An urgent manhunt is underway in Arkansas after a disgraced former police chief, who was serving time for murder and rape, escaped from prison.

The Arkansas Department of Corrections said Grant Hardin, 56, escaped from the North Central Unit on Sunday afternoon in Calico Rock, AR. 

"Anyone with information about inmate Hardin’s whereabouts should contact local law enforcement immediately," authorities said in a post on X.

Officials said Hardin has been at the North Central Unit since 2017, serving a 30-year sentence for first-degree murder, as well as an additional sentence for rape.

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The jail added that Hardin was the former chief of police for the city of Gateway.

Hardin pleaded guilty to the 2017 murder of James Appleton, 59, a city water employee who was found shot in the face inside his work truck, KNWA reported. 

While Hardin was being booked into the state prison, officials submitted his DNA sample into a database. His DNA ended up linking him to the rape cold case of a teacher in 1997, the outlet reported. 

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The victim, Amy Harrison, a teacher at Frank Tillery Elementary in Rogers, said she was raped by a man with a gun at the school.

"It was proven to be Mr. Hardin beyond all scientific certainty," Nathan Smith, the prosecuting attorney for Benton County at the time, told the outlet. 

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Authorities confirmed Hardin’s DNA matched the DNA linked to the rape suspect. Harrison was ambushed while preparing a lesson plan for the week. The case had been cold for nearly two decades.

Hardin ended up pleading guilty to the rape in 2019.

"Grant Hardin, in my view and in my personal experience, is one of the most dangerous people that I ever seen for the reason that he does not at first appear that way," Smith previously said. "He is a man capable of a seemingly random, horrific murder as well as a random horrific rape."

Hardin is described as a 6' white male, weighing approximately 259 pounds. 

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday evening.

Noem met the Israeli leader in Jerusalem, where she voiced "strong appreciation for the Prime Minister’s policies, particularly the construction of the border fence with Egypt and the conduct of the ongoing war," Netanyahu's office said. 

Others who attended the meeting were Israeli Military Secretary Maj. Gen. Roman Gofman; Foreign Policy Advisor Dr. Ophir Falk; Prime Minister’s Spokesperson Dr. Omer Dostri; and U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee.

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Earlier in the day, Netanyahu met with Sen. Jacky Rosen, D-Nv.

"The U.S.-Israel alliance is strong and steadfast. The United States stands with the people of Israel!" Huckabee wrote on X.

The visit came on the eve of Jerusalem Day, which celebrates the reunification of East Jerusalem, which includes the Old City, with West Jerusalem. It also came days after a Chicago man shot and killed two Israeli Embassy staffers in Washington D.C., last week. 

Yaron Lischinsky, 31, was an Israeli citizen who had been granted "official guest" status by the U.S. State Department. The other victim, Sarah Milgrim, 26, was also employed by the Israeli Embassy. The young couple was set to be engaged.

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Netanyahu has vowed to continue to go after Hamas and its leadership amid the terror group's failure to agree to a ceasefire and return its hostages. 

In a video statement released Thursday, he criticized U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney after all three countries issued a joint statement demanding that Israel end its military campaign in Gaza.

Netanyahu said Hamas does not want a Palestinian state; rather, the terror group wants the destruction of the state of Israel. 

He questioned how this "simple truth evades the leaders of France, Britain, Canada and others."