‘Violent Criminal’: Former Police Chief Serving Decades For Heinous Crimes Captured Two Weeks After Escaping Prison

Authorities in Arkansas said Friday that they captured a former police chief and convicted criminal who had escaped from prison in May.

Grant Matthew Hardin, 59, was apprehended at about 3 p.m. some 1.5-odd miles west of North Central Unit, the prison in the town of Calico Rock from which he escaped at about 2:55 p.m. May 25, according to the Arkansas Department of Corrections (ADOC).

A multiagency manhunt that involved Border Patrol and spanned nearly two weeks ended near Moccasin Creek in Izard County as tracking dogs picked up Hardin’s scent, according to the ADOC. Authorities identified Hardin by fingerprint analysis before announcing his capture, the Izard County Sheriff’s Office said.

Hardin was taken to the Varner Supermax — Arkansas’ most secure prison, KFSM reported.

U.S. Marshals initially thought that Hardin had escaped Arkansas following two unconfirmed sightings, one of which was in Missouri, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported. He was suspected of hiding somewhere in the Ozark Highlands, which authorities reportedly said he knew very well. The FBI offered a reward of up to $20,000 for his capture.

Hardin was in prison since 2017 for rape and murder but escaped through the prison’s sally port wearing a security uniform and pushing a cart, the Stone County Sheriff’s Office said while sharing what appeared to be a picture of him at the time of his escape. The act of impersonation facilitated his escape, the ADOC said. He was considered extremely dangerous at the time of his escape. (RELATED: Seven Jail Escapees Still At Large As Prison Break Sparks Conspiracy Claims)

The former police chief of the small Arkansan town of Gateway pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in 2017, for having shot an acquaintance, James Appleton, 59, in the head in a drive-by shooting, KFSM reported. Hardin received a 30-year prison sentence. He pleaded guilty to two counts of rape in 2019, while he was serving the homicide sentence, after police discovered that his DNA matched samples obtained from the scenes of two rapes at gunpoint of elementary school teacher Amy Harrison at her school in November 1997, according to the outlet.

Hardin was nicknamed “Devil in the Ozarks” after an HBO documentary of the same title about Appleton’s murder, CBS News reported.

“Arkansans can breathe a sigh of relief because violent criminal Grant Hardin is now in custody,” Republican Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders said, while also thanking the law enforcement agencies, the Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and the federal government for their help.

ADOC Secretary Lindsay Wallace thanked all the agencies involved for putting in “countless hours, both day and night, sacrificing their time, utilizing their resources and lending their invaluable expertise to this search,” according to the ADOC’s statement.