As law officers search Arkansas’ rugged Ozark Mountains for a former police chief and convicted killer, the sister of one of his victims is on edge.
Grant Hardin, the former police chief in the small town of Gateway near the Arkansas-Missouri border, was serving lengthy sentences for murder and rape and became known as the “Devil in the Ozarks.”
Hardin escaped Sunday from the North Central Unit in Calico Rock by disguising himself and wearing a “makeshift outfit designed to mimic law enforcement,” state prison officials said in a statement.
“I don’t think he will be taken alive,” said Cheryl Tillman, whose brother James Appleton was killed by Hardin in 2017. “He won’t go peacefully.”
Sheriff’s deputies in multiple northern Arkansas counties have been working with state prison officials to follow leads and search the rugged terrain in the Ozarks, Izard County Sheriff Charley Melton said in an update late Monday.
“To the citizens of Izard County and surrounding counties, please stay vigilant, lock your house and vehicle doors and report any suspicious activity by calling 911 immediately,” Melton said. Other sheriffs were issuing similar warnings about Hardin, who was the focus of a 2023 documentary, “Devil in the Ozarks.”
In an interview Tuesday, Tillman said she wasn’t surprised when she heard that Hardin had escaped. But the news suddenly added fresh pain for her and other family members after dealing with the grief from the killing.
“He’s just an evil man,” she said. “He is no good for society.”
Hardin being on the run is also alarming to Tillman and other family members since they were witnesses in his court proceedings.
“We were there at his trial when all that went down, and he seen us there, he knows,” she said.
Hardin pleaded guilty in October 2017 to first-degree murder in connection with the shooting death of Appleton, 59. Appleton worked for the Gateway water department when he was shot in the head on Feb. 23, 2017, near Garfield. Police found Appleton’s body inside a car. Investigators at the time did not release a motive for the killing.
Hardin, who was Gateway’s police chief for about four months in early 2016, was sentenced to 30 years in prison. He is also serving 50 years in prison for the 1997 rape of an elementary school teacher in Rogers north of Fayetteville.
Hardin had been held in Calico Rock since 2017. Tillman believes he had been planning his escape for a while.
“I’m sure it was in the makings for the eight years that he was there,” she said.
