Former Arkansas police chief, serving time for rape and murder, escapes from prison
A former police chief in Arkansas who is serving decades-long sentences for murder and rape escaped from prison Sunday, state corrections officials said.
Grant Hardin, the former police chief of the tiny town of Gateway near the Missouri border, escaped from the North Central Unit in Calico Rock, where he has been held since 2017. Corrections officials did not provide details about how he escaped.
The state Department of Corrections is following leads with local, state and federal law enforcement agencies.
Hardin pleaded guilty in October 2017 to first-degree murder in connection with the shooting death of 59-year-old James Appleton. According to an affidavit filed in the case, Appleton worked for the Gateway water department and was talking to his brother-in-law, then-Gateway Mayor Andrew Tillman, when he was shot in the head on Feb. 23, 2017, near Garfield. Police found Appleton’s body inside a car.
Hardin, who was Gateway’s police chief for about four months in early 2016, was sentenced to 30 years in prison. He is also serving 50 years in prison for the 1997 rape of an elementary school teacher in Rogers, north of Fayetteville.
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2025-05-25/former-police-chief-serving-murder-and-rape-sentences-escapes-from-arkansas-prison
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People are always escaping from prisons for profit.
Astounding to me because I lived for decades in Chicago region & never heard of an escape from Statesville or Vandalia prisons.
