Here's How 'Devil in the Ozarks' Made His Escape Disguise

Grant Hardin, the Arkansas inmate known as the "Devil in the Ozarks," was wearing a makeshift police uniform when he escaped from prison in May. Now, authorities are revealing how the former police chief-turned-convicted murderer and rapist put the costume together. In interviews with Arkansas Division of Correction Director Dexter Payne as well as the Arkansas Department of Corrections' critical incident review committee, Hardin revealed he had been stashing away items like black Sharpie markers and black kitchen aprons for six months in preparation for going on the run, NBC News reports. He said security in the kitchen, where he worked, was not tight, and he was able to hide the items in the bottom of a kitchen trash can no one ever checked, CBS News reports. He also smuggled food out with him, and drank distilled water from his CPAP machine.

From the kitchen aprons, he fashioned a fake police body armor vest. And with the Sharpies, he colored his white T-shirt black, with the exception of an outline of the word "POLICE" in white. He also snagged an empty food can and made the lid into a fake police badge. He can be seen in surveillance footage wearing the outfit, as well as a black cap, and pushing a cart of wooden pallets as he walks out of the prison gate. He said in the interviews that on the day of his escape he'd overheard a deputy warden saying inmates would no longer be allowed out on the back dock near the kitchen, where he had previously been unmonitored and where he had been hiding his supplies, alone. He decided to make a go of it, simply asking a guard to open the prison gate and walking through without being asked for identification.