Grant Hardin, a former police chief serving sentences for murder and rape, escaped from an Arkansas prison on Sunday while disguised in a ‘makeshift outfit designed to mimic law enforcement’
A desperate manhunt has been launched as a former police chief serving decades-long sentences for murder and rape has escaped from prison.
Grant Hardin, an ex-police chief of the small town of Gateway near the Arkansas-Missouri border, escaped from the North Central Unit in Calico Rock at 3.40pm on Sunday, according to state corrections officials. The convicted killer disguised himself and was “wearing a makeshift outfit designed to mimic law enforcement when he escaped the North Central Unit,” officials said.
The outfit was not an official Department of Corrections uniform and it is unclear where Hardin obtained it from. Officials did not provide any other details about how he escaped. Hardin had been held at the prison since 2017 after pleading guilty to first-degree murder in connection with the shooting death of 59-year-old James Appleton.
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The victim worked for the Gateway water department and had been talking to his brother-in-law, then Gateway Mayor Andrew Tillman, when he was shot in the head on February 23, 2017 near Garfield, according to an affidavit filed in the case.
Police discovered his body inside a car. Hardin, who worked as Gateway’s police chief for around four months in 2016, was sentenced to 30 years behind bars for the murder.
He had also been serving a 50-year prison sentence for the 1997 rape of an elementary school teacher in Rogers north of Fayetteville. Upon his incarceration for murder, police collected Hardin’s DNA and entered it into a national database that linked him to the cold case rape, KOAM reports.
Hardin pleaded guilty to the rape in 2019. The Division of Correction and the Division of Community Correction are following leads in relation to Hardin’s escape with local, state and federal law enforcement agencies.
“Officials continue to utilize a variety of means to track Hardin, as well as investigating the events that led up to his escape,” Arkansas Department of Corrections said in a press release.
The Stone County Sheriff’s Office has warned that Hardin “is to be considered extremely dangerous and should not be approached.” Arkansas State Police have urged anyone with any information about his whereabouts to contact law enforcement immediately.
Lt. Shannon Jenkins, a spokeswoman for the Benton County Sheriff’s Office, told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that it “is taking every step to assist the Arkansas Department of Corrections in locating Hardin.” She added: “Hardin has strong ties to Benton County and we will be on alert.”
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