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.
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