CALICO ROCK, Ark. — On Sunday, Grant Hardin, a former Arkansas police chief, managed to escape from an Arkansas prison where he was serving lengthy sentences for murder and rape, according to state corrections officials.
Hardin, who once served as the police chief in the small town of Gateway, located near the Arkansas-Missouri border, broke out of the North Central Unit in Calico Rock. He had been incarcerated there since 2017. The specifics of his escape remain undisclosed by corrections officials.
It was noted that Hardin had disguised himself, donning a fabricated outfit that resembled law enforcement attire during his escape from the North Central Unit.
Efforts to locate Hardin involve the Division of Correction and the Division of Community Correction, working alongside local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies.
In October 2017, Hardin admitted to first-degree murder charges related to the fatal shooting of 59-year-old James Appleton. An affidavit from the case reveals that Appleton, who worked for the Gateway water department, was conversing with his brother-in-law, then-Mayor Andrew Tillman of Gateway, when he was shot in the head on February 23, 2017, near Garfield. Authorities discovered Appleton’s body inside a vehicle.
Having served as Gateway’s police chief for approximately four months in early 2016, Hardin received a 30-year prison sentence. Additionally, he is serving a 50-year term for the 1997 rape of a school teacher in Rogers, a city north of Fayetteville.
KFSM-TV previously reported on his guilty plea in 2019, explaining that DNA samples taken from the crime scene were used to issue a John Doe Warrant in 2003 as the statute of limitations approached. This DNA was later matched to Hardin when he was incarcerated for Appleton’s murder.
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