Arkansas prison officials described a recent highly publicized escape as a kind of "perfect storm."
56-year-old Grant Hardin was serving a lengthy sentence on rape and murder convictions at the North Central Unit state prison in Calico Rock. In May of this year, he escaped the facility in a widely-publicized, almost two-week-long manhunt.
Prison staff revealed Thursday two employees were fired after the incident.
On Thursday, state lawmakers questioned prison officials about the escape at a public meeting. The questioning went late into the night. Several witnesses from the prison and the Department of Corrections testified about what failures led to Hardin's breakout.
“All the stars had to align for Hardin,” Board of Corrections Chair Benny Magness said of the escape.
“The stars aligned” became an oft-used phrase in the meeting, used to describe a convergence of rare events. Many legislators scoffed at the expression, viewing it as a limp excuse.
“I find in life that rarely, if ever, stars align,” Sen. Jonathan Dismang, R-Beebe, said. “Things always happen because of intention.”
The escape
Hardin slipped out of state custody relatively easily. He worked a prison kitchen job for several years. One afternoon, he volunteered to clean the “chemical cage” on the back deck.
Hardin was left to do this for over an hour, giving him enough time to change into clothes he dyed solid black.
In order to get out of the prison, Hardin needed to bypass two gates. His black clothes caused prison employees to believe he was their co-worker. A guard stationed in a tower above the prison buzzed him through both gates.
Hardin was found in a ditch about a mile and a half from the prison. Police had been looking for nearly two weeks.
Hardin’s criminal history
Grant Hardin had a long rap sheet when he finally ended up in prison.
In early 2019, he pled guilty to rape and murder in exchange for a sentence that would keep him in prison for about 80 years, probably the rest of his life.
The rape case had been unsolved for decades after the attack happened. It was profiled in the HBO documentary “Devil in the Ozarks”
In 1997, Amy Harrison was working as an elementary school teacher when she was raped. Harrison had come in on a Sunday morning to get work done for the week. On a trip to use the bathroom she was held at gunpoint by an unmown man. Harrison was violently assaulted at on the floor of the teacher's bathroom and in a nearby classroom.
During the assault, Harrison felt his seminal emissions on her leg. Police were able to save this as a DNA sample.
Meanwhile, Hardin built a career in law enforcement. Eventually, he became the police chief of Gateway — a small town near Eureka Springs and Rogers. The HBO documentary describes his chief tenure as erratic and fascistic. Both his wife and siblings told the documentary that he would “pull guns” on citizens, and “chase cars for no reason.” His siblings said he quit the job after the town council gave him an ultimatum: quit or we fire you.
About nine months later, Hardin committed a drive-by murder.
James Appleton was a municipal employee who worked at a city water company. Hardin is said to have had run-ins with Appleton before. The documentary references a verbal altercation, while other police documents mention vandalism Appleton blamed on Hardin.
In February of 2017, Hardin shot Appleton as he drove past his car. Appleton's car was parked. Another person on the road immediately recognized Hardin and told that police.
Minutes later, Hardin took his wife and daughter to dinner, all the while making comments about how much he loved them.
He later returned to the crime scene, submitted to questioning and was put under arrest.
Police collected his DNA as part of a standard intake. The sample was run through the Combined DNA Index System. It matched the unsolved 1997 rape case of Amy Harrison.
In 2019, Hardin pled guilty to both crimes.
A “model” inmate
Prison officials generally struggled to assign or accept blame for the incident throughout the hearing Thursday, reminding lawmakers that two employees were fired over the incident.
Hardin had not indicated to higher-ups he would be a problem at the facility. Thomas Hurst, the warden for the North Central Unit, said it this way:
“He had been — I'm not going to say a role model inmate, because I don't want to use that term, but he had followed the rules.”
At the prison where he was held, Hardin received no disciplinary infractions. He had what prison officials refer to as a good “custody score.”
Hardin had worked on the prison's kitchen detail for about seven years. Warden Hurst wondered if Hardin had “gotten comfortable.” He said it can be positive to move inmates around to different work details to prevent these kinds of incidents.
One lawmaker asked if someone with Hardin's rap sheet should have been allowed to work in the prison in the first place. Warden Hurst said yes, because inmates need “a purpose in life” that's “not just sitting there staring at the wall.”
Lawmakers were perhaps toughest on Benny Magness, the Board of Corrections chair. He is no stranger to difficult cross examinations from the legislature.
Magness placed the blame on the terminated employees, especially the one who opened the gate.
“You don't open that gate for anybody when there's not a ground person to verify who it is wanting to exit the prison,” he said.
Magness said it was also “against policy” for Hardin to work on the back dock of the kitchen unsupervised. Hardin was left alone for about an hour and eight minutes.
Overall, legislators seemed frustrated with his testimony.
“These inmates, what they do is try to figure out how to leave” Sen. Dismang said, explaining that the prison should better prepare for escape attempts.
Magness said a sheriff early in his career had given him similar advice.
“You're worried about your car payment, you're worried about your kids, you're worried about this, you’re worried about that,” he said. “The only thing an inmate is worried about is how to get out.”
Though, Magness seemed unsure about what policies state prisons could implement to prevent escapes, amid a flurry of questions from legislators.
“We run as tight of a ship as we can,” he said, toward the end of his testimony.
Magness insisted prison didn't have “systemic” problems, opting to instead blame a few prison employees.
The word “systemic” was mentioned again when questioning the warden. Rep. Ryan Rose, R-Van Buren, asked Warden Hurst if they had reviewed security footage to see if the security failures had happened before.
Hurst said he had not.
“So you can not say definitively that this was not systemic behavior by staff,” he asked.
“No,” Hurst responded. “I cannot.”
“We can probably assume,” Sen. Matt McKee, R-Hot Springs, said, “The guard in the tower, that wasn't the first officer he let out without checking out their ID,” he said.
Hurst said he couldn't know.
“Because thankfully, no other prisoners got out,” McKee responded.
Magness and Hurst gave conflicting answers to the same question posed by Rep. Howard Beaty, R-Crossett: “who was in charge during the escape?”
When asked, Magness said the warden was in charge. When the warden was asked the same question, he put responsibility on the hands of captain on duty at the same time.
Hurst insisted repeatedly that he was not “in charge” during the escape.
Future developments
Possible prevention measures were explored during the meeting. Sen. Joshua Bryant, R-Rogers, wondered if North Central was not a secure enough prison environment for a rapist and a murderer like Hardin. Sen. Tyler Dees, R-Siloam Springs, asked if the prison housed other murderers.
“I know there's at least one or two murderers at Calico right now,” he said. “I know there's sex offenders there, but I don't know if there are rapists there.”
This means Hardin may have had a more troubling criminal history than his fellow inmates.
Rep. Cindy Crawford, R-Fort Smith, asked about adding additional cameras and security around the prison. Hurst said it would cost millions of dollars for full security coverage upgrades to the prison.
Corrections Board member Lona McCastlain suggested a top-down investigation. Lawmakers were energized by this idea. Several called it “refreshing.”
Lawmakers implied more hearings may be held in the future as investigations into the incident are ongoing. Witnesses also spoke of eventual investigative reports into the incident.
