A former Arkansas police commander who was serving hefty terms for rape and murder escaped from jail on Sunday, according to officials from the state prisons system.
The former police chief of Gateway, a tiny town located close to the border between Arkansas and Missouri, Grant Hardin, escaped from the North Central Unit in Calico Rock after being incarcerated there since 2017. The information regarding his escape was not provided by the people in charge of corrections.
The Division of Correction and the Division of Community Correction are taking the initiative in this matter, working in conjunction with law enforcement agencies from the local, state, and federal levels simultaneously.
During the month of October in 2017, Hardin filed a guilty plea to the charge of first-degree murder in connection with the shooting death of James Appleton, who was 59 years old.
According to an affidavit that was provided in the case, Appleton was shot in the head on February 23, 2017, in Garfield. At the time, he was speaking to his brother-in-law, who was serving as Mayor of Gateway at the time.
Appleton was employed by the water department and worked for Gateway. Officers found the body of Appleton inside a vehicle when they arrived on the scene.
A sentence of thirty years in jail was handed down to Hardin after he had served as the police chief of Gateway for approximately four months in the beginning of 2016.
Furthermore, he is currently serving a sentence of fifty years in prison for the rape of an elementary school teacher in Rogers, which is located north of Fayetteville, in the year 1997.
In his guilty plea in 2019, he revealed that investigators applied for a John Doe Warrant in 2003 using DNA samples acquired from the crime scene. This was done as the statute of limitations was getting closer so that they could use the warrant.
During the time that Hardin was being held in custody for the murder of Appleton, the DNA was analyzed and compared to both the old and new profiles. The investigators discovered a potential match.
