Recaptured Arkansas prison escapee known as the 'Devil in the Ozarks' sent to SuperMax prison
Convicted killer and recaptured prison escapee Grant Hardin, known as the 'Devil in the Ozarks,' has been transferred to the Varner SuperMax prison southeast of Little Rock, Arkansas prison authorities announced Saturday.
After a nearly two-week-long search in the rugged mountains of northern Arkansas, authorities recaptured Hardin on Friday 1.5 miles (2.4 kilometers) northwest of the prison from which he escaped. Hardin briefly attempted to run from officers when he saw them approach Friday afternoon, but he was quickly tackled to the ground, said Rand Champion, a spokesperson for the Arkansas prison system.
Authorities tried to track Hardin using drones, bloodhounds and a helicopter, but high water from heavy rains during the search raised the water level in creeks and streams around the prison. That likely limited his abilities — and also those of the searchers -- to move through the rugged terrain, Champion said.
'The direction he went, specifically around Moccasin Creek, saw high water due to the abundance of rain the last few weeks, which more than likely limited his options to get around the area,' Champion said. 'Search teams had looked through this area before, but the high water previously limited their ability to fully investigate.'
Residents of the nearby town of Calico Rock, like Roger Simons, said they were surprised to learn that Hardin had stayed so close to the prison.
'Most of us in the area kind of figured he was either gone or dead, and none of us really thought he was still in the area,' said Simons, a local bartender. 'We thought he was long gone — that's what I would have bet my money on."
Hardin had been held at the Calico Rock prison since 2017 after pleading guilty to first-degree murder in a fatal shooting. He escaped by impersonating a corrections officer 'in dress and manner,' according to a court document.
A prison officer in one of the guard towers opened a secure gate, allowing him to walk out of the facility. Authorities say they are investigating why Hardin's identity was not checked before he was allowed to leave.
Benton County Prosecutor Bryan Sexton, who oversaw Hardin's convictions for murder and rape, said he had been in close contact with law enforcement officials who were 'consistent' with their belief that Hardin remained in the northern Arkansas region.
Hardin is a former police chief in the small town of Gateway near the Arkansas- Missouri border whose notoriety led to a TV documentary called 'Devil in the Ozarks.' Sexton said his escape had significantly disrupted the lives of trial witnesses and Hardin's victims, whom he kept updated on the pursuit for the fugitive.
'Every one of them to a person informed me that they had to make changes in their lives because they had had concerns for their safety,' Sexton said.
After Hardin's recapture, 'they could get closure in their lives and secondly go back to their normal lives, which had been disrupted the whole time he was out,' Sexton said.
Cheryl Tillman, the sister of a man shot by Hardin in 2017, told The Associated Press that Hardin's capture was a 'big sigh of relief' for her whole family.
'We don't have to walk around, turning around all the time, thinking somebody's on our back,' Tillman said, emphasizing her appreciation for the officers who helped capture Hardin.
Sexton said he was more assured now that Hardin was being sent to a more secure facility.
The Varner Unit, established in 1987, has the capacity to house 1,714 inmates. It is the site where former President Bill Clinton's gubernatorial chief of staff, a death penalty opponent, faced charges for trying to smuggle a knife and tattoo needles into death row.
Within Varner, a special 'supermax' unit houses the most high-risk prisoners such as a man who fatally shot a soldier at a military recruiting station and death row inmates such as convicted child rapist and murderer Zachary Holly. Damien Wayne Echols of the West Memphis Three was also incarcerated there prior to his release.
'By reputation, Varner is the most secure prison in the Arkansas system,' Sexton said. "I think that all things considering, putting him (Hardin) in the most secure facility we can is probably a wise thing to do."
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The Guardian
23 minutes ago
- The Guardian
An ex-cop murderer and rapist broke free from prison in Arkansas. Those whose lives he shattered are ‘appalled'
The former rural Arkansas police chief Grant Hardin had earned the epithet 'devil in the Ozarks' because of the 2017 murder and separate 1997 rape to which he ultimately admitted. Then came his recent escape from prison by disguising himself as a guard and taking cover in the surrounding wilderness. Much of the US was gripped by Hardin's brazen 25 May breakout, a riveting epilogue of sorts, unfolding in real time, to the 2023 documentary whose title gave him his evocative nickname. In a criminal complaint filed after Hardin managed to flee Arkansas's Calico Rock prison by impersonating a facility corrections officer, investigators asserted that he had 'extensive knowledge' of the surrounding Ozark mountains region, had possibly been 'hiding in caves or rugged terrain' there, and may even have fled the state. It would turn out that he would be caught late on Friday afternoon less than 2 miles (3km) from the prison he had escaped from, his identity confirmed through fingerprints, according to authorities. Spectacular as those details may be to casual observers, Hardin's 13-day dash for freedom terrified those whose lives were shattered by his crimes – and those who worked to bring someone they once mistook as a fellow law enforcer to justice. A local police chief whose department had a hand in securing Hardin's plea of guilty to raping a local schoolteacher has said the survivor in the case – who has chosen to publicly identify herself as Amy Harrison – was 'appalled, concerned and disappointed', according to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette newspaper. 'She had the opportunity to let her guard down and live her life, and we're back to the pre-conviction days,' Hayes Minor, the police chief of Rogers, Arkansas, said to the Democrat-Gazette, before Hardin was re-apprehended. Cheryl Tillman, the mayor of Gateway, Arkansas, the town of about 450 residents where Hardin spent five months as police chief before his imprisonment, told the same outlet that news of the breakout had 'brought back all the memories' of how the fugitive had fatally shot her brother, James Appleton. 'He's just an evil man,' Tillman reportedly said of Hardin, adding that she had initially been hesitant to even go to work upon learning of the breakout. 'He is no good for society.' After Hardin's recapture, the Arkansas governor, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, issued a triumphant statement on X, saying state residents could 'breathe a sigh of relief'. But that was only after they had been unnerved by admonitions from law enforcement to lock their houses as well as cars – and to report anything suspicious to authorities. As Minor put it: 'It's appalling to me that we're even having to discuss this.' Hardin, 56, began his career in law enforcement working for police in the Arkansas cities of Fayetteville, Huntsville and Eureka Springs from 1990 to 1996. Each of those communities sits in the densely forested Ozarks, the mountainous and rural region that is mostly in northern Arkansas and southern Missouri, and is popular with lovers of the outdoors. Hardin's tenure at every one of those agencies ended prematurely. Fayetteville fired him for not completing his training, the local news outlet KFSM-TV reported. He reportedly resigned from Huntsville due to personal reasons. And he quit his post at Eureka Springs after being caught lying on a police report, according to what the chief there told KFSM. Then, from 2009 to 2010 and 2013 to 2014, Hardin served two terms as a constable in Benton county, within whose limits sit the headquarters of retail giant Walmart. Constables generally respond to low-level offenses, though they also serve legal documents such as restraining orders, whereas municipal police typically do not. Finally, in January 2016, officials in the tiny Benton county town of Gateway hired him as the chief of their single-officer police force. But Hardin resigned within five months after officials recommended that he be relieved of duty over 'the way that he was treating the citizens here in Gateway', Tillman, who was a member of the town council at the time, was quoted as saying by CNN. CNN added that, as Tillman saw it, Hardin didn't react well to criticism 'and was quick to anger'. 'He was very hard to get along with,' Tillman, Gateway's mayor since 2023, also reportedly said. 'You never knew what he was going to do.' According to authorities, on 23 February 2017, Hardin – then employed as a correctional officer at a lockup in Fayetteville – and Appleton were sitting in the latter's parked pickup truck. Hardin reportedly ended that encounter by shooting and killing Appleton, the brother of Tillman, whose husband, Andrew, was Gateway's mayor at the time. A witness later informed police that he had seen Hardin – someone he had known his whole life – in a white car behind Appleton's truck. That man described hearing a loud bang as he drove past the two vehicles, and said he looked back and saw the 59-year-old Appleton's body after he had been shot in the head. Prosecutors charged Hardin with capital murder, which in Arkansas can carry life imprisonment or the death penalty. He chose to plead guilty – albeit to the reduced charge of first-degree murder – in October 2017. Hardin did not provide a motive for murdering Appleton, a Gateway water department employee who was a father and grandfather. But he offered an apology to Appleton's family, and his attorney maintained that Hardin 'understood his actions had destroyed two families: His and Appleton's', the Democrat-Gazette reported at the time. The judge presiding over the case, Robin Green, sentenced Hardin to 30 years in prison. 'Many of us, including myself, are puzzled by this senseless killing,' she said. State officials collected a genetic sample from Hardin after he pleaded guilty to murdering Appleton. Investigators subsequently determined that that sample linked him to what was then Amy Harrison's unsolved 1997 rape case in the Benton county city of Rogers. Authorities said Harrison had been attacked shortly after arriving at the elementary school where she taught to work alone in the morning. She had gone to use the restroom in the teachers' lounge, and after she emerged, she was confronted with a man holding a gun. He made her go back into the bathroom, raped her and fled. Harrison called police and reported that her rapist had been shoeless, though he had worn a stocking cap and sunglasses. She said he took her underwear and was careful to not touch any surfaces. Yet he had left semen on her leg, which she wiped on to her sweatshirt and T-shirt. That turned out to be the genetic sample with which authorities eventually identified Hardin as Harrison's assailant. In February 2019, he pleaded guilty to raping Harrison, and Green sentenced him to another 50 years in prison – leaving Hardin to face the reality that he would be about 84 before he was eligible for parole, as the Democrat-Gazette reported. Sign up to Headlines US Get the most important US headlines and highlights emailed direct to you every morning after newsletter promotion Harrison addressed Hardin on the day the already convicted murderer was sentenced for raping her. 'I know there was nothing I did to make this happen,' Harrison said as some people in Green's courtroom wept. 'I could not have done anything differently, and I definitely did not deserve to be raped. I was just choosing to do the next right thing in my life when you bumped into me.' According to the Democrat-Gazette, she added: 'I am going to use my free will to overcome the evil you did to me. I am going to walk out of this building with my family and friends and enjoy the fresh air before I go home. 'I hope that my story is an encouragement to all survivors who fight for justice.' Green asked Hardin whether he knew Harrison – whose husband was a Rogers police officer – or he targeted her at random. Hardin said the rape had been a crime of opportunity. Given the chance to address Harrison, Hardin reportedly remarked: 'I just want to say I hate my old life and hope one day you will be able to forgive me. 'I'm sorry.' About four years after Harrison and Hardin spoke in court at his sentencing, the convicted rapist and murderer was the subject of the true-crime documentary Devil in the Ozarks. Roughly two years after that film came out, Hardin was completing his punishment at Arkansas's Calico Rock prison when he slipped into clothes meant to make him look like a corrections officer. He approached an actual corrections officer stationed at a security gate, who fell for Hardin's ruse, opened up and let him saunter out, according to a sworn statement filed in court. Rand Champion, spokesperson for the Arkansas state prison system, has since said that someone should have checked Hardin's identity before he was allowed to leave the Calico Rock facility. Champion said that the lack of verification was a 'lapse' that's being investigated. A frantic, multiagency search for Hardin ensued and went deep into a second week, seizing headlines across the US alongside an unrelated, similarly dramatic 10-man jailbreak in New Orleans. In the Hardin case, search crews were aided by bloodhounds, officers on horsebacks, aerial drones and helicopters. The FBI and US marshals offered $25,000 for information leading to Hardin's recapture. Arkansas prison officials released a photo to the public showing what the fugitive may have looked like after weeks on the run. There were a couple of potential but unconfirmed sightings publicized in central Arkansas and southern Missouri. Finally, on Friday, tracking dogs picked up Hardin's scent. Arkansas law enforcement officials and US border patrol agents collared him near a creek about 1.5 miles north of the Calico Rock prison. They confirmed they had the right man through fingerprints, as KFSM reported. Cheryl Tillman told KSFM she was grateful no one had been hurt while Hardin was on the lam, and she praised those who again had successfully gone after the ex-Gateway police chief. The Arkansas corrections board chair, Benny Magness, echoed Tillman's sentiments, saying he appreciated all that had been done so that 'the community could feel safe'. Nonetheless, in a letter addressed to Magness prior to Friday, Arkansas legislators said Hardin's escape from Calico Rock was chilling because of a number of factors. 'Given Hardin's background as a former law enforcement officer and his history of working for multiple law enforcement agencies, it is evident that he possesses knowledge and skills that enabled him to exploit weaknesses in our security protocols,' said the letter from Howard Beaty and Matt McKee, Republican members of the state house and senate, respectively. 'His manipulation of the system by wearing a disguise resembling a uniform is disturbing and speaks to a broader system failure.' The Associated Press contributed reporting
The Independent
17 hours ago
- The Independent
Recaptured Arkansas prison escapee known as the 'Devil in the Ozarks' sent to SuperMax prison
Convicted killer and recaptured prison escapee Grant Hardin, known as the 'Devil in the Ozarks,' has been transferred to the Varner SuperMax prison southeast of Little Rock, Arkansas prison authorities announced Saturday. After a nearly two-week-long search in the rugged mountains of northern Arkansas, authorities recaptured Hardin on Friday 1.5 miles (2.4 kilometers) northwest of the prison from which he escaped. Hardin briefly attempted to run from officers when he saw them approach Friday afternoon, but he was quickly tackled to the ground, said Rand Champion, a spokesperson for the Arkansas prison system. Authorities tried to track Hardin using drones, bloodhounds and a helicopter, but high water from heavy rains during the search raised the water level in creeks and streams around the prison. That likely limited his abilities — and also those of the searchers -- to move through the rugged terrain, Champion said. 'The direction he went, specifically around Moccasin Creek, saw high water due to the abundance of rain the last few weeks, which more than likely limited his options to get around the area,' Champion said. 'Search teams had looked through this area before, but the high water previously limited their ability to fully investigate.' Residents of the nearby town of Calico Rock, like Roger Simons, said they were surprised to learn that Hardin had stayed so close to the prison. 'Most of us in the area kind of figured he was either gone or dead, and none of us really thought he was still in the area,' said Simons, a local bartender. 'We thought he was long gone — that's what I would have bet my money on." Hardin had been held at the Calico Rock prison since 2017 after pleading guilty to first-degree murder in a fatal shooting. He escaped by impersonating a corrections officer 'in dress and manner,' according to a court document. A prison officer in one of the guard towers opened a secure gate, allowing him to walk out of the facility. Authorities say they are investigating why Hardin's identity was not checked before he was allowed to leave. Benton County Prosecutor Bryan Sexton, who oversaw Hardin's convictions for murder and rape, said he had been in close contact with law enforcement officials who were 'consistent' with their belief that Hardin remained in the northern Arkansas region. Hardin is a former police chief in the small town of Gateway near the Arkansas- Missouri border whose notoriety led to a TV documentary called 'Devil in the Ozarks.' Sexton said his escape had significantly disrupted the lives of trial witnesses and Hardin's victims, whom he kept updated on the pursuit for the fugitive. 'Every one of them to a person informed me that they had to make changes in their lives because they had had concerns for their safety,' Sexton said. After Hardin's recapture, 'they could get closure in their lives and secondly go back to their normal lives, which had been disrupted the whole time he was out,' Sexton said. Cheryl Tillman, the sister of a man shot by Hardin in 2017, told The Associated Press that Hardin's capture was a 'big sigh of relief' for her whole family. 'We don't have to walk around, turning around all the time, thinking somebody's on our back,' Tillman said, emphasizing her appreciation for the officers who helped capture Hardin. Sexton said he was more assured now that Hardin was being sent to a more secure facility. The Varner Unit, established in 1987, has the capacity to house 1,714 inmates. It is the site where former President Bill Clinton's gubernatorial chief of staff, a death penalty opponent, faced charges for trying to smuggle a knife and tattoo needles into death row. Within Varner, a special 'supermax' unit houses the most high-risk prisoners such as a man who fatally shot a soldier at a military recruiting station and death row inmates such as convicted child rapist and murderer Zachary Holly. Damien Wayne Echols of the West Memphis Three was also incarcerated there prior to his release. 'By reputation, Varner is the most secure prison in the Arkansas system,' Sexton said. "I think that all things considering, putting him (Hardin) in the most secure facility we can is probably a wise thing to do."
The Independent
20 hours ago
- The Independent
Arkansas death row inmate dies in prison of unknown causes
Arkansas death row inmate Latavious Johnson died of unknown causes at the Varner SuperMax prison on Friday afternoon, according to the state's department of corrections. He was in his 40s. The Arkansas Department of Corrections did not provide Johnson's cause of death and did not immediately respond to request for comment. Johnson had received a life sentence for the murder of his father, Johnnie Johnson, in 2000. Johnson was sentenced to death for the 2012 murder of a prison guard, Barbara Ester. Johnson had fatally stabbed Ester with a shank three times and punctured her heart, court records show. She had been investigating whether he had obtained a pair of unauthorized gym shoes in the prison. Johnson expressed remorse for his actions in a statement his lawyers provided to police, court records show. 'I should have just gave the shoes up, just said to hell with it, asked someone to send me some money and order me some more,' Johnson told a police investigator in an interview after the killing, according to court records. 'It's too late for all that now.' A corrections facility in Pine Bluff, Arkansas is named after Ester. ___
