Search continues for ex-police chief convicted of murder who escaped Arkansas prison

A former Arkansas police chief convicted of rape and murder has escaped from prison, officials said.

Grant Hardin was chief of police in Gateway, Arkansas - a small town of a few hundred residents on the state's border with Missouri - for around four months in 2016, according to the Associated Press.

The state's Department of Corrections said on social media that he escaped from the North Central Unit prison in Calico Rock at around 15:40 (20:40 GMT) on Sunday, where he had been incarcerated since 2017.

The department added that Hardin was no longer in his prison uniform, and was "wearing a makeshift outfit designed to mimic law enforcement" when he escaped.

Hardin, 56, remains at large. The Department of Corrections urged anyone with information "should contact local law enforcement immediately".

The department told the BBC that a "multitude of agencies" were involved in the search.

Grant Hardin pleaded guilty to first-degree murder - the intentional killing of another person - after fatally shooting 59-year-old James Appleton in 2017. He was given a 30 year prison sentence.

Mr Appleton worked in the city's water department. He was shot and killed while speaking to his brother-in-law, then-Gateway Mayor Andrew Tillman, on 23 February 2017, according to the BBC's US partner CBS News.

Police later found Mr Appleton's body inside a car.

While serving time for Mr Appleton's murder, DNA evidence emerged linking Hardin to the long unsolved rape of Amy Harrison at Frank Tillery Elementary School in Rogers, Arkansas, in November 1997.

According to an affiliate of CBS News, Ms Harrison was raped at gunpoint while she exited a classroom to go to the bathroom.

Hardin pleaded guilty, and received a sentence of 50 years.

His escape from prison comes just weeks after 10 inmates broke out of a prison in New Orleans, Louisiana, after breaching the wall behind a toilet.