A former police chief serving a life sentence for murder and rape, dubbed the “Devil in the Ozarks,” escaped from an Arkansas high-security prison on Sunday by disguising himself as a law enforcement officer.

Grant Hardin, 56, was serving a 30-year sentence for the 2017 murder of James Appleton, a Gateway water department employee, and an additional 50 years for the 1997 rape of an elementary school teacher, according to a report by the Associated Press.

He escaped Sunday from the North Central Unit, a high-security facility in Calico Rock where he had been incarcerated since 2017, according to CNN.

Rand Champion, spokesperson for the Arkansas Department of Corrections, confirmed Hardin wore a “makeshift outfit designed to mimic law enforcement” during his escape, prison officials stated.

“That was not a standard inmate uniform, not a standard correctional uniform,” Champion said. “There’s nothing inside the prison that looks like that, so that’s one of the challenges we’re going through to find out what that was and how he was able to get that or manufacture it.”

Via the Arkansas Dept of Corrections on Facebook

Hardin had a short tenure as police chief for the small Arkansas town of Gateway in 2016, just a few miles away from Walmart headquarters, and throughout his law enforcement career, he was plagued with accusations of excessive force, bad performance, and eventually resigned as chief after he was caught falsifying a police report, according to The New York Times.

Authorities have deployed canines, drones, and helicopters to search the rugged Ozark Mountains terrain, with the search area expanding as time passes.

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Champion noted the region’s challenging topography, stating, “It’s called Calico Rock for a reason, because it’s very rocky,” adding that recent heavy rainfall has further complicated search efforts — although he added it could also hinder Hardin’s escape effort.

Izard County Sheriff Charley Melton urged residents to lock their homes and vehicles and call 911 if they notice anything suspicious.

Cheryl Tillman, sister of James Appleton, who Hardin murdered in 2017, expressed alarm about the escape since she and other family members were witnesses at Hardin’s trial, but she was not surprised upon hearing of Hardin’s escape.

“He’s just an evil man,” she said, per the AP. “He is no good for society.”

Craig Caine, a retired inspector with the U.S. Marshals with 30 years of experience handling escaped inmates, told the AP, “At some point in time, he’s going to run out of provisions.”

Though Caine isn’t involved in this manhunt, he noted that investigators are likely examining Hardin’s court documents and tracking individuals who might be assisting him. He added that it is extremely unlikely for Hardin to evade capture indefinitely in the isolated region, where he is likely to stand out in small, rural communities and be turned in by residents.

The ex-police chief’s notoriety in the region led to the production of a 2023 documentary titled “Devil in the Ozarks,” which chronicled his crimes.

Hardin’s escape comes just weeks after ten inmates fled a New Orleans jail by crawling through a hole behind a toilet. Eight of those fugitives have since been recaptured as of Tuesday.

A Democrat Congressman spent Memorial Day attempting to visit a deported illegal alien with ties to MS-13 who stands accused of beating his wife and trafficking other illegal aliens.

Democrat Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-MD) attempted to visit Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an illegal alien with ties to MS-13 who was deported to his home country of El Salvador, on a day reserved for honoring America’s fallen soldiers.

Ivey even referred to Abrego Garcia, who was erroneously dubbed a “Maryland man” by much of the media despite being an illegal alien, as “my constituent” in a post on X. “Today, I was denied access to seeing my constituent, Mr. Kilmar Abrego Garcia,” the Maryland Democrat wrote in the post. “Let his lawyer and I check on him.”

Today, I was denied access to seeing my constituent, Mr. Kilmar Abrego Garcia. If there is nothing to hide, cut the crap. Let his lawyer and I check on him.
@CASAforall pic.twitter.com/V310GDmIc4

— Rep. Glenn Ivey (@RepGlennIvey) May 26, 2025

“I’m the Congressman who represents Kilmar,” Ivey said in a video. “I came all the way down from the United States,” he went on to say before complaining that he was unable to visit with the Salvadoran citizen.

Abrego Garcia was deported to El Salvador, where he remains imprisoned in the country’s Terrorism Confinement Center, a prison for members of violent gangs that have plagued the Central American nation. Multiple courts found that Abrego Garcia is connected to MS-13, a vicious gang that the Trump administration designated as a foreign terror organization.

Abrego Garcia also stands accused of beating his wife. Abrego Garcia’s wife even filed a request for a protective order against him, claiming that he bragged that he could kill her and get away with it. The wife of the illegal alien claims that Abrego Garcia “told my ex-mother-in-law that even if he kills me no one can do anything to him.”

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“Me and my kids are afraid now. He kicked me, pushed me, slapped me in the face and threatened me,” she said, according to the legal document.

Abrego Garcia is also suspected of trafficking other illegal aliens into the United States. Body-camera footage from the Tennessee Highway Patrol reveals that one law enforcement agent suspected Abrego Garcia of trafficking illegal aliens after he pulled him over.

“He’s getting paid to haul these people, probably to Maryland, I would say,” an officer says on the footage after speaking with Abrego Garcia, who was driving a car full of men who claimed not to speak English or have driver’s licenses.

Ivey is only the latest Democrat to fly to El Salvador in hopes of visiting the illegal alien. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), who similarly claimed that Abrego Garcia is a “constituent” of his, visited the illegal alien last month. The Democrat did not, however, ask the man if he had any connections to MS-13.

Three more Congressman — Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-FL), Robert Garcia (D-CA), and Yassamin Ansari (D-AZ) — traveled to the Central American country, but were denied a meeting with Abrego Garcia. They instead met with the United States Ambassador to El Salvador and called on him to advocate for the illegal alien’s release.

Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele confirmed that he will not return Abrego Garcia to the United States during a meeting with President Donald Trump and administration officials in the Oval Office last month, which came on the heels of a Supreme Court order for the administration to “facilitate” the return of Abrego Garcia to the United States.

“The question is preposterous, how can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States?” Bukele said in response to a journalist who asked if he would facilitate the man’s return to the United States. “I’m not very fond of releasing terrorists into our country … we just turned the murder capital of the world into the safest country in the western hemisphere and you want us to go back?” Bukele went on to say. “That’s not going to happen.”