Arkansas Ex-Police Chief Known as “Devil in the Ozarks” Re-Captured After Prison Escape
A former Arkansas police chief who was convicted of rape and murder was recaptured on June 6, 2025, two weeks after escaping prison. The state Department of Corrections said Grant Hardin escaped dressed as a prison guard in “makeshift” clothing. According to an affidavit, he “impersonated a corrections officer in dress and manner, causing a corrections officer operating a secure gate to open the gate.” Authorities released a photo that appeared to show Hardin dressed in black and pushing a cart with wooden pallets on it.
Hardin’s escape triggered a multi-agency manhunt, with state police, border patrol agents and the FBI getting involved. The incident drew widespread attention, in part because Hardin had gained notoriety as the subject of a 2023 HBO Max documentary titled Devil in the Ozarks. The former Police Chief of Gateway City began his career in law enforcement as a cop in 1990; he worked for numerous police departments in Arkansas, jumping from one position to another before landing a job as a guard in Fayetteville, where he admitted to murdering Gateway city water employee James Appleton in 2017.
After submitting a guilty plea, officials obtained and analyzed genetic samples from Hardin, which linked him to the unsolved 1997 rape in Benton County of a woman named Amy Harrison. Authorities said Harrison had been confronted by a man who threatened her with a gun while she was arriving for work alone at an elementary school. The unknown attacker allegedly sexually assaulted her in the school bathroom. In February 2019, after the genetic sample yielded a match with material collected at the scene of the rape, Hardin pleaded guilty to the assault.
When Hardin escaped from prison six years later, in May of this year, officials sent bloodhounds, aerial drones and helicopters in search of him. He was found two weeks later near an Izard County creek after tracking dogs picked up his scent, officials said.
Sources:BBC, NBC, The Guardian