Devil in the Ozarks ////// 848 | Forensic Files

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Off the Record on Apple Podcast or on Patreon. And Colonel, that's enough of the business. All right, everybody,
gather around, grab a chair, grab a beer. Let's talk some true crime. Former police chief Grant Harden,
known as the devil in the Ozarks, escaped from prison on May 25th dressed as a corrections officer. Now, the FBI
and US Marshalss are offering a combined $25,000 for any information that leads to his arrest. News Nation's Mills Hayes
is on the scene for us. And in Arkansas, Mills, this hunt has the community still
on edge. Hey, Nick. For some people, they are concerned because of course there's a
convicted murderer and rapist that is on the loose right now, but there's also a
lot of people who say that they aren't that concerned. But keep in mind this is a guntoing community. These are people
who fish and hunt. And so they say they're ready if Harden does actually appear. Now, police say that he is still
believed to be in this area. They're using all their resources to try and find Harden at this point. They're using
blood hounds, helicopters, uh, and also using drones to try and find Harden. It's difficult because the terrain out
there in the Ozarks is rugged. There are dozens of abandoned homes and there are
also uh thousands of caves out there. It really is the perfect place for someone
to hide. We spoke with the Arkansas Department of Corrections just yesterday about this investigation. Here's what
they said. What makes you guys think that he's still in the area? The way that we kind of operate and go
about it is until we get a verifiable tip or evidence or something that puts him outside of this area, we have to
under operate under the assumption that he is still here. This week we head out to Benton
County, Arkansas. Benton County is the northwesternmost county in the state. So, this is the county in Arkansas that
if you leave it going north, you are in the state of Missouri. And if you leave it going west, you will find yourself in
Oklahoma. If you go to the northeast portion of Benton County, Arkansas, you will find the tiny little town of
Gateway, Arkansas. The town's name reflects its situation as the gateway to and from the great state of Arkansas.
Gateway is about 6 and 12 square miles in size and the population is only about 430 people. All in all, if you're not
familiar with this true crime story that we are bringing to you today, I'm guessing that most people outside of the
state of Arkansas and Missouri have never heard of Gateway Arkansas. However, it has been in the news quite a
bit lately. If you are watching the news, listening to news podcast, the story that takes place is Calico Rock,
Arkansas, which is actually about a three-hour drive east of where the story should start, which is in Gateway,
Arkansas. So, northwest Arkansas is generally a metropolitan area and region within the Ozarks, the Ozark Mountains.
It includes four of the 10 largest cities in the state. Fagatville, Springdale, Rogers, and Bentonville.
Gateway, however, is God's country, or perhaps the devil in the Ozarks country. So, let's go to Gateway, February 23rd,
2017. This is a Thursday. This should have been a normal uneventful day out in the sticks. It's getting close to dinner
time. People are heading home from work. We are just a couple of hours away from
the day really winding down. We have a hardworking dude. This is 59year-old James Appleton. James works for the
Gateway Water Company. Now, out here and folks listening in their garages out in
rural areas know this to be true. In smaller communities, if you work for one of the utilities, you kind of work for
them all. So James is employed by the water company or the water board, but is often working on roads and parks
wherever and whatever is needed. Not to simplify this guy, but a good short description of James is he's the type of
guy that can quickly troubleshoot an issue and then fix it. James Appleton on this Thursday, he's sitting in his
pickup truck. So he pulled over to the side of the road for a work-related phone call. His truck is parked on the
side of Grand Ridge Road. He is on the phone with his co-worker and brother-in-law. This is Andrew Tillman.
Andrew works for the utilities as well, but he is also the mayor of Gateway. Now, at this time, we have a dude
driving home from work. His name is John Bray. John is an iron worker and a cattle rancher. He's on his way home
when he comes up upon a white Chevy Malibu that is pulled over on the side of Grand Ridge Road. And in front of
this Chevy Malibu is the work truck that James Appleton is sitting in and on the
phone with his coworker brother-in-law, the mayor. Both vehicles engines are running but pulled over to the side. The
driver of the Malibu signals to John Bray to pull ahead. Go around us. you can continue on. John does just that. He
maneuvers his vehicle into the oncoming traffic lane to the left of the Malibu and then drives past both the white
Chevy Malibu and the work truck. So, at this moment in time, these are the only three vehicles and the drivers are the
only three people on this country road. John Bray continues on and he goes, I believe he said it was about 200 yards
or or so and he says that he hears what he described as a gunshot. This loud noise came from behind him. So, he hears
a gunshot and he believes that it's coming from back on the road, right from where he just was with those other
vehicles. He decided that he would turn around and make sure that everything was
okay. But before he could do so, he sees the white Chevy Malibu speed past him, driving away, and then taking a turn
onto a nearby dirt road. Not good. Not good. No. Now, let's back up just a couple of minutes on our timeline here.
Just to This is just very shortly before the gunshot sound that John Bray heard.
James sitting in his truck on the phone says to Andrew Tilman, "I'm on the side of the road. They I I believe he he's
got to be referring to the vehicles behind him. They must think I'm a policeman or something sitting over
here. James tells Andrew that a car is maneuvering around him. Then at the same time, Andrew on the other end of the
phone call hears a noise that he described as a truck door being slammed shut. And now suddenly James ain't
talking. Andrew Tilman on the other end of this call, he says that James Appleton often had his Bluetooth on
that. Yeah, he pulled over to either make or receive this call, but Andrew Tilman believes that the Bluetooth was
on and that's why he could hear what he described as the truck door slamming very loudly on his end. But then we have
the other driver, John Bray, who is already up ahead when he heard the shot or the loud noise. So now when John Bray
gets back to the parked pickup truck where he believes he heard this, what he described as a gunshot noise, he finds
James Appleton slumped over in the driver's seat of James' truck. There's blood and John quickly recognizes that
James has been shot and he's probably dead. John flags down the next vehicle that he sees and tells the driver to
call 911. So, he has a description of the vehicle, but I'm guessing he doesn't have a license plate number. No license
plate, but no license plate number required. Okay. Because we are not left with a huge mystery here, Captain, like
we are many times with many of the cases that we cover here in the garage. This is because the town again only has like
400 people living there, right? And John Bray is Gateway born and raised. If you
lived there for a considerable amount of time, as he did, he knows you. He knows
your family and he likely has a general idea of what vehicles you and your family drive. So when emergency
personnel and services show up at the scene, we have ambulance, we have police, fire, everything show up at the
scene. He tells them he knew the truck and the truck's driver, James Appleton, who was shot and killed at the scene.
But he also knows the Chevy Malibu and its driver, who he says was Grant Harden. It makes sense. There's 430ish
people that live in this town and this guy's lived there his entire life. He knows these people. And he's he's
telling the police that I grew up here. I'm 100% certain that the guy who gestured for me to go around. The guy
who he said he also saw fleeing the area after he heard this sound, the gunshot sound, right, was Grant Harden in his
own white Chevy Malibu. Again, this makes so much sense, a lot of sense because Grant Harden's residence was on
that same road on Grand Ridge Road, the same road where this murder occurred. So, who is Grant Harden? Of course, the
authorities right then and there are going to want to know where is he? Grant Harden was the one-time police chief of
Gateway, Arkansas. In fact, he was the police chief for a very short stint. This was in 2016. By this time, after
the gunshots, after emergency personnel are on the scene, Grant Harden is on his
way to take his family out to dinner. Well, that's what you do after you kill somebody. You go get a steak dinner.
This is a very strange situation and I'm still surprised that almost 900 episodes
and we still come across unique situations. And I don't I don't know if this was
some really lame attempt at trying to create an alibi, right? If that's the fact, if that's the case, it's not going
to work out because they know what time the 911 call comes in. They know from the restaurant surveillance footage,
from the security cameras at the restaurant where Harden and his wife and daughter go to what time they arrive.
And that's not going to that's not going to remove him as a possible suspect because he's getting there after the 911
call is made. So, one part of this, this is in a weird way, like it feels to me given the description of what Grant
Harden's wife and daughter say after the fact, well, after the fact, the way that
Grant was behaving, this almost is like a last meal, right? Maybe not a last meal for
me forever, but a last meal together with my family. Because during the course of dinner, he's he's a little
emotional. And he's like repeating how much his wife and daughter mean to him. And he's saying things like, you know,
you guys, I just want you to know you never have to worry. If there was ever something happened to me, you guys are
going to be okay. Well, it's strange because him being in law enforcement, you think, I'm going to wave this
vehicle on and I'm going to wait till they're out of sight. It's a possibility that with this conflict, he didn't have
the chance to wait. So then he kills his victim and then he just has to take his
chances of what is the eyewitness? What did they see? Are they going to be able to identify me? But again, like you
said, such a small community, even if they don't identify who the driver is, you're going to be able to identify the
car. I mean, it's not that common of a car and not that and and because we have details of it, we know what color the
car is and we know what model it is, it's probably going to be pretty quick to figure out who's involved. Well, and
and I like what you say there, Captain, because while it is a rather common car,
what we have here is a detailed description right down to the color, right? You don't have the license plate,
but the color separates that common car from all the other colors of that common
car. And then you have to compound that with the fact that this is a community of 430 people. So, it's less than 400
drive cars, right? and it's less than 430 people that have a driver's license. Now, one thing I will say about folks
that live out in the country, they tend to own more cars than the family needs or more vehicles than the family needs.
But, and that too was the case with Grant Harden, they when law enforcement go to his
property, they they find the Chevy Malibu parked in the driveway, this white Chevy Malibu. And one thing that's
really damning about finding this vehicle there, not only the description matching the one from the scene, and as
the captain points out, a limited number of these vehicles in the town of Gateway, Arkansas, just based off of
sheer numbers, there's blood on this car. Yeah, this this can't make this [ __ ] up.
No, you can't make it up. But but it's it's so disturbing to think about when we clean off the blood, right? And I
think that shows his his level of haste. He just simply wanted to get out of the
house and maybe delay what he knew to be inevitable that his arrest or he may simply not have noticed when he was
trying to get out of there or trying to rush about or maybe the adrenaline took him over. Sometimes adrenaline can make
you lose control of your body. And maybe he didn't even see it, but and I apologize because this this is so
disturbing, but what police believe happened based off of the way that the victim is lying in the
truck and the and the trajectory of the blood spatter evidence that is found on the white Chevy Malibu. They believe
that Grant Harden simply pulled up to the side of James Appleton's work truck. James Appleton's got the window down and
that Harden just pointed a shotgun at the victim from with inside his car. He's still sitting in the driver's seat.
He just pulls a shotgun on the guy, stays in his car, and shoots the guy who's in his truck. And the the force a
shotgun's very powerful. the force of that, the blood ends up on top of the roof of this white Chevy Malibu. Look,
of course, they're going to have to do their due diligence, test it, make sure it's not animal blood, make sure it's
actual human, then make sure that it does belong to the victim. But, right, you're but everything's adding up here.
And not only that, it's a freaking white car. It couldn't Smalltown murder is rare, right? But this couldn't if if
you're a detective and you're showing up on the scene and you're walking to this
guy's house, you you get to the scene and a guy says, "Yeah, I know who did it. I know who was in the other car." Um
I can't say 100% that he did it, but I'm I'm guessing he did it cuz we were the only three people there. Well, you'd
think that some of the people in law enforcement might even know who Grant Harding is. They do. They do. So we have
one well one because it's a small town but two because anytime somebody works in law enforcement long enough they at
least maybe there's a reputation or people hear about oh well he used to be the chief of police. This is what
happened to him. This is what he's doing now. This h they have to know him or at
least some of them have to know him because as you said they're in law enforcement as well. Now this is going
to be a different outfit. This is going to be Benton County that will be investigating because I can't believe
that Gateway investigates murder as that town being so small. It looks like they
have typically have a police chief and then like one other officer. So if the the force is two people
um I'm the chief of police. How many how many men are under your con under your command? One. Right. Right. And and if
if he's not on the clock, it's just it's, you know, it's just a oneman show. But they would have to know him because
he would be the police chief of a tiny town at one time in within their county. And the thing too with this case and
this story, it's in the news a lot right now, and we'll get into the reasons why
here soon. But but one thing that I find a little annoying about this story is everyone keeps saying like the the
motive for this murder is unknown. We we still don't know why Grant Harden killed
James Appleton. Seems almost like a road road rage or something. That sounds reasonable.
However, I don't know why that it's repeated that there's we don't know what the motive is. It's a motiveless murder.
No. Everybody in the town of Gateway said, "These two did not like each other. They hated each other." Right?
We've said a million times a lot of times these investigations are not that difficult because person A is angry at
person B for some reason. They know each other and person A kills person B because they're angry with them for some
reason. Here you have exactly that. Two people that know each other, they don't get along. They have a history of not
getting along. And one guy ends up dead. The other guy ends up with blood on his
blood on his car. Yeah. And now he's sitting out there at dinner with his wife and daughter telling him how much
he loves him. Where did he go out to eat? Was it just a I I wish I local place. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm guessing
it's I'm guessing it's not a not a franchise, but you I don't know if you've seen the the security camera
footage, but you see him and his wife and daughter walk in and of course the poor wife and daughter have no clue what
just happened, but you have but they live with him, so they probably know he's an [ __ ] Well, and Grant Harden
is this very large. He's a very large dude, and you see him in the surveillance footage of this restaurant.
He's like walking in. He's like looking around. Now, I know that that's a a typical security guard, cop, deputy type
move to to always be aware of your surroundings. But I I don't know if he was looking for law enforcement or who
he was looking for like but he is very clearly looking around the restaurant before they are seated. And well he's
not stupid. I mean look especially if you work in law enforcement mo most cases get solved most of the time. Law
enforcement gets the bad guy. Mhm. Sometimes it takes longer than others. this guy knowing it's a small town,
knowing that there was a eyewitness or at least a ear witness and then he drove that's what baffles me. You he drove
past the guy again so so he gets a better look at you. It was there was you either go forward
or you go backward. There's those are the only two ways out. So, but you know, hey, better take my family to go get
myself a McDouble. Well, and I think we can piece together the motive rather quickly because we we get later his wife
and his daughter would give interviews for newspapers and on camera and such. They had a lot of great things to say
about their husband and father, but the their recollection of this day, the two of them were inside the home. Remember,
it's near the end of the day. And I don't believe that Grant Harden was actually working at this time. He is
outside working in the yard. He's not working professionally. He's working in their yard, around the yard. And at some
point, he comes in and he says, "Hey, how about we all go out to dinner tonight, but you guys get ready, take
your time, because I'm out piddling around in the yard, and whenever you guys are ready, you just let me know and
and we'll take off and go get something good to eat." He goes back outside presumably to work in the yard. But then
then the wife and kid later say, "Well, at some point he comes back into the home and now he's completely changed.
He's he seems to be, you know, sweating. He seems to be nervous. He seems to be rushed. And he's like, "Hey, let's go."
I said, you know, let's we it's been too long. We need to get out of here. Let's
go. Let's go get something to eat. Hurry up. Hurry up. He's rushing them. He's rushing them at this time. Now, the
reason why he is unemployed is because he he was removed as the chief of police of Gateway,
Arkansas. This was by the city council, which of course is made up by the mayor and several other people, but one of the
people that is on the city council from my understanding here, Captain, is James
Appleton. So, right, Grant Harden loses his job. Yeah, Grant Harden loses his job because
the city council says you you cannot be our police of our chief of police. You cannot work for our police department.
You're unfit because he was doing some very strange stuff. There was a lot of people that said that once he got that
chief of police job that the power went to his head and he just thought he was the the king of Gateway
and that he could do whatever he wanted. Everybody had to listen to him. Everybody had to bow down to him. And he
was driving around and randomly pulling over vehicles for apparently no reason. He would do this even when he was not on
patrol, not on the clock. He was policing the town at all hours of the day, just whenever he felt like it. And
at times, yeah, he's Batman. At times he was pulling up his vehicle, his cop car, and and aiming
a gun at the driver of the vehicle that he ordered over. He did this multiple multiple times. So, it's not too
difficult to believe. Yeah. Not too difficult to believe that on this day when he saw the guy that he he didn't
like, the guy that he despised, that he pulled up alongside of him and he did the same thing with a shotgun.
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[Music] All right, we are back. Cheers, mates. Cheers to you, Captain. Cheers to the
people in the back. But like you were saying, this is a small community, and that lends itself to a different type of
investigation here. Yeah. I I also think that it amplifies his bad behavior when
he was the chief of police. Yeah. Because who's going to stop him? From my understanding, man, he one officer that
is that he's in charge of. He was the chief for like four months now. He did work as an officer for this outfit on
and off for a good period of time. And he worked for different law enforcement agencies during his law enforcement
career. But there as described by the mayor of Gateway, now keep in mind the mayor is
the brother-in-law of the victim, but he said that when his brother-in-law, James
Appleton, was out doing some work somewhere, he works for the city, you know, he's out doing work that is
approved and authorized by the city that old Chief Grant Harden pulls up to talk
to him or bully him or force him out of the area and I believe he had to take his cop car off road to get to wherever
this work was being done and it tore up the car and tore up the mechanics of the
vehicle. And so Grant Harden comes in to city council and says to James Appleton, "Hey, you you got to fix my
cop car because it got all damaged because I Yeah. He came out there to talk to him and and James Appleton's
like, "I'm not I'm not I'm refused to work on your car and nobody could make Appleton do it." And so that is when my
understanding is when the beef started between these two guys. Now, maybe they didn't like each other for any number of
reasons before this, but the mayor is on record saying they got up in each other's faces. They look like they were
about to be in a fist fight, and that's where he believes that this all started.
this this hatred between the two. The mayor speculates that Harden was probably out in his front yard working
as his family would later state and happened to everybody knows everybody. Everybody knows each other's vehicles
and he probably saw James Appleton drive by and he hops in his car to either chase him down or maybe even Appleton
pulled into the driveway and said something nasty to Harden. But whatever took place, I do believe that before he
shot James Apple, I do believe that Grant Harden had every intention of going out to dinner with his family and
not for it to be a last meal situation. I think it was just another day. And I think that something happened that
caused James Harden to lose his damn mind. And anger and rage took him over. And even though his cop sense told him
he would get caught for this and arrested for this, he couldn't he couldn't stop it. He couldn't he
couldn't stop. Yeah. But also, there's a problem in law enforcement and and people that work in law enforcement will
tell you this. The worst thing you can do is hire somebody that is power hungry, that wants to have this job, not
to serve and protect, but because it's it's a a power move. It's the It's the reason why uh guys with small dicks buy
giant trucks and they want to feel a little bit powerful. I would like to point out that I have a medium-sized
truck. Thank you very much. So, let's look into his background a little bit. So, Grant Harden becomes the
chief of police for Gateway in 2016. 4 months later, city council forces him to resign. Nine months after
his resignation, Grant Harden kills James Appleton. I don't think I don't know why there's such a mystery as to
the motive here. Now, we end up, as said, with James Appleton's blood on Grant Harden's vehicle. There was a
number of other items that they were going to use as evidence against this guy should this thing go to trial, but
it doesn't have to go to trial because, you know, we have the eyewitness, we have the blood. I imagine you're gonna
have gunpowder residue. A shotgun is going to put off an alarming amount of GSR. Yeah. And that would be present in
the vehicle itself. Now, as you said, Grant Harden is no dummy. He's he's brought in very quickly. And he simply
tells the police like, "Look, I have the right to remain silent. I'm going to remain silent. I'm not talking to you
guys. I'm getting a lawyer. I'm not talking to you guys. I don't care what you have." They charge him with this
murder and he does fight back. He gets an attorney. He fights back. One of the things they were trying to get removed
was the blood evidence. So, they did a search warrant. They issued a search warrant on Harden's property and
vehicles and they they came out and they executed that search warrant that very night at like 4:30 in the morning. And
there's something on the Arkansas books that says that search warrants are to be
executed during this time frame of day, like this window of time, and the the search that they executed didn't fall
within that window. So, they were trying to get all of that evidence tossed out because they showed up a little early.
Well, my guess is when you have a prime suspect who has a history of pulling guns on people and a history of law
enforcement that you're you don't really want to be showing up when this guy could be armed to the teeth ready for a
gun battle. So, they may have had to step outside of the box a bit on serving. But I would assume that because
of the evidence, they would be able to charge him and he would be locked up during the time of the search. It's just
my thought. Right. And and that's what I'm saying. He may have still been at the police station. He still may have
been at the sheriff's department when they were executing that search warrant. Yeah. and
and the judge him there. If I'm the judge, I might be throwing out this evidence because when you're doing an
investigation, you need to make sure you're crossing your tees and dotting your eyes and your lowercase J. The part
of this is a judge signed off on this warrant and they're going to execute it. Um, so you will have some hoops to jump
through. The short of it though, Captain, is it doesn't even end up going to trial because he Grant Harden pleads
guilty to the murder charge. I was going to say I think some of that is because of his law enforcement background. Hey,
get them to make a deal. I'm not going to spend the whole time in prison anyways. If I can get a a 15-year
sentence, I might be out in seven. Yes, that could be the case. If you can get a
a lenient sentence, but the the issue is going to be it's firstdegree murder, which we know carries a heftier
sentence. He gets 30 years even though he plead guilty. Uh he does not give a reason in court for why he killed James
Appleton. Maybe that's why everybody circles around the motiveless murder. Yeah, this guy's a real piece of [ __ ]
Yeah, 30 years. And from my understanding, he was going to have to do a minimum of 25 years before he would
be even eligible for parole. But not good. You're going to prison and you are ex law enforcement and these
guys in prison, they they figure this stuff out pretty quickly and then it becomes an issue of are you in there for
real because you did a really bad thing or are you in there? Are you like a spy?
Are you legitimately a prisoner? If if not, but this prison sentence is not going to go well for old Grant. They
enter his DNA into the Cotus database, and when they do so, they get a hit on an old cold case. Now, this cold case
dates all the way back to November of 1997. This is an old cold case from Rogers, Arkansas. It's a rape case, a
sexual assault case, very violent one. and the case had gone cold. It's 20 years between this sexual
assault case and the murder of James Appleton, right? And it's another year removed because it wasn't until 2018
when this was working its way through the court system before he plead guilty. Grant Harden would have been 28 back in
1997. We have a school teacher who is working at the Frank Tillery Elementary School. She arrived early. This is a
Sunday, so there's no class on Sunday. She's in there. She's doing extra work. She says that she even locked because
the building was practically empty. The school was practically empty. It was like her and the janitor that she locked
her classroom door. She was busy in there working for quite some time. And it's around 11 a.m. when she decides to
go to the restroom. Now, prior to this, she says that she thought she heard someone at some point jiggle the handle,
like check the door, but because it's locked, the door didn't open, obviously. Now, she probably, even if she
recognized this, she probably assumed it was the janitor or maybe another teacher
or what have you. She certainly didn't anticipate this. Around 11:00 a.m., she leaves her classroom to go out to the
teachers lounge to use the restroom. She would later tell police that when she enters this area, there's a man there.
She encounters a man there with a gun. And at gunpoint, this man forces her back into the teachers lounge where he
assaulted her and then he takes her to another portion of the building. I believe it was another classroom, not
hers, and then assaults her again there. And she described the man as wearing a stocking cap, like a ski mask, but he
It was sort of Golden State Killer style where remember all the composite sketches we saw of Golden State where
he's always wearing some kind of mask or or disguise and in some of them he's he's wearing the when I hear the words
ski mask or see the word ski mask, I assumed it's it's like a bank robber or home invasion and the thing is pulled
down and all you're seeing is eyes and the mouth. This is more of he had it tucked up so
it's only covering the top of his head down to some sunglasses so she can only see the asalent's nose and mouth and
chin and he's dressed in black. One thing that was very strange she thought was he was shoeless. He was wearing only
socks. He assaults her. Strange. And well, and what's even more strange, at one point he says to her, "Do you
recognize my voice?" And she says, "No." And she even told the police, "I didn't
recognize his voice, but him asking me that makes me wonder if it was somebody that I know somehow." Had to be. Yeah,
it had to be. This case goes unsolved for a very long time. They they actually had some leads early on. In fact, one
lead they had was that there was a a witness who said that they believed that they saw the rapist when fleeing the
school hop into a blue pickup truck and later that truck they believed they had located it. And when they speak to the
owner of that vehicle, it they said we figured out very quickly that this wasn't our suspect because the guy was
significantly older than the what our suspect was. And so this case goes cold, not for a lack of effort or for a lack
of of of persons working the case. I don't think they had any really great leads here or any great suspects,
let's say. But this DNA evidence would change all of that. Now, the here's where we need to give the the officers
and the investigators a big kudos here. So, they did something that was kind of unprecedented at the time in Arkansas.
Now, unfortunately, back in 1997, the laws were different back then. There was a six-year statute of
limitations on rape cases. It was rape back then was declared to be a class one felony. So all class one felonies
regardless of the specifics of the charge, it's 6 years from the report date to make an arrest or to issue an
arrest warrant for a suspect. So you have six years to do one of those two things. Make an arrest or get an arrest
warrant for a suspect. I'm just going to say this is so stupid. So stupid that we put a time limit on
anything. You commit a crime, you should be held responsible for the rest of your damn life. If it
takes them 30 years to solve it, so what? Yes. I mean, regard I'm I'm fine with statute of limitations on on
crimes. I mean, that I mean, somebody shouldn't be picked up for shoplifting 45 years after the fact, right? But
right but that's way different than a sexual assault but well no duh but what I'm saying is that
men were being raped if men look if men were being mad but but this has changed this has been changed throughout every
state in the United States and at one time there was a statute of limitations on murder. What I'm saying is societies
get smarter, communities get smarter, and then when they do, they band together and they push these laws and
change laws and make change for good happen. And that certainly has happened with rape cases. I think it was in the
'9s here in the state of Ohio where they removed the statute of limitations on rape cases. Now in this situation they
are running out of time as this case goes cold and these good officers they come up they they see what another state
had done that was a what was called a John Doe warrant and so they go and they get issued a John Doe warrant for an
arrest of the perpetrator of this rape before it could reach the deadline of the statute of limitations. And I I mean
they did this days before it would have expired. Very smart. Now this this is very smart and and this is very
interesting here the way that this plays out. This was something I was familiar with John Doe warrants but I wasn't
familiar with how it all came about. So, a John Doe warrant simply, to put it in
its most simple form, is a warrant that is issued by a judge for the arrest of a
person who committed a specific crime on this date against this victim committed
this crime. And we know the person who did it. We just don't know their name. Well, how do we know the person that did
it? Well, in this case, we have the DNA of the perpetrator. So whatever person, whatever man John
Doe out there matches this DNA is the perpetrator. So you know who the individual is in a sense, you just
don't know their name. So they get this John Doe warrant for whoever committed this rape in 1997
in Rogers, Arkansas. A John Doe warrant comes from the state of Wisconsin. This was Wisconsin
in 2003. They they actually had a John a John Doe warrant issued prior years prior and then it
held up in court in in 2003. Now, the way that this goes, this is pretty fascinating because much of the genesis
of the John Doe warrant stems from a case out of Wisconsin. Bless him for coming up with this very smart legal
maneuver. So, this takes place in Wisconsin 1994. On December 7th, 1994, an unknown male costed a 15year-old girl
at a bus stop in Milwaukee. He forced her at gunpoint into a nearby lot. There, he tied her hands behind her
back, covered her eyes, and led her to a car. He pushes her into the car, drives
a short distance, stops and threatens her life, and sexually assaults the girl. the young girl. Then this is a
horrible, horrible crime, but he did let the victim go. The victim runs home and
a family member calls the police. The victim was taken immediately to a sexual assault treatment center and the state
crime lab was able to develop a DNA profile for the unknown male suspect. Now, Wisconsin was facing the same
thing, only earlier than what the folks in Arkansas would later be experiencing with the statute of limitations on a
class one felony. So on December 4th, 2000, 3 days before the opportunity to get a conviction would expire, the state
of Wisconsin charged a person that they named as John Doe, number 12, with kidnapping and four counts of
firstdegree sexual assault. The DNA profile was included in the arrest warrant. Right. So eventually this would
lead them to a person named Bobby Dabney who they later arrested based off of the
DNA evidence on that particular case in Wisconsin. And then as I had already said in
2003 the court of appeals decision was instrumental in establishing the use of DNA profiles in John Doe warrants
because it upheld in court. Right. his his attorneys were saying thi this is this bothers me maybe as much as the
statute of limitations bothers you I don't know but this bothers me because his defense wasn't oh I didn't commit
the sexual assault I didn't commit the kidnapping his defense was that it was against his rights that they were
charging him you know that they had this actual John Doe warrant for him right it
it's not hey I'm innocent and oh you know by the way that don't use this this instrument to convict me. No, it's like
I don't know how much he even challenged it. He's just his attorneys are just saying you can't use this instrument.
Toss it out of court. And and the judge didn't see it that way. So this leads to
additional charges for Grant Harden who now gets an additional I believe it was an additional 20 years for the cold case
rape charge. And this was a big deal in Rogers and it was a big deal for that school and that
community and and it should be this was a case that uh sexual assault case that had haunted the community and and nobody
had knew and interestingly enough though when you apply hindsight to that case you can go okay well yeah this guy the
removing purposely going into the school with no shoes on because she told the detective she's like one thing that was
really odd was I noticed he wasn't wearing shoes and His his socks were covered in dirt. So he this guy took off
his shoes before entering the building. Yeah. I mean he did there was a way to get shoe prints and he didn't want to
leave shoe prints. Also distorts your height. Shoe prints are great evidence and it's it's something that's often
overlooked or forgotten about by the perpetrators of these crimes, but that's something that a cop would know. So, why
is this case we keep referencing at the start of the show that this case is in the news again? And it's in the news not
because they solve another cold case with his DNA evidence, but it probably will one day. You know, he's that's a
good question to ponder because he lives so close to to the border of two other states, right? and he did commit this
sexual assault at gunpoint on this poor teacher. Have they run, you know, the COTUS is, from my understanding, a
national database, but there's a lot of databases out there and I I I don't know. I I'm with you based off of the
murder and the sexual assault. I'm curious I if there would be anything that they could tie him to in
Missouri or Oklahoma, but the reasons for this to be back in the news is because Grant Harden has recently
escaped from prison. So he was in he was imprisoned at the facility in Calico Rock, Arkansas. As we said, this is
about a 3hour drive east of the location that we've been discussing so far here today. The way that this played out is
he's 56 years old this year and he was being held at the North Central unit in Calico Rock, Arkansas. On May
25th, he slipped out. He managed to get out of this prison. And his nickname is the
devil in the Ozarks. And that is a name that Max gave him when they Max being HBO when they did a 1-hour documentary
about this guy's crimes. Now, this documentary came out a couple years ago before he escaped in
May of 2025. But the way that this plays out is he he was in this area. It's basically
like a sallyport area where you have a double gate, right? Where one gate opens up, you walk in, the gate closes behind
you before the next gate opens up. So this guy is on the run. We don't have to spend any time
telling you how dangerous he is. He's got a law enforcement background. He's committed murder. He's committed sexual
assault. And he's desperate. He's desperate. It seems it seems like this guy because you can
sometimes get jobs within the prison that he got a job. I believe um he had a kitchen job. Yeah, he had a kitchen job.
And they think that maybe because of that job and maybe because of his interaction with um some of the staff
that he was able to to basically create like a makeshift uniform. So when he, like you said, these double gates, he
basically was carrying something out and they didn't bother to identify him, you
know, you know, facially identify him. They just identified the person with a uniform and and let him out. And um, as
of today, I mean, again, guy's very dangerous and like you said, desperate. Um, but they're searching
that that that area still. within uh you know couple I'm sure what I'm sure they're searching within a couple miles
of the prison but statewide manhunt statewide manhunt was issued that same day but I just saw a report where the US
marshalss or one of the US marshalss that's working on the case is like based on all the evidence that he sees or the
type of individual he believes Grant Harden to be he's like It's most likely that he's not in this state anymore.
Yes. And so here, do you want do you want to get into my speculation or my what I'm fearful of?
Uh start with the speculation. Okay. So speculation oftent times, more times than not, prison escapes that I've
reviewed, they have some kind of help. And I'm not saying that that that happened in this case. It could just be
malfeasants or it could just be that somebody dropped the ball and didn't, you know, really effed up, but often
times they have some kind of help and and so that's where you kind of have to analyze this kitchen job. I can't speak
to that. I can say that from my general knowledge of prisons, usually if you have a kitchen job, you do have access
to certain areas and certain utensils and tools that that other inmates may not have access to. But what we do know
is just like the captain said, he's spotted Harden is spotted leaving the prison nonchalantly.
And the outfit that he is wearing, without seeing a close-up on this, it appears to me that he is in a police
officer's uniform or a correction officer's uniform. That's what it looks like to me. And so the thought is, and
he's wheeling like a little utility cart. And so the thought is that he simply put on this get up. He has this
disguise on, walks up, and whoever was in charge of gate A and gate B that he walked
through must have at a glance identified this guy as law enforcement or corrections officer and simply opened up
the gates and then he left. Now, one good thing is it they seem to recognize that he was
missing rather quickly. So, he only had about 30 minutes from from the reports that are coming out. I want to say from
the underline that from the reports that are coming out because there'll be a full investigation on this escape and
regardless if it's somebody who dropped the ball or somebody who who assisted this guy, they need to be there there
needs to be disciplinary action that takes place. We can all agree on that. Now, he walks out of there if he had
help on the inside, which is not too far-fetched. Again, we've seen it in many prison escapes. It's also not too
far-fetched to believe that he may have had help on the outside. Now, if he had help on the outside, I'm talking about
things with provisions, right? Transportation, money, food, what have you, housing, shelter, what have you.
I'm a little less fearful of of what I think could be a very horrible situation if he has help on the outside because he
would be a little less desperate and he would be able to distance himself further from the prison. And look, the
further he gets out of this away from this prison doesn't necessarily mean that it it shrinks the likelihood that
he's apprehended at some point. These escapees, the apprehension rate is very very high. They're almost always caught
eventually on a long enough timeline. They are almost almost always caught. What scares the hell out of me is that
he didn't have any help and he got out and he was desperate. They only He's got 30 minutes. The average male and look
he's he's an older guy. He's bigger. The The average male running away. He's walking away. Yeah. And And the average
male walking I believe I think it's like 13 minutes a mile. So he's not if he's just on foot, he's not that far away
when they are aware that he's missing. Now, that doesn't mean they're going to find him right away, obviously. But what
I'm getting at is that they didn't find him. So, I'm worried that because that uniform that he's wearing or that outfit
that he's wearing looks enough like a police officer's uniform that he could have knocked on a
door, somebody would have opened up their door and he could have forced his way in. That is what terrifies me
because that's going to be a very horrible situation if that is what in fact took place. Now, with in regard to
the idea that he might still be in the state of Arkansas, he's he's been gone for days, right? We don't know exactly
where this guy is. He could be out of the state. If he is still in the state, one thing that the searchers and law
enforcement and the marshals keep pointing out that there are at least 2,000 registered or known caves in the
state of Arkansas. So, it seems to be that there there is a lot of thought and consideration that he may be hiding out
in these different caves, maybe moving about or or has selected one and has hunkered down there. But, if that's
2,000 registered or known caves, that means that there's more caves out there than just the the 2,00. So, yeah, we're
keeping an eye on this. But, law enforcement also did release um because he'd be on the run. We we don't know
what he has access to. So, chances are his appearance would be changing. So, his hair would have grown out a little
bit. His his beard might start growing out. So, they did release um here here's a picture of Grant Harden as we know
him. And here's what he possibly could look like. Doesn't look much different, obviously, with a beard and a little bit
of hair on the side. Yeah, he's a bald white man. He's he's a large white man. And as we're talk, you know, as the
captain's pointing out here, yeah, we're getting multiple pictures of him that's
being released. And some are with facial hair, some are without. It's possible that that he gets caught before
we release this episode. Hopefully. I I would like for him to be caught while these microphones are still hot. Now,
but but here's the problem, though, is a lot of the people that are reporting on
this, they're they're just saying some silly [ __ ] Does this guy have some insider information because he worked
for law enforcement? Yes. Is he going to view life differently because he's coming from it from a go back to the the
rape case, removes his shoes, so there's no footprints. Okay. Yeah, he has some insider
information, but some of these news stations are going he he must have extensive knowledge of uh how they
search databases and and and drones. Extensive knowledge on drones. He he was a chief of police of a, like
you said, a twoman department. I'm sure they didn't have a whole drones unit. Well, that's why they only had two men
because they had so many drones that they didn't Well, so to go back, let's we can review his uh law enforcement
career here real quick. He he did work for the Fagatville Police Department, which is a large police department that
he started working with them in 1990, but he's he's fired. This is one thing we should point out here because a lot
of the news outlets are saying the speculation is that he's got help on the outside. Okay, that's fair speculation.
However, I'll say this. If he's if he does have help on the outside, it's coming from family or friends. And he's
not described as a very nice guy. So, I can't believe that he has a whole lot of
friends. And I agree. The the thing here is that would be easy to pick up on by law enforcement. They are certainly
vetting all those people. That is not a problem. I think that if a friend or a family member had assisted him in any
way, they are on that breadcrumb trail like flies on [ __ ] my friend. Now, the thing that I want to make sure that I
point out here that when we go through his law enforcement career, this is not a guy that was liked by his fellow
officers. So, he's not getting help from anybody in law enforcement. I will say that and wager Franklin on that right
away. As said, he worked for the Fagatville Police Department in 1990. He was fired in 1991. To keep it nice and
short and sweet, he was determined to be unfit to be an officer. He was then hired by the Huntsville Police
Department in 1991. He left. The thing here is some of these jobs he leaves voluntarily. Now, we need to point out
that he's a lot of times it's because they're giving him the opportunity. Hey, we're going to be we're going to play
nice here and you can resign now or we can fire you later. So, he works for Huntsville Police Department again for
only for less than one year's time. Then a year after that in 1993 after he leaves Huntsville, he is hired by the
Springs Police Department where he's fired three years later. He made it a full three years at that one. He was
fired for excessive force and for lying on a police report. It's around this time shortly after this, about a year
after this in fact, that he commits the sexual assault at the school. And then he begins a job as a constable for the
Benton County District 1 Sheriff's Office. That's in 2009. He is then hired in 2016 to be the
police chief in Gateway, Arkansas. That constable job, while he held that for a considerable amount of time, I believe
it was for close to six or seven years. I think that I think that it's titled constable for one that that term can
mean a lot of different things in different areas and different lines of work. But here in Benton County, I
believe that it's kind of a for the most part like a voluntary job or or it's a a
term job and I don't think the pay is real great. So, I'm pointing that out only to to suggest what I believe is
that he was able to actually hold this job down considerably longer than the other jobs. Because if you're if you're
not paying the guy a whole lot of money, you're probably not going to force him out unless he does something really
terrible, right? Like unless he does something that that fully warrants getting rid of a guy that's
doing a job for for peanuts, probably a position that's hard to fill. But as said, he takes the police chief job that
only lasts like four years. And then he is unemployed up until the time that he kills James Appleton. And then he goes
away to prison. And unfortunately, it wasn't forever because we now know that he is out. He's currently on the run as
of this recording. And we are hoping and praying that he is caught, located, and
apprehended very, very soon. Update. Victed murderer and former Arkansas police chief Grant Harden is back in
police custody. This after a 13-day manhunt. Shortly after he was captured, Harden's former boss at the Eureka
Springs Police Department, Earl Hyatt, told NewsNation, "It's a good thing authorities caught him when they did.
He's a violent individual and and you know, my fear was that if he felt like it would be in his best interest to help
him escape, he would have hurt somebody." News Nation's Mills Hayes has been following this story closely. Joins
us now on the ground in Arkansas with the very latest. bills. Hey, Kelly. Well, people here in Calico Rock are
breathing somewhat of a sigh of relief, but remember this is a small community and one person even told me that it's
not a matter of if people here have guns, but whether or not how many or what kind they have. And so, a lot of
people we spoke with throughout the week said that they weren't that concerned. Uh, but they are really grateful that he
has been captured. Now you guys can see the first images of him being apprehended by law enforcement. He was
taken into custody by border patrol, their tactical unit out of uh West Texas. And this is a group that is uh
taught and trained to search and find individuals like this. And we spoke to some people who live here who say that
they are somewhat frustrated though because they feel like they were telling local police and local sheriff's
deputies uh that something was off in certain uh uh certain areas of town and they don't feel uh like they were
listened to until uh Border Patrol came in. Now, we did speak one of our local affiliates with uh one of the women who
lives right next to where they found Harden. And this is what she had to say last
night after the border patrol showed up today. All of a sudden, trucks came from
everywhere and SUVs. There was I want to say there was 20 or 30 of them. I don't
know for sure, but they all took off down this way and next thing we know they're hauling Grant Harden out from
back here out of the woods. And Harden has a long past in law enforcement throughout the years,
especially in northwest Arkansas. I spoke with uh some people who live in the communities where he used to be uh a
constable, Benton County, and they tell me that he was the kind of person who was supposed to be preventing crime, but
instead he was creating crime. Uh and so a lot of frustration there, but as you guys can see, that capture by border
patrol yesterday uh is definitely a welcome sign for the people who live here in this community, Kelly. Yeah, you
would certainly imagine so. What happens Mills to Harden now? Well, he's been transferred to another
Arkansas Department of Corrections unit. He's in the Varnner unit and I'm told that he is in the Super Max unit of that
specific uh prison and that's about 30 miles south of Pineluff. For those of you who don't know the area, it's a
couple hours south of where we are right now. But he is going to be in a supermax
facility. So a much more uh guarded uh area than where he was here in the North Central unit just a couple of miles
away. [Music] Kelly want to thank everybody for joining us here in the garage each and
every week. If you need more true crime, check out true crimegar.com. Sign up on our Patreon.
Subscribe to us on Apple Podcast. There's so many ways to support the show. And until next week, be good, be
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Devil in the Ozarks ////// 848

Part 1 of 1

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Northwest Arkansas 2017 - a former Police Chief murders a man in cold blood then takes his family out for a nice dinner. Grant Hardin, a man who was relieved of his duties as Police Chief for harassing and threatening the civilians of Gateway, Arkansas was arrested for the murder of James Appleton. Later and to everyone’s surprise, Grant Hardin was charged with another violent crime from 20 years prior. Grant's evil deeds and ways earned him the name “The Devil in the Ozarks.” Grant Hardin was due to likely spend the rest of his natural life behind prison walls but that all changed in May of 2025 when the Devil himself walked out and away from the Arkansas Department of Corrections’ North Central Unit in Calico Rock. 30 minutes later a national fugitive manhunt ensued.

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