Law enforcement officials are conducting a hunt for a former police division chief convicted of murder and assault charges who escaped from an Arkansas jail on Sunday.
In a Sunday Facebook post, the Arkansas Department of Corrections said,” On Sunday, May 25, at about 3: 40 p. m., criminal Grant Hardin, ADC# 168541, escaped from the North Central Unit. People with information about criminal Hardin’s movements should contact local law enforcement soon”.
Sunday’s Instagram post explained that the Arkansas Division of Correction and the Division of Community Correction were coordinating with national, state, and local law enforcement officers to “follow prospects” as part of the hunt for Hardin.
The Arkansas Department of Corrections noted that Hardin had a history in law enforcement and recently served as the police captain for the town of Gateway. Officials announced that the 56-year-old former police captain has been imprisoned at the North Central Unit since 2017 as part of a 30-year word for first-degree crime. The Arkansas Department of Corrections added that the former police captain had also been sentenced for assault.
In an upgrade on Sunday nights, the Arkansas Department of Corrections wrote,” As of 11: 30 PM on Sunday, May 25, the hunt for criminal Grant Hardin, ADC# 168541, is continuous. The research is a cooperative effort including the Department of Corrections, Arkansas State Police, and local and state laws police practices”.
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” It has been determined that Hardin was wearing a wooden clothing designed to mimic rules protection when he escaped the North Central Unit”, the Arkansas Department of Corrections added. ” He was no wearing a Department of Corrections costume, and all DOC-issued technology has been accounted for”.
The Arkansas Department of Corrections said that law enforcement officials were using a “variety of methods” to monitor the former police captain and to check the “events that led up to his exit” on Sunday.
According to CBS News, Hardin pleaded guilty in 2017 to first-degree death in the fatal shooting of 59-year-old James Appleton.
Fox News reported that while the original police captain was being booked into jail, a DNA test connected Hardin with the unexplained murder case of Amy Harrison, a professor at Frank Tillery Elementary in Rogers, Arkansas. According to the store, Harrison claimed in 1997 that she was raped at the university by a male suspect with a weapon. CBS News reported that Hardin pleaded guilty to murder costs in 2018 and was sentenced to 50 years in prison in addition to his 30-year sentence for murder.
Photos of Hardin were shared on X, previously Online, by the Arkansas Department of Corrections.
