BRICKEYS, Ark. (AP) — Authorities are searching for a convicted rapist who escaped from an east Arkansas prison. The state Department of Corrections on Friday said that 38-year-old Samuel Hartman escaped that morning from the East Arkansas Regional Unit in Brickeys.
The prison is located about 96 miles east of Little Rock.
Hartman had been in state custody since 2013 for a rape conviction out of Franklin County. He is serving a life sentence. The department said Hartman was on a work detail on a field near the unit when he escaped. A corrections spokeswoman says Hartman and a suspected accomplice fired at correctional officers who were chasing them, but the officers weren’t injured.