Officials said a kitchen supervisor left Grant Hardin alone on a loading dock and a tower guard let him out the gates.

On June 6, 2025, officials with the Stone County Sheriff's Office confirmed that Grant Hardin, who was once the police chief of a small Arkansas town, had been found and taken into custody.

CALICO ROCK, Ark. (KAIT) - Recently recaptured inmate Grant Hardin, who escaped from the North Central Unit in Calico Rock, is now in a new prison, according to the Arkansas Department of Corrections.

Grant Matthew Hardin's quiet escape from the North Central Unit prison, and his capture almost two weeks later about a mile and a half from the prison, leave as many questions as answers.

The federal case against Grant Hardin, an inmate who escaped from a north Arkansas prison in May and was caught by authorities earlier this month, has been dismissed, according to court records.

Hardin, 56, was in prison serving a decadeslong sentence for the 2017 murder of water department employee James Appleton in Gateway, Arkansas, and the 1997 rape of a school teacher in nearby Rogers.

Grant Hardin, a former police chief and convicted killer known as the “Devil in the Ozarks,” was captured in northern Arkansas Friday after nearly two weeks on the run.

The former Arkansas police chief who escaped prison disguised as a guard only made it about a mile-and-a-half away from the facility in the 12 days before he was captured, officials said. Convicted ...