Devil in the Ozarks: Police scour caves, hideouts for rapist, murderer ex-cop – National [Video]

In the vast and rugged Ozark Mountains, complete with its challenging terrain and network of subterranean caves, police are searching for a man dubbed the “Devil in the Ozarks,” following his cunning escape from an Arkansas prison over the weekend.

Grant Hardin, a former police chief in Gateway, Ark., escaped from the North Central Unit in Calico Rock on Sunday, where he has been held since 2017, for a murder that happened that year, as well as a 1997 rape.

Hardin pleaded guilty in October 2017 to first-degree murder in connection with the shooting death of 59-year-old James Appleton.

According to an affidavit filed in the case, Appleton worked for the Gateway water department and was talking to his brother-in-law, then-Gateway mayor Andrew Tillman, when he was shot in the head on Feb. 23, 2017, near Garfield. Police found Appleton’s body inside a car.

Hardin, who was Gateway’s police chief for about four months in early …