Alright, so like, this former police chief dude who got convicted of some serious stuff managed to escape from prison where he was locked up for 30 years. Wild, right? Grant Hardin, that’s his name, was chilling at North Central Unit in Calico Rock, Arkansas since 2017. But then, on Sunday, around 3:40 p.m., he made a run for it, according to the Arkansas Department of Corrections. They put out a message on social media asking for any info on where this guy might be hiding.
The dude was seen leaving the prison all incognito in an Arkansas Department of Corrections uniform, as per the Stone County Sheriff’s Office. Grant Hardin used to be the big boss in Gateway, Arkansas, a tiny town with only a couple of hundred folks living there. He copped a guilty plea back in October 2017 for first-degree murder related to the death of a 59-year-old named James Appleton. Apparently, Appleton was chatting with his brother-in-law, who was also the mayor at the time, when he got shot in the head near Garfield. Sad stuff, man. They found him dead in a car, which is just messed up.
In addition to the murder beef, Hardin is also doing a 50-year stretch for raping an elementary school teacher back in 1997 in Rogers, near Fayetteville. The cops had to get all CSI on this case, using DNA samples from the victim’s clothes to try and find the perp before the clock ran out on the statute of limitations. Eventually, they got a match when Hardin got pinched for Appleton’s murder. So, he ended up pleading guilty to two counts of rape and got 25 years for each count. That’s a lot of time behind bars, man.
