“My daughter is at McRae Women’s Facility,” a mother wrote in an account GPS published on October 23. “She calls me and tells me she’s scared to die in there.”
“That’s the thing I carry,” she wrote. “Not the numbers, not the reports. Her voice on the phone telling me she’s scared to die in there.” 1
Hours later, the Georgia Department of Corrections confirmed it: a woman held at Pulaski State Prison had died of tuberculosis. 2
Word had been going around since at least October 13, among families and among people inside. Here is what the state has said, what families have said, and what the state’s own rules require.
What the State Has Confirmed
GDC told WSB-TV its side on October 23. A woman came into custody at the McRae Women’s (Diagnostic) Facility, the department said. From there she was moved to Pulaski State Prison in Hawkinsville.
“While there, she became sick and was taken to the hospital, where she died of complications of tuberculosis.”
We don’t have her name yet. And GDC hasn’t said when she died.
The department said staff and people in custody “who have been identified as being exposed will be tested, as well as anyone else who chooses to be screened.” A spokesperson said: “Protecting the health and safety of those in our care, our staff and the public remains a priority as we follow all DPH guidelines.” Officials told the station they’re assessing potential exposures. 2
That’s the whole of what GDC has confirmed. It hasn’t said how many people have tested positive. Not at Pulaski. Not at McRae.
What Families and People Inside Have Said
A short post in a Facebook group, that’s where GPS first heard it. Families of people in Georgia’s prisons use that group to pass along news. The post went up on October 13: “I heard there was a death at Pulaski. Tuberculosis.” 3
On October 20, a longer post moved through that same group. 4 Two days later, on October 22, someone shared it again, this time credited to a Facebook page called The Georgia Independent. 5 The post passed along claims from “a concerned family member of a Georgia correctional officer.” Here is what it said:
- TB came into Pulaski with people sent from the Muscogee County Jail, which it said didn’t test them.
- Women with TB were moved from Pulaski to McRae without warning McRae’s staff.
- A woman had been treated inside Pulaski for TB since July, went to an outside emergency room on October 3, and died on October 19.
- Her death was put down to “pneumonia” and “cardiac arrest.”
- Medical staff were told not to tell officers about the cases, and the officers who drove her to the hospital were told not to tell hospital staff.
The post accuses the warden of covering up the outbreak. None of these claims is confirmed by GDC. And the October 19 date? It comes from this post alone.
A mother wrote down what her daughter sees from inside McRae. Her daughter hasn’t been tested. Only staff get masks, the mother wrote, and staff “are being told they’ll be fired if they give them one.” Women who test positive, she wrote, are put “back in the dorm with the positive readings.” “She can’t tell you if she has it. Nobody will tell her.” The women inside believe the dead woman’s family was told it was pneumonia, she wrote, and her own emails to the state have gone unanswered. 1
Other families have written to GPS too. They share the same worry about masks.
The first post’s details aren’t confirmed. A death from tuberculosis at Pulaski is.
What GDC’s Own Rules Require
There’s a written policy, SOP 507.04.54, and it’s been on the books since February 2022. “Management of Offenders with Active or Suspected Tuberculosis.” 6
When someone is suspected of having TB, here’s what the policy says should happen:
- “The offender will be given a Mask and instructed in its use and the importance of keeping it on at all times.”
- The person “will be immediately separated from the general population,” and “should not be moved to another housing area.”
- Arrangements “will be made to immediately transport the offender” to Augusta State Medical Prison.
- The prison’s health authority “will notify the Warden/Superintendent.”
- If a contact investigation is opened, the people who need testing are identified, and “Movement of offenders in and out of the affected facility may be temporarily halted.”
- Transport vans “will carry personal protective equipment that contains Masks to be used by offenders and approved N-95 particulate respirator Masks for officers.”
The policy calls a close contact anyone who sleeps, lives, works or shares air with a person who is infectious. In a dorm, that means everyone in the room.
The policy asks for a mask and for moving the sick person out at once. The families tell it differently. They say women asked for masks and were turned away, and that women who tested positive went back to the same dorm. The two accounts don’t line up. Only the records can show which one holds.
What GPS Has Done
On October 22, GPS asked for the records on tuberculosis at Pulaski State Prison. The request went to the Georgia Department of Public Health and to GDC.
On October 23, GPS published the mother’s account. That same day, the account went by email to 234 Georgia legislators. Each of them will get a postcard too.
GPS has added the woman who died to its list of deaths in Georgia’s prisons. Until the state releases her name, she’s listed as Jane Doe. 7
In 2024, Georgia’s Department of Public Health reported 254 cases of tuberculosis statewide. 13 of those people died. 2 TB is treatable. It spreads through shared air. A crowded dorm is that kind of place.
If Someone You Love Is at Pulaski or McRae
- Ask whether they’ve been offered a TB test. GDC says anyone who chooses to be screened can be.
- GDC has a Female Services office for women in its custody. You can call it at (404) 656-4661. Have your loved one’s full name, GDC number and prison ready.
- Write down what you’re told, and when. Dates matter.
- Tell GPS what you’re hearing at gps.press/submit-a-report. You can also share your own account through Tell My Story.
Call to Action: What You Can Do
A woman died of tuberculosis at Pulaski State Prison. Families had been warning for ten days. GDC has not said how many people have tested positive. If you read this and scroll past, the next warning goes unheard too. Share this story.
Spread the Word: It Takes One Click
Awareness without action changes nothing. Here’s how you can help push for accountability and real reform:
Join the GPS Advocacy Network: Sign up at https://gps.press/become-an-advocate/ and we’ll advocate on your behalf every week. GPS identifies your state legislators, crafts personalized letters on the most pressing prison issues, and sends them directly to the representatives who represent you. You receive a copy of every letter. It takes two minutes to sign up, and we handle the rest.
Send a 60-Second Message: Pick an issue, get a ready-to-edit message with the verified facts already in it, and email your state House representative and senator directly from your own inbox at https://gps.press/send-a-message/. No signup, nothing stored. It takes about a minute.
Tell My Story: Are you or a loved one affected by Georgia’s prison system? GPS publishes first-person accounts from incarcerated people and their families. Submit your story at https://gps.press/tellmystory and help the world understand what’s really happening behind the walls.
Contact Your Representatives: Your state legislators control GDC’s budget, oversight, and the laws that created these failures. Find your Georgia legislators at https://gps.press/find-your-legislator/ or call Governor Kemp at (404) 656-1776 or the GDC Commissioner at (478) 992-5246.
Demand Media Coverage: Contact newsrooms at the AJC, local TV stations, and national criminal justice outlets. More coverage means more pressure.
Amplify on Social Media: Share this article and tag @GovKemp, @GDC_Georgia, and your local representatives. Use #GAPrisons, #PrisonReform, #GeorgiaPrisonerSpeak.
Message the Board of Corrections: The citizen board that oversees the GDC publishes no contact details for its members. GPS built the missing front door: pick a board member and a policy message and send it from your own email at https://gps.press/write-the-board/.
File Public Records Requests: Georgia’s Open Records Act gives every citizen the right to request incident reports, death records, staffing data, medical logs, and financial documents. Start with the GPS Action Toolkits at https://gps.press/toolkits/. The Open Records Toolkit walks you through what to ask for, gives you ready-to-file request templates, and tells you what to do when the state says no.
Attend Public Meetings: The Georgia Board of Corrections and legislative committees hold public meetings. Your presence is noticed.
Contact the Department of Justice: File civil rights complaints at https://civilrights.justice.gov. Federal oversight has forced abusive systems to change before.
Support Organizations Doing This Work: Donate to or volunteer with Georgia-based prison reform groups fighting for change on the ground.
Vote: Research candidates’ positions on criminal justice. Primary elections often determine outcomes in Georgia.
Contact GPS: If you have information about conditions inside Georgia’s prisons, reach us securely at GPS.press.
Further Reading
“I Am Telling You What I Saw”: A Letter From Georgia’s Women’s Prisons
A first-hand account of conditions inside Georgia’s prisons for women.
The Warden Shall Notify: Who Georgia’s Prisons Keep in the Dark, and the Law That Lets Them
Who a Georgia warden has to tell when someone is hurt, sick or dies, and who gets left out.
There’s Nothing Wrong with the Water
How Georgia’s prisons handled Legionella in the water, and what the state told the people drinking it.
What crowding looks like inside Georgia’s prisons, cell by cell.
GPS Intelligence System
The GPS Intelligence System maintains living research profiles that aggregate data, news, settlements, and analysis on Georgia’s prisons and the issues defining them. The profiles below provide deeper context for the issues raised in this article:
Everything GPS has gathered on Pulaski State Prison, where the woman who died of tuberculosis was held.
How delayed and denied medical care shows up across Georgia’s prisons, and what the records say about it.
Explore the Data
GPS makes GDC statistics accessible to the public through several resources:
- GPS Statistics Portal: Interactive dashboards translating complex GDC reports into accessible formats, updated within days of official releases.
- GPS Lighthouse AI: Ask questions about Georgia’s prison system and get answers drawn from GPS’s investigative archive and data analysis.
- GPS llms.txt: A single machine-readable index of every GPS data resource, published using the open llms.txt standard. Point any AI tool (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity) at this URL and the model can navigate to facility profiles, intelligence briefs, mortality records, statistics, and the full investigative archive, with no other configuration needed. It is the fastest way to ground an AI conversation in verified GPS data.
- GPS Public MCP Server: For AI tools that support the Model Context Protocol (Claude, ChatGPT, and others), connect directly to GPS’s data: read-only tools covering population, facilities, mortality, parole, the Georgia Code, settlements, and more. Every answer arrives with its source link and citation built in.
For a walkthrough of how to put these resources to work with AI, see How to Use GPS Data with AI Tools: a step-by-step guide for researchers, advocates, families, and journalists analyzing Georgia prison conditions, statistics, and policy with tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini.
Contact GPS at media@gps.press for access to underlying datasets used in this analysis.
About Georgia Prisoners’ Speak (GPS)
Georgia Prisoners’ Speak (GPS) is a nonprofit investigative newsroom built in partnership with incarcerated reporters, families, advocates, and data analysts. Operating independently from the Georgia Department of Corrections, GPS documents the truth the state refuses to acknowledge: extreme violence, fatal medical neglect, gang-controlled dorms, collapsed staffing, fraudulent reporting practices, and unconstitutional conditions across Georgia’s prisons.
Through confidential reporting channels, secure communication, evidence verification, public-records requests, legislative research, and professional investigative standards, GPS provides the transparency the system lacks. Our mission is to expose abuses, protect incarcerated people, support families, and push Georgia toward meaningful reform based on human rights, evidence, and public accountability.
Every article is part of a larger fight: to end the silence, reveal the truth, and demand justice.
The Architecture Is the Evidence
Across the 32 state prisons whose original design figures we hold, Georgia built for 15,737. They hold 33,805 — 215% of design capacity.
Dorms tripled. Cells double- and triple-bunked. Medical, kitchens, libraries — unchanged. Every facility, every design figure, every source.
See the receipts →- Tell My Story, “A Sentence That Isn’t Supposed to Be a Death Sentence,” October 23 2026, https://gps.press/a-sentence-that-isnt-supposed-to-be-a-death-sentence/ [↩][↩]
- WSB-TV, “Georgia inmate dies of tuberculosis,” October 23 2026, https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/georgia-inmate-dies-tuberculosis/VQRBPN76BRDZ7BDM7TEGWN7ZSY/ [↩][↩][↩]
- Post in the Ga. Prisons Exposed Facebook group, October 13 2026, https://www.facebook.com/groups/1730370094434428/posts/2368642180607213/ [↩]
- Post in the Ga. Prisons Exposed Facebook group, October 20 2026, https://www.facebook.com/groups/1730370094434428/posts/2375720519899379/ [↩]
- Post in the Ga. Prisons Exposed Facebook group, October 22 2026, https://www.facebook.com/groups/1730370094434428/posts/2377285099742921/ [↩]
- GDC SOP 507.04.54, Management of Offenders with Active or Suspected Tuberculosis, effective February 22 2022, https://public.powerdms.com/GADOC/documents/106391 [↩]
- GPS mortality data, https://gps.press/mortality-data/ [↩]