Former Arkansas Police Chief and Convicted Killer Recaptured After Escaping Prison

The capture of Grant Hardin, famously dubbed as “The Devil in the Ozarks,” a former small-town police chief turned convicted killer and rapist, by no other than a two-week trek across the rough hills of northern Arkansas.

Locally known as the former police chief of Gateway, Arkasas, near the Missouri border, who was the number one victim of Hardin, was caught at only 1/5 miles from the Calico Rock prison where he escaped on May 25. Authorities declared that, uneventfully, he was arrested on Friday after an incident in which he tried to escape, but was then neutralized by the cops.

According to officials, Hardin was able to get close to a prison guard by pretending to be a prison smuggler who performed so accurately that the gatekeeper fell for his tricks. The investigation of the breakout that led to the security team’s violation of their duties is now in progress, and the officers are unsparing in their criticism of it as a “lapse” that could have been prevented.

A search for Hardin took place through the Ozark Mountains and involved exploration by means of many types and methods, such as bloodhounds, drones, horseback units, and helicopters. That aside, the elite team of the U.S. Border Patrol, BORTAC, who are known for their advanced tracking skills in difficult terrains, recently became a part of the search team and helped a lot in finally surrounding Hardin.

For more than ten days, Hardin had been eluding the police until they found him near the prison. The authorities suggest that he was tired and lost his strength at the time of the surrender, explaining the nearness of his surrender. Of course, he was given medical attention for dehydration and all the potential dirt that the adverse weather may have caused to his health.

Hardin has quite a history behind him and his criminal past is very scary. A little timeline here; in 2017, he went to the court and admitted to having shot 59-year-old James Appleton, who was a worker at the Gateway’s water department in cold blood. It was the body of Appleton with a head shot found inside his car near Garfield, Arkansas. For that crime, Hardin, who was a notorious name back in Springfield, was sentenced to a 30-year term behind bars. Later, DNA evidence proved his guilt in a 1997 case of raping a certain school teacher in Rogers, Arkansas, succeeding on which he was given an additional 50-year sentence record.

Such was the horror of his offenses and so great was the disgrace, that Hardin later became the subject of a television documentary, “The Devil in the Ozarks”.

That the Gilmore County’s former police officer-turned-convict story was even chosen as a subject matter for a documentary: such an emotionally moving story was it! Back in Gateway, where he was once a cop, people are no longer in panic. It was announced, ‘We don’t have to look over our shoulders anymore,’ Cheryl Tillman, the mayor, said to the journalists after hearing about the arrest while she and her family were visiting a flea market.

That Hardin was captured and placed back into custody is the message that the authorities are eager to convey to the public, especially to those people living in and around the places where he actually committed his crimes. They say his return to prison is for the benefit of all, especially the direct victims of his crimes, who have long been in the long silence.