Additional employees at an Arkansas prison have been disciplined for not following procedures after a convicted murderer known as the “Devil in the Ozarks” escaped earlier this summer, a state prison system official told lawmakers Monday.
Arkansas Division of Correction Director Dexter Payne said several employees at the Calico Rock prison had been suspended and another demoted for allowing inmates to use an outdoor kitchen dock unsupervised. Payne did not specify how many employees had been suspended, and did not give their names.
“Those employees have also been disciplined for their actions,” Payne told members of the Legislative Council’s Charitable, Penal and Correctional Institutions Subcommittee.
The dock had played a key role in the May 25 escape of Grant Hardin from the prison, formally known as the North Central Unit. Two employees at the facility, including one who allowed Hardin on the dock unsupervised, had previously been fired in the weeks following his escape. Hardin held a job in the prison’s kitchen.
Hardin was captured 1.5 miles (2.4 kilometers) northwest of the Calico Rock prison on June 6. Authorities said he escaped by donning an outfit designed to look like a law enforcement uniform. The outfit was crafted from an inmate uniform and a kitchen apron dyed black using a marker, while a soup can lid and a Bible cover were fashioned to look like a badge, corrections officials told the panel last month.
The other employee who had been fired earlier had opened the gate that Hardin walked through without confirming his identity.
Payne said corrections officials have nearly completed the report on their critical incident review of the escape. A report on the State Police’s investigation into the escape has also been sent to the governor’s office, the Department of Public Services said.
Payne said the review also found that Hardin had been incorrectly classified as eligible to be housed at Calico Rock, which is primarily a medium-security facility. Hardin had been held at the Calico Rock prison since 2017. Payne said he didn’t know why Hardin wasn’t correctly classified.
“Without an override, he should not have been there,” Payne said.
After he was captured, Hardin was taken to a maximum-security prison. Hardin has pleaded not guilty to an escape charge and is set to go on trial in November.
Hardin, a former police chief in the small town of Gateway, near the Arkansas-Missouri border, is serving lengthy sentences for murder and rape. He was the subject of the TV documentary “Devil in the Ozarks.”
One change that has been made at the facility since the escape is an increase in searches outside the facility, Payne said. Officials have previously said Hardin fashioned a ladder out of wooden pallets that he kept on the dock.
“The back dock area was not searched enough, or they would have found he was hiding items on that back dock,” he said.
Payne faced further pushback from lawmakers who said the escape points to a more systemic issue than two employees not doing their job.
“Yeah, people didn’t do their job, but also there should be checks and balances to ensure that people do their job,” Republican Sen. Ben Gilmore said. “Where are those checks and balances?”
