Ex-police chief who was jailed for murder and assault escapes from prison in a "makeshift" law enforcement uniform

Tuesday, May 27, 2025 - A former Arkansas police chief serving decades in prison for first-degree murd£r and r@pe has escaped from prison.

Grant Hardin broke out from the North Central Unit in Calico Rock at about 3.40 p.m. on Sunday, May 25, where he has been held since 2017, according to a statement from the Arkansas Department of Corrections.

The 56-year-old former chief of the Gateway Police Department, a tiny town near the Arkansas-Missouri border, was spotted on surveillance footage believed to be “wearing a makeshift outfit designed to mimic law enforcement” when he fled the scene, officials say.

A still from the footage shared by the Stone County, Arkansas Sheriff’s Office appears to show Hardin sporting a dark-colored cap and vest, similar to the uniform worn by correction officials, about 50 minutes before his getaway while carting away wooden pallets and a box.

The Arkansas Department of Corrections said Hardin “was not wearing a Department of Corrections uniform” and “that all DOC-issued equipment has been accounted for.”

Authorities said he is “considered extremely dangerous and should not be approached.” Arkansas State Police Department is asking anyone with information about Hardin's whereabouts to contact local law enforcement immediately.

Hardin was arrested in February 2017 and charged with first-degree murd£r in connection with the shooting death of 59-year-old James Appleton, less than a year after serving a four-month stint as Gateway police chief in early 2016.

Appleton worked for the Gateway Water Department and was talking to his brother-in-law, then-Gateway Mayor Andrew Tillman, when he was sh0t in the head on February 23, 2017, according to an arrest affidavit. The motive for the murder remains a mystery.

The disgraced law enforcement officer pleaded guilty in October 2017 and was sentenced to 30 years in prison. A motivation for the murder was not provided.

Several months later in February 2018, Hardin was charged for the 1997 r@pe of elementary school teacher Amy Harrison in Rogers, north of Fayetteville.

Harrison said she was assaulted at gunpoint in a bathroom at Frank Tillery Elementary School while a Sunday church service was being held in a school cafeteria. She said she was in school to prepare lesson plans.''

DNA taken from Hardin during the 2017 investigation matched samples taken from the rape victims clothes, ABC 40/29 reported.

In 2019, Hardin pleaded guilty to two counts of r@pe and received two 25-year sentences, to be served consecutively.