforcement immediately.
The Stone County Sheriff’s Office notes that the former police chief – who stands at six feet tall and weighs 269 pounds – ‘is to be considered extremely dangerous and should not be approached.’
Lt. Shannon Jenkins, a spokeswoman for the Benton County Sheriff’s Office, also told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that it ‘is taking every step to assist the Arkansas Department of Corrections in locating Hardin.’
‘Hardin has strong ties to Benton County and we will be on alert,’ she vowed.
Grant Hardin, 50, the former police chief of the tiny town of Gateway near the Arkansas-Missouri border, escaped from prison Sunday afternoon
He was caught on surveillance footage escaping through the jail’s sally port wearing an Arkansas Division of Correction and the Division of Community Correction Uniform
Hardin had been serving a decades-long sentence for murder and rape at the North Central Unit in Calico Rock
Hardin had served as police chief in Gateway – a town of fewer than 500 people – for four months in 2016 and served two terms as a constable in Benton County.
He had also worked as a police officer in Fayeteville, Huntsville and Eureka Springs from 1990 through 1996.
In October 2017, Hardin pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in connection with the shooting death of 59-year-old James Appleton.
According to an affidavit filed in the case, Appleton worked for the Gateway water department and had pulled into a parking lot to talk to his brother-in-law, then Gateway Mayor Andrew Tillman, when he was shot in the head on February 23, 2017 near Garfield.
A witness said he saw Appleton’s pickup truck and a white Chevrolet Malibu parked behind it.
The witness claimed the Malibu driver waved him around – and when he was a few hundred yards away, he saw the Malibu speeding toward him and turning onto a dirt road.
Hardin has never provided a motive for the violent attack, and was sentenced to 30 years behind bars.
In October 2017, Hardin pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in connection with the shooting death of 59-year-old James Appleton (pictured)
He is also serving 50 years in prison for the 1997 rape of an elementary school teacher in Rogers north of Fayetteville.
Police collected his DNA upon his incarceration, and entered it into a national database that linked him to the cold case rape, KOAM reports.
Hardin pleaded guilty of the rape in 2019, after which Amy Harrison – a teacher at Tillery Elementary School – gave her victim impact statement.
She told how she was preparing lesson plans on a Sunday morning in November 1997 and arrived at the school a little before 9am.
Harrison went on to say she was working alone, but after she went to use the bathroom in the teacher’s lounge at around 11.30am she was confronted by a man holding a gun who forced her back inside.
Police said at the time that the suspect raped her and fled the scene.
