A former police chief from Arkansas, currently serving lengthy sentences for murder and rape, managed to flee from prison on Sunday, as per state corrections officials.
Grant Hardin, who previously served as police chief in Gateway, a small town near the Arkansas-Missouri border, escaped from the North Central Unit in Calico Rock, where he has been incarcerated since 2017.
Officials from the corrections department did not disclose any specifics regarding his escape.
However, they did mention that Hardin had altered his appearance and was disguised in a self-made uniform resembling law enforcement attire when he fled from the North Central Unit.
The Division of Correction and the Division of Community Correction are collaborating with local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies to pursue leads.
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Hardin admitted guilt in October 2017 for first-degree murder related to the killing of 59-year-old James Appleton.
An affidavit in the case stated that Appleton, who worked for the Gateway water department, was conversing with his brother-in-law, then Gateway Mayor Andrew Tillman, when he was fatally shot in the head on February 23, 2017, near Garfield. Appleton’s body was discovered in a vehicle.
Hardin, who served as Gateway’s police chief for a brief period in early 2016, was handed a 30-year prison term. Additionally, he is serving a 50-year sentence for raping an elementary school teacher in Rogers, located north of Fayetteville, in 1997.
KFSM-TV, in its coverage of his guilty plea in 2019, mentioned that authorities utilized DNA evidence to secure a John Doe Warrant in 2003 as the statute of limitations approached.
Upon testing the DNA against various profiles, investigators obtained a positive match when Hardin was incarcerated for Appleton’s murder.
