Law enforcement in Arkansas is investigating whether a job in the prison kitchen played a role in the escape of a convicted former police chief Grant Hardin also known as the “Devil In The Ozarks”.
Convicted murderer and rapist Grant Hardin, age 56, was housed in the North Central Facility of the Arkansas Department of Corrections in Calico Rock from which he escaped on Sunday by donning an outfit designed to look like a law enforcement uniform.
Hardin also held a job in the kitchen of the medium-security facility. The kitchen is divided into two shifts of workers, with about 25 inmates working each shift. The kitchen is in one of 16 buildings on over 700 acres of land on the sprawling prison campus, grounds include a garden, two greenhouses, and extensive pastureland where a herd of more than 100 horses is raised and trained by staff and inmates.
Grant Hardin, the former police chief in Gateway near the Arkansas-Missouri border, was serving a lengthy prison sentence for his convictions of murder and rape.
Hardin was the subject of the TV documentary “Devil in the Ozarks.”
Prison officials are investigating whether the kitchen job gave Hardin access to other parts of the prison or if tools in the kitchen aided him.
Local, state and federal law enforcement continued their search for Hardin on Thursday.
FBI announced Thursday it was offering a reward of up to $10,000 for information leading to his arrest.
Several reports of sightings have been reported, authorities have ruled out these reports.