A small Arkansas town is on edge after a former police chief convicted of fatally shooting a man and sexually assaulting an elementary school teacher escaped from prison Sunday wearing a “makeshift” law enforcement uniform.

Residents of Garfield expressed fear and anger as the search for Grant Hardin entered its third day.

“This whole weekend, I’ve kept the house locked,” Brenda Fields, 60, said in a phone interview Tuesday. “He was in law enforcement, so he’s not just your average person. That makes me more nervous because he had that background.”

Rex Littrell lives up the street from Hardin’s parents in Garfield, a town of about 600 people in northwest Arkansas, about 40 miles northeast of Fayetteville and not far from the Missouri border. He said that because of the nature of the crimes, Hardin should have been under careful watch.

“He should never have had a chance to escape. He’s killed somebody and he’s raped somebody,” he said.

Fields, who lives across the street from Hardin’s parents, said she learned about his escape on Facebook.

“My dad lives right next to us, too, and he’s locked all of his stuff up, locked up the outbuildings,” she added, saying she’s “scared.” “I wish they’d hurry up and find him.”

Hardin, the former police chief in the neighboring town of Gateway, has been on the run since Sunday afternoon after he escaped from the North Central Unit in Calico Rock, which is about 140 miles east of Garfield. He was convicted of killing Gateway City water employee James Appleton in 2017 and raping teacher Amy Harrison in 1997 — cases featured in the Max documentary “Devil in the Ozarks.”

He was Gateway’s police chief for about four months in early 2016. He also held jobs as an officer, a county constable and a corrections officer, NBC affiliate KNWA of Fayetteville reported.

The Stone County Sheriff’s Office said he escaped through a sally port, a controlled entry or exit area at the facility. He was wearing a “makeshift outfit designed to mimic law enforcement,” officials have said.

A photo released by the sheriff’s office showed Hardin dressed in all black, appearing to push a wheeled cart with wooden pallets on it.

Law enforcement agencies from across the state have joined the search. He remained at large Tuesday afternoon, and the state Corrections Department had no new updates.

The Izard County Sheriff’s Office warned residents to keep their doors locked and stay inside, county officials said.

The lack of information about Hardin’s whereabouts is frustrating for Cheryl Tillman, the mayor of Gateway and sister of Appleton.

“It brings back a lot of memories of when it first happened,” she said. “I can’t believe this has happened. I mean, what were they doing down at the prison that this happened?”

Tillman said law enforcement has not reached out to her family about Hardin’s escape. She learned the news Sunday from an automated phone call from a jail messaging system.

“All it said was that Grant Hardin had escaped from prison,” she recalled. “Nobody’s been in contact with us. … I find it pretty sad that authorities have not reached out to us.”

She said people in the community “are a little scared.” Tillman has taken extra precautions by having someone with her when she goes to work.

“You just have to stay vigilant and watch your surroundings,” she said. “That’s what I do.”

Hardin was serving a 30-year sentence for Appleton’s murder and a 50-year sentence for the sexual assault of Harrison when he escaped.

Appleton was talking to his brother-in-law when he was shot in his car Feb. 23, 2017, according to an affidavit filed in the case. The following year, a DNA sample linked him to the cold case rape of Harrison at Frank Tillery Elementary School. Hardin pleaded guilty in both cases.

Harrison declined to comment Tuesday.

Fields said Appleton was always a “really nice guy.”

“He used to come to our house once a month to read the water meter,” she said.

Littrell said there was “no reason for James to have died.”

“There was no reason for what happened to James to have happened. It was just bloody murder,” he said, calling Appleton a “good guy.”

Tillman said that the family has struggled to move on over the years and that Hardin’s escape adds to their pain.

“I wouldn’t say the first couple of years were easy. They were pretty hard,” she said. “Then you try and go on, and things subsided, and then ‘wham,’ all this comes back up again. It’s very hard.”

A former small-town police chief in Arkansas escaped from prison Sunday while serving decades-long prison sentences for murder and rape and is still on the loose, officials said.

Grant Hardin, 56, escaped from a state prison in northern Arkansas on Sunday afternoon, after he appears to have tried to imitate law enforcement to break out, the state’s Department of Corrections said.

Multiple agencies across the state, including state police and several sheriff’s offices, are coordinating to try to find Hardin.

The escape comes after 10 inmates escaped from a New Orleans jail a little over a week ago. While seven people have been charged in relation to that escape, it is not immediately clear how Hardin orchestrated his.

Here is what we know about the former police chief:

Hardin escaped the North Central Unit prison in Calico Rock around 3:40 p.m. Sunday, a news release from the state’s Department of Corrections said.

It appears at the time of his escape, Hardin was “wearing a makeshift outfit designed to mimic law enforcement,” but was not wearing a Department of Corrections uniform, a Sunday night update from the department said. It did not share any other information on how he is thought to have escaped.

A surveillance image appears to show Hardin wearing black pants, a black T-shirt and a black baseball cap, as well as an additional item that looks like a bulletproof vest. He appears to be wheeling a cart holding a box and several pieces of wood. Authorities believe he exited through a sally port, a controlled and secure entry point found in places such as prisons, the Stone County Sheriff’s office said.

Hardin, who’s been in prison since 2017, was previously the police chief for the small town of Gateway near the Missouri border, with additional background in law enforcement.

He served as a police officer, a police chief and a county constable throughout his career, according to an Investigation Discovery documentary on the case. (Investigation Discovery, like CNN, is owned by Warner Bros. Discovery.)

Hardin has been serving a 30-year sentence for first-degree murder, as well as two 25-year sentences for two counts of rape, according to Arkansas prison records and court documents.

He pleaded guilty to first-degree murder for the death of James Appleton, who worked for the City of Gateway’s water department, in February 2017, according to court documents. Hardin was accused of stopping and shooting Appleton in the head while driving down a road approximately half a mile from his home, documents show. He pleaded down from a capital murder charge.

At the time of his sentencing, Hardin addressed the family of the victim while entering his guilty plea, saying he didn’t know how to express it, but that he was sorry, CNN affiliate KHBS reported.

Two years later, he also pleaded guilty to two counts of rape after his DNA, which was entered into the Arkansas DNA database following his murder plea, was connected to the 1997 rape of schoolteacher Amy Harrison, court documents show.

Harrison was at the school on a Sunday preparing for the week while a church service was being held in the cafeteria, an affidavit said. She used the bathroom in the teacher’s lounge, and when she came out, she was attacked by a man pointing a gun at her, the document said.

Documents show Hardin was frustrated with his court-appointed attorney following his guilty plea in the murder case, saying he had wanted to withdraw his plea and had a difficult time accessing resources to submit for post-conviction relief, court documents show.

The attorney, Shane Wilkinson, told CNN he has been in contact with local law enforcement and hasn’t heard from Hardin since his escape. Police have been conducting safety checks on his home and business since the escape, he added.

While in prison in 2019, Hardin completed a program on anger management, prison records show.

As of 11:30 p.m. local time on Sunday, Hardin still hasn’t been located, the Arkansas Department of Corrections said in an updated news release. CNN has reached out to the department and Arkansas State Police for a status on the search.

“Officials continue to utilize a variety of means to track Hardin, as well as investigating the events that led up to his escape,” the Department of Corrections said Sunday night. “Further updates will be provided as they become available.”

No updates have been provided since Sunday night.

Hardin is 6 feet tall and approximately 259 pounds, prison records show. Authorities have asked anyone who has information on his location to contact local law enforcement immediately.