A former police chief, who was convicted of murder and rape, was captured on Friday after escaping from an Arkansas prison last week. He was found less than two miles from the facility he had fled.
Grant Hardin’s identity was confirmed by fingerprints, the Izard County Sheriff’s Office said in a Facebook post announced his recapture.
Hardin, 56, exited the North Central Unit in Calico Rock on May 25, wearing what appeared to be a Department of Corrections uniform. This disguise seemingly deceived a prison officer, leading to the officer opening the gate and allowing Hardin to leave, as CrimeOnline reported.
He was serving a 30-year sentence for a murder committed in 2017 and a 50-year sentence for the 1997 rape of a school teacher. Hardin admitted guilt to both offenses in 2018.
He served as Gateway’s police chief for about four months in early 2016 and had been a Eureka Springs police officer in the mid-1990s, resigning when he was reportedly told he was going to be fired for lying in a police report. He also served as a Benton County constable from 2009-2010 and 2013-2014 and a corrections officer in Fayetteville.
Elite search teams had been scouring the rugged Ozark Mountains for the missing inmate — and even believed he had fled the state — since his apparently easy escape, but in the end, he was found just a mile and a half away from the prison, the sheriff’s office said.
The state Department of Corrections said Hardin was taken into custody shortly after 3 p.m. on Friday near Moccasin Creek in Izard County.
“Tracking dogs were able to pick up a scent in the area, and Hardin was apprehended a short time later,” the department said.
