As law officers search Arkansas’ rugged Ozark Mountains for a former police chief and convicted killer who escaped prison this weekend, the sister of one of his victims is on edge.
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Grant Hardin, the former police chief in the small town of Gateway near the Arkansas-Missouri border, was serving lengthy sentences for murder and rape and became known as the “Devil in the Ozarks.”
Hardin escaped Sunday from the North Central Unit in Calico Rock by disguising himself and wearing a “makeshift outfit designed to mimic law enforcement,” state prison officials said in a statement.
Cheryl Tillman, whose brother James Appleton was killed by Hardin in 2017, said she and other relatives are alarmed since they were witnesses in his court proceedings.
“We were there at his trial when all that went down, and he seen us there, he knows,” she told The Associated Press on Tuesday.
Sheriff’s deputies in multiple northern Arkansas counties have been working with state prison officials to follow leads and search the rugged terrain in the Ozarks, Izard County Sheriff Charley Melton said in an update late Monday.
“To the citizens of Izard County and surrounding counties, please stay vigilant, lock your house and vehicle doors and report any suspicious activity by calling 911 immediately,” Melton said. Other sheriffs were issuing similar warnings about Hardin, who was the focus of a 2023 documentary, “Devil in the Ozarks.”
Gateway, the town of about 450 people where Hardin briefly was the police chief in 2016, is in the same large county as the headquarters of retail giant Walmart in Bentonville. However, Gateway and the northeast part of the county is far more rural and remote than Bentonville. The landscape only gets more rugged to the east, into the heart of the Ozarks and the Buffalo National River, toward Izard County where the escape happened.
Tillman said she wasn’t surprised when she heard that Hardin had escaped. But the news suddenly added fresh pain for her and other family members after dealing with the grief from the killing.
“He’s just an evil man,” she said. “He is no good for society.”
Hardin pleaded guilty in October 2017 to first-degree murder for fatally shooting Appleton, 59. Appleton worked for the Gateway water department when he was shot in the head on Feb. 23, 2017, near Garfield. Police found Appleton’s body inside a car.
Investigators at the time did not release a motive for the killing and Hardin was sentenced to 30 years in prison. He is also serving 50 years in prison for the 1997 rape of an elementary school teacher in Rogers north of Fayetteville.
President Donald Trump’s media company said Tuesday that institutional investors will buy $2.5 billion in the company’s stock with the proceeds going to build up a bitcoin reserve.
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About 50 institutional investors will put up $1.5 billion in the private placement for common shares in the company and another $1 billion for convertible senior notes, according to Trump Media and Technology Group, the operator of Truth Social and other companies.
Trump Media said it intends to use the proceeds for the creation of a “bitcoin treasury.”
“This investment will help defend our Company against harassment and discrimination by financial institutions, which plague many Americans and U.S. firms,” said Trump Media CEO and Chairman Devin Nunes in prepared remarks.
Shares of Trump Media & Technology Group Corp., based in Sarasota, Fla., tumbled 9%
Other companies have adopted similar strategies through cryptocurrency. Cloud and mobile software developer MicroStrategy Inc. has built up a treasury reserve containing billions worth of bitcoin through stock sales and debt financing.
Trump, who referred to cryptocurrencies in his first term as “not money,” citing volatility and a value “based on thin air,” has shifted his views on the technology.
During an event at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida during his presidential campaign in May 2024, Trump received assurances that crypto industry backers would spend lavishly to get him reelected.
Last week, Trump rewarded 220 of the top investors in one of his other cryptocurrency projects — the $Trump meme coin —with a swanky dinner luxury golf club in Northern Virginia, spurring accusations that the president was mixing his duties in the White House with personal profit.
But aside from shooting down the devices, which may create further danger, there’s often not much anyone can do to stop drones when they pose a threat or wander where they’re not welcome.
That’s beginning to change. Cheap and easily modified, unmanned aerial vehicles have become a part of daily life as well as a tool for governments and bad actors alike — used for intelligence gathering, surveillance, sabotage, terrorism and more. Concerns about their misuse have spurred a technological scramble for ways to stop the devices in midair.
“An adversary can use an off-the-shelf drone they bought for $500 and find out what’s going on at U.S. nuclear weapons bases,” said Zachary Kallenborn, a London-based national security consultant and expert on drone warfare. “China, Russia, Iran: If they’re not doing it they’re stupid.”
The rise in incidents involving unmanned aircraft — like the wave of sightings reported last year in New Jersey — has led to more research and investment into the most effective ways of countering drones, preferably while preventing injuries to those below.
D-Fend Solutions counter drone technology is demonstrated, Wednesday, May 14, 2025, in Reston, Va. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
D-Fend Solutions counter drone technology is demonstrated, Wednesday, May 14, 2025, in Reston, Va. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
D-Fend Solutions counter drone technology is demonstrated, Wednesday, May 14, 2025, in Reston, Va. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
D-Fend Solutions counter drone technology is demonstrated, Wednesday, May 14, 2025, in Reston, Va. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
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D-Fend Solutions counter drone technology is demonstrated, Wednesday, May 14, 2025, in Reston, Va. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
Some systems work by firing a projectile to destroy it. Others jam the radio frequencies used to control the drones, causing them to land in place or fly back to their origin. Another approach uses other drones to fire nets at the offending devices.
All the techniques have their strengths and weaknesses.
Jamming a drone is highly effective and relatively easy from a technical standpoint. But it’s a blunt tool — jamming not just the drone’s signal but other electromagnetic signals used by telephones, emergency responders, air traffic control and the internet.
The most basic anti-drone measures are called kinetic defenses, which involve shooting a missile, bullet, net or other projectile at the device to destroy or disable it.
Kinetic systems can be risky, however, by creating the threat that debris could fall on people or property or that a missile fired at unmanned aircraft could miss and hit civilians instead. In 2022, for instance, 12 people were injured in Saudi Arabia when they were hit by debris after authorities took down a drone launched by Houthi rebels near the Yemen border.
Hacking into drones
The Israeli firm D-Fend Solutions created a system it calls EnforceAir that allows the operator to hack into an adversarial drone and take over its controls. The equipment looks like a large computer router and can be set up on a tripod or a vehicle or carried in a backpack.
Like other anti-drone systems, D-Fend’s product also detects any drones entering a predetermined area, allowing the operator to permit friendly devices to fly through while disabling others.
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In a demonstration of the technology in an empty athletic field in suburban Washington, the system quickly hijacked a drone operated by one of D-Fend’s technicians as it entered an area being monitored.
“We detect the drone, we take control and we land it,” said Jeffrey Starr, the company’s chief marketing officer.
Landing the aircraft safely allows authorities to study the device — a critical benefit to law enforcement or national security investigations. It also allows the drone to be given back to its owner in the case of harmless mistakes involving hobbyists.
Anti-drone systems that involve hacking the invading aircraft may not work on military drones, however, as they come equipped with greater cyberdefenses.
Anti-drone efforts could be moving closer to the mainstream
National security experts predict that a variety of techniques to counter drones could soon become commonplace, used to protect sensitive buildings, pipelines, ports and public areas. But before that can happen, federal laws must catch up to the threat.
“Most of the laws we’re dealing with were written for manned aviation,” said DJ Smith, senior technical surveillance agent with the Virginia State Police’s Bureau of Criminal Investigations.
Smith, who oversees his department’s use of drones, said any new federal rules should come with a public awareness campaign so hobbyists and commercial drone users understand the law and the responsibilities of using a drone. Authorities also need greater powers to use systems to track suspicious drones, he said, and take action against them when they pose a threat.
“We want to detect, we want to track, we want to identify,” Smith said.
“It is paramount that our state and local law enforcement agencies are able to be granted the proper authority to protect citizens at large events and gatherings,” said Rep. Cory Mills, a Florida Republican and a sponsor of legislation designed to make it easier for local authorities to use technology to counter drones at large public events.
The bill, introduced this month, would give local law enforcement the ability to use anti-drone systems that have been approved by the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Aviation Administration and other agencies.
Both directions of Interstate 494 between Minnesota highways 100 and 77 will be closed Friday, May 30, through Monday morning, June 2, for bridge work, state transportation officials said.
Before the freeway is shut down at 10 p.m. Friday, all ramps along the route will close at 8 p.m. The freeway will open again at 5 a.m. Monday.
The closure is due to construction of a pedestrian bridge over I-494 near Chicago Avenue and the removal of the Portland Avenue bridge for reconstruction, according to the Minnesota Department of Transportation.
Motorists will be directed to Minnesota 62 via 100 and 77 as a detour.
