A 12-day search ends less than 2 miles away: How the 'Devil in the Ozarks' was caught
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Ex-Arkansas police chief imprisoned for murder escapes prison
Grant Hardin, a former Gateway, Arkansas, police chief serving time for murder and rape, escaped from the North Central Unit in Calico Rock on May 25.
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The former Arkansas police chief who escaped prison disguised as a guard only made it about a mile-and-a-half away from the facility in the 12 days before he was captured, officials said.
Convicted murderer and rapist Grant Hardin was found at about 3 p.m. on June 6 west of the North Central Unit state prison near Moccasin Creek in Izard County, Arkansas Department of Corrections spokesperson Rand Champion said in a statement. In a photo of his arrest, Hardin is seen sitting on the ground in a vegetated area with his hands behind his back in a baseball cap and dirty T-shirt and pants.
Hardin, 56, was in prison serving a decadeslong sentence for the 2017 murder of water department employee James Appleton in Gateway, Arkansas, and the 1997 rape of a school teacher in nearby Rogers. He's known as the "Devil in the Ozarks," the name of a 2023 TV documentary about his crimes.
His escape on May 25 involved dressing up in a makeshift outfit to disguise himself as a corrections officer, tricking a real officer into opening a gate and allowing him to walk out of the medium-security facility, court records said. He will now be housed at the high-security Varner Unit in Gould, Arkansas, Champion said.
Here's what we know about Hardin's capture and escape:
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How was Hardin caught, ending 12-day manhunt?
Authorities said tracking dogs picked up Hardin's scent and were able to lead them to Hardin. Hundreds of law enforcement officers at the local, state and federal level spent nearly two weeks searching for Hardin, using dogs, drones and aircraft, at times hampered by severe weather.
Moccasin Creek where he was found has seen high water due to heavy rainfall in the last two weeks, which may have limited Hardin's ability to move around. It also prevented authorities from finding him sooner. Champion said search teams had looked through the area before but couldn't fully investigate because of the high water.
Though Hardin was previously thought to have left the state, Champion said investigators now believe he never got very far at all from the prison. He was fingerprinted and assessed at the North Central Unit before being moved to the Varner Unit, Champion said. He will be interviewed in the coming days.
How did he escape?
Hardin slipped away from the prison the afternoon of May 25 wearing a "makeshift outfit designed to mimic law enforcement," the Arkansas Department of Corrections said.
"Inmate Hardin impersonated a corrections officer in dress and manner causing the Corrections Officer operating a secure gate to open the gate and allow Inmate Hardin to walk away from the North Central Unit," Special Agent Dennis Simons of the Izard County Sheriff's Office wrote in an arrest affidavit.
A photo from surveillance footage showed Hardin wearing the outfit and pushing a loaded cart as he escaped. Champion said Hardin was gone for about 20 minutes when an officer noticed he was missing.
'Devil in the Ozarks' killer: Why was it so hard to find Grant Hardin?
His escape came amid an ongoing weekslong search for escaped inmates in Louisiana. On May 16, 10 inmates broke out of a New Orleans jail; two are still on the run as of June 7.
Who is Grant Hardin?
Hardin pleaded guilty to the Feb. 23, 2017, murder of Appleton. Appleton's brother-in-law and the mayor of Gateway at the time, Andrew Tillman, told police he was on the phone with Appleton while Appleton was driving his truck.
Appleton pulled over so he wouldn't lose signal while on the phone with Tillman, Tillman told investigators. Tillman heard what sounded like a car door slamming shut, then nothing. A witness also told police they saw someone pulled over behind the truck in a car and heard a gunshot, and identified the driver as Hardin. Appleton was found dead in his truck with a gunshot to the side of his head and face.
After his conviction, his DNA was matched with that from an unsolved rape case in 1997, in which a teacher said she was attacked while at school by a man who held her at gunpoint, according to court records. Hardin pleaded guilty to charges related to the rape.
Hardin's combined convictions added up to 80 years in prison sentences.
Hardin was the chief of police in Gateway for about four months in 2016, the Associated Press reported. He was also terminated from roles at other police departments, local outlets have reported.
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‘Devil in the Ozarks' used Sharpie, kitchen aprons and empty food can to craft disguise for escape
A convicted murderer and rapist who broke out of an Arkansas prison over the summer had planned his escape for six months, quietly collecting items while working in the kitchen and stashing them in areas rarely checked by staff. The Arkansas Department of Corrections' critical incident review committee detailed Grant Hardin's elaborate escape in a report released two months after he was captured in the woods about 1.5 miles from the North Central Unit in Calico Rock. Hardin, a former police chief who was convicted of murder and rape, was taken into custody on June 6 by U.S. Border Patrol agents and state law enforcement officers after tracking dogs picked up his scent. He pleaded not guilty to an escape charge and is scheduled to go on trial in November. He's currently housed at Varner Supermax prison in Gould, Arkansas. Hardin told Arkansas Division of Correction Director Dexter Payne in an interview that he used black Sharpie markers he took from the kitchen and laundry to color the clothes he wore when he fled, according to the report. He told the committee in a separate interview that he left the world "POLICE" outlined on his white T-shirt before coloring the rest of it. He said he molded the top of an empty food can into the shape of a police badge and used black aprons from the kitchen to craft an officer's body armor vest, according to the report, released Friday. Officials said Hardin was wearing a makeshift law enforcement uniform and pushing a cart with wooden pallets on it when he walked out the prison gate. Hardin said that the markers had been left lying around "because staff were not keeping up with them," the report stated. Hardin said he hid the clothes and other items in the bottom of a kitchen trash can because it was never checked by staff, it said. He also said that the staff did not monitor him while he was working on the back dock near the kitchen. On May 25, the day of his escape, Hardin said he overheard a deputy warden tell a kitchen supervisor that inmates would no longer be allowed to go on the dock by themselves. Despite rainy weather, Hardin said he decided to try to escape. The report said that Hardin "gathered up everything he had been hiding, including his clothes and food from various areas around the kitchen and dock area," and made his way toward the gate. Hardin, according to the documents, walked up to the gate and directed the guard to "open the gate." Without checking for proper identification, the guard let him out. The documents allege that on the first night of the escape, Hardin stayed in one area in the woods and "dodged the K-9 team that was searching for him." The second night, he moved around some more and became separated from the bag he used to store his food. Hardin told Payne that he survived on berries, bird eggs, and ants and drank water from the creek, the documents stated. He also had some distilled water with him that he got from the infirmary for his CPAP machine, it said. During his interview with committee members, Hardin allegedly said that he was initially able to avoid capture because of the rainy weather, dense vegetation and landscape. His escape left the small Arkansas town on edge and angered the family of the man he killed in 2017. The murder, as well as the 1997 rape of an elementary school teacher, were featured in the 2023 HBO Max documentary "Devil in the Ozarks." He planned to hide in the woods for six months if he needed to and then move west out of the area. But after becoming concerned by the lack of food available to him and how close the search teams were getting, he tried to leave the area sooner. "This is what led to the search teams spotting him and capturing inmate Hardin," officials wrote in the report. The committee said that, considering the nature of Hardin's crimes, he was incorrectly classified and should have been held at a more secure prison. But several procedural issues at the facility contributed to Hardin's escape, the committee found. It issued recommendations for corrective actions the facility should take, including the removal of all black kitchen aprons, additional surveillance cameras for blind spots, and changing the electric locks at the prison gates. The committee also suggested that all side rooms and mechanical rooms need to be checked during searches. A spokesperson for the Department of Corrections said Tuesday that it has reviewed the report "and will implement the suggestions made in regards to the findings." Ultimately, the employee who worked in the gate tower and the employee who left Hardin unsupervised on the kitchen dock were fired for policy violations. Several other employees were suspended, demoted or faced disciplinary action, according to the report.
