Others are not only off the grid but beneath it, in the hundreds of caves that lead to vast subterranean spaces.
Local, state and federal law enforcement have continued to scour the region around the prison throughout the third day of the search.
“Until we have credible evidence that he is not in the area, we assume that he’s probably still in the area,” Rand Champion, a spokesman for the Arkansas Department of Corrections, said at a press conference Wednesday.
Fugitive Grant Hardin, 56, “knows where the caves are,” said Darla Nix, a cafe owner in Pea Ridge, Arkansas, whose sons grew up around him. Nix, who describes Hardin as a survivor, remembers him as a “very, very smart” and mostly quiet person.
Hardin, the former police chief in the small town of Gateway near the Arkansas-Missouri border, was serving lengthy sentences for murder and rape. He was the subject of the TV documentary “Devil in the Ozarks.”
He escaped Sunday from the North Central Unit — a medium-security prison also known as the Calico Rock prison — by wearing an outfit designed to look like a law enforcement uniform, according to Champion. A prison officer opened a secure gate, allowing him to leave the facility. Champion said that someone should have checked Hardin's identity before he was allowed to leave the facility, describing the lack of verification as a “lapse” that is being investigated.
It took authorities approximately 30 minutes to notice Hardin had escaped.
