AUGUSTA STATE MEDICAL PRISON

Last updated August 16, 2026.

Augusta State Medical Prison sits in Grovetown as the GDC's flagship close-security medical facility — a 1983-built complex with an original 535-bed design now rated at 1,326 beds and holding about 1,150 people. It is designated a medical hub and mental-health facility, receiving high-acuity and seriously ill incarcerated people from across Georgia. But beneath that specialized mission, Georgia Prisoners' Speak (GPS) records show a facility where high mortality, repeated homicides, caregiver abuse allegations, retaliation claims, and a federal email-access fight have defined the past five years, even as food-safety inspections consistently return Grade A scores.

Population, Mortality, and the Medical Mission

As of GPS's facility snapshot, ASMP held 1,150 people — 86.7 percent of its 1,326-bed rated capacity, but more than double the 535 beds for which it was originally designed. The facility is led by Warden Deshawn Jones and carries special designations as a medical hub and mental-health site.

GPS has tracked 385 deaths at ASMP since 2020, a figure GPS treats as a floor because GDC reports deaths roughly two months late. Of those, 280 were classified as natural or medical, 72 remain unknown or pending, 13 were suicides, 10 were homicides, 9 were accidents, and 1 fell into another category. The recent death register is dense: between January and August 2026 alone, GPS recorded the deaths of Donald Hugh Young on August 5, Wanique Marsay Odwin on June 29, Jacobi Chomicki on May 22, and Jerry Wayne Merritt on January 20, among others. System-wide, GPS has independently tracked 1,863 deaths in GDC custody since 2020; ASMP's 385 is among the largest facility-level components of that count — unsurprising for a site receiving the system's sickest patients, but also a measure of how much mortality concentrates in one place.

Homicides and the Failure to Protect

The homicide-category deaths in ASMP's mortality record are not abstractions. Reporting by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and GDC records document a sustained run of violent deaths at the facility.

Thomas Henry Giles, 31, died on October 28, 2020, from inhalation of products of combustion after being left in his smoke-filled cell for hours while officers evacuated nearby inmates; the GBI ruled the death a homicide. A GA DOAS Risk Management settlement ledger records a $3,000,000 state liability payout tied to ASMP for the Giles death, while the AJC reported the state agreed to pay his family $5 million to settle the lawsuit. On May 2, 2020, Eddie Gosier, 39, died by ligature strangulation hours after guards moved Daniel Luke Ferguson into his cell; Ferguson had a prior history of strangling an inmate at Hays State Prison.

The deaths continued into the following years. Among those documented in AJC homicide tracking were Terry Lee Bennett II, 43, killed by blunt impact to the head in January 2021; Ali Lamont Tanner, 45, stabbed in the neck in July 2021; William Taylor Bodge, 61, who died in February 2022 from delayed complications of blunt-force head injuries; Raphael Zachery Milligan, 41, killed by blunt-force injuries and strangulation in July 2022; Amos Bennett Huff Jr., 60, strangled by his cellmate in March 2023; Randall Joey Futch, 61, who died in June 2023 from delayed complications of blunt-force head trauma; Thomas Preston Johnson, 56, in April 2024; and Lamar Wesson Phillips, 39, in June 2024.

The most extensively documented case is that of Rodarick Lee Hayes, 29, who died on May 25, 2024 from a sharp-force injury to the torso. The AJC reported that two prisoners and a correctional officer were charged with murder, with the officer accused of aiding in the attack. A Department of Justice investigation found that Hayes had been attacked on multiple occasions before his death — a finding GPS reads as a failure to protect him.

The violence did not stop at the edge of the medical population. Jacobi Chomicki, 23, died at ASMP on May 22, 2026; GDC said his cause of death was undetermined and sent his body to the GBI crime lab, while GPS's mortality tracking classifies him in the homicide category. GPS also lists Wanique Marsay Odwin, 44, who died June 29, 2026, and Jerry Wayne Merritt, 59, who died January 20, 2026, in the homicide category.

Alongside these public cases, GPS has received recurring accounts from incarcerated people and family members describing vulnerable patients housed with individuals known to have sexual-assault histories, and of stabbings that followed. Such accounts echo the Gosier placement and the DOJ's broader finding of inadequate protection.

Caregiver Abuse Allegations and Retaliation Threats

In February 2026, two consecutive days of alleged abuse by certified nursing assistants put ASMP's own medical staff at the center of the facility's violence story.

On February 14, 2026, Janette Shields, a CNA at ASMP, was reported arrested after allegedly striking Bruce Charles Smith, a disabled patient in the medical wing, with an open hand around dinnertime. GDC records list Smith's weight at 103 pounds; a news account put it at 111. One day later, a second CNA identified as Williams allegedly locked the door of Anthony Shedd's room, refused to help the quadriplegic patient eat, refused to empty his catheter bag, and cursed at him.

Shedd, GDC ID 0000567033, was housed at ASMP as of October and November 2024, and GDC's live database still showed him active there as of April 17, 2026. His case file includes medical records from Wheeler Correctional Facility, the CoreCivic-operated private prison, and GPS staff have identified private-operator accountability as a relevant investigative angle in his decline. After Shedd reported the Williams incident, the warden, Deshawn Jones, allegedly made retaliation threats in a phone call to family contact Cindy Robertson around February 20–21, 2026. Family accounts collected by GPS describe a stated position that any grievance or negative attitude toward staff would produce a disciplinary report, regardless of who initiated the conflict.

These are not isolated signals. GPS staff observed a documented pattern of staff abuse and administrative cover-up at ASMP, including multiple incidents in close succession in 2024–2025. Across the past 12 months, GPS records show recurring staff-misconduct, excessive-force, and grievance-obstruction signals at the facility, and family accounts repeatedly describe fear of retaliation — including isolation and transfer away from support networks — as the reason abuse goes unreported.

The written nursing standards at ASMP are exacting. The Infirmary/OPHU nurse round progress note form I006.1, last revised May 24, 2022, with Karina Purcell listed as form owner, requires provider contact for oxygen saturation below 90%, temperature above 101°F, respiratory rate persistently at or below 10 or at or above 20, pulse at or above 110 or at or below 60, and blood pressures with systolic at or above 180 or at or below 90, or diastolic at or above 110 or at or below 60. GPS's review of one high-acuity case found months-long gaps between neurological symptoms and diagnostic follow-up, unreviewed abnormal labs, and delayed specialist referrals — a pattern that fits ASMP's broader medical-neglect signals.

The Email-Restriction Fight: Benning v. Oliver

Ralph Harrison Benning, an incarcerated person at ASMP, filed a 2018 lawsuit challenging GDC restrictions and censorship on inmate email, including a limit of 12 email contacts tied to the in-person visitation log. In 2024, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals concluded that GDC could not limit his email contacts to 12 individuals; Benning then alleged in a November 2024 motion that the department was "willfully and intentionally" refusing to comply.

The department did not immediately back down. Early in 2026, following Judge Self's demand for an explanation of non-compliance, GDC sent a directive to all prison wardens and superintendents to stop enforcing the email-contact limit. The court held GDC in contempt for defying the email order, and on February 11, 2026, Judge Self summoned Commissioner Tyrone Oliver to a 35-minute hearing in Macon. According to AJC reporting, Judge Self described it as "shocking" and "unbelievable" that the department ignored an order from the 11th Circuit, as if acting "above the law."

The Benning litigation is an ASMP-origin case that reached beyond the facility: it produced a federal contempt finding and forced a system-wide directive. GPS's case records and aggregate signals also show due-process and external complaints clustering around ASMP in February 2026, including filings to the 11th Circuit and the DOJ Civil Rights Division.

Grade-A Scores, Hidden Kitchens

Between December 2023 and February 2026, the Georgia Department of Public Health inspected ASMP's food service by routine walkthrough and returned scores of 100, 95, 96, 97, 99, 90, 91, and 98 — all Grade A. The cited violations were narrow: food-contact surfaces to clean and sanitize, proper cold-holding temperatures, in-use utensils properly stored, and food in good condition, safe, and unadulterated.

That public record stands in sharp tension with what GPS has documented systemically. GPS's investigation "Dunked, Stacked, and Served" found that high DPH scores at GDC facilities coexist with broken dishwashers, roach and rodent infestations, contaminated trays, and food-sanitation failures that scheduled inspections do not capture. The Marshall Project's May 16, 2026 investigation corroborated the statewide pattern, reporting rats in kitchens, insects in food, moldy trays, and visible malnutrition across Georgia facilities.

At ASMP specifically, GPS has received multiple reports that perishable special-diet sandwiches are prepared in advance and left at room temperature, and that staff are expected to distribute unrefrigerated food. The economics behind this are stark: GPS has documented GDC spending roughly $1.69 per person per day on food in 2024, with a proposed $1.60 for FY27 — under 60 cents per meal.

Understaffing, Gang Authority, and Sexual Violence

ASMP's violence and care failures did not develop in isolation. GPS's systemic findings document officer vacancy rates between 49.3 and 60 percent systemwide for years, with Valdosta State Prison reaching 80 percent by April 2024; Georgia ranks last in correctional-officer pay, and 82.7 percent of new hires leave in their first year. The October 2024 DOJ findings letter concluded that GDC leadership "has lost control of its facilities" and faulted the department for placing too much blame on gangs while giving insufficient emphasis to understaffing. Roughly 31 percent of the system's prison population are validated members of 315 security threat groups — more than double the national average — and DOJ and the Guidehouse 2024 assessment independently found that gangs effectively run multiple facilities.

Former GDC assistant warden Russell Zirkle told GPS on record, in the interview published as "Two Commanders Say Georgia Hides Its Prison Staffing Crisis," that Hancock State Prison was among the prisons running a 70–80 percent officer vacancy rate — on-record corroboration for the staffing collapse GPS has documented. At ASMP, the consequences surface in case files and GPS's intelligence system: recurring family and inmate accounts describe severe staffing shortages allowing gang leadership to function as de facto authority, vulnerable patients housed with individuals known to have sexual-assault histories, and sexual assaults during lockdowns that went unreported for fear of extended punishment. GPS records show PREA-violation and retaliation signals at ASMP in 2026, including complaints to the DOJ Civil Rights Division.

The DOJ's October 2024 finding — that sexual assault is "rampant" and that GDC does not reasonably protect incarcerated people, including LGBTI individuals, from sexual harm — supplies the backdrop. Elsewhere in the system, a January 11, 2026 gang-related riot at Washington State Prison killed four people and left that facility on continuous lockdown for months, the most visible expression of the statewide gang-war dynamic the DOJ and GPS both describe.

Sources

This analysis draws on Georgia Department of Public Health food-safety inspection reports; GA DOAS Risk Management settlement ledger records obtained through open records; GPS-tracked mortality records and facility data; reporting from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and The Marshall Project; GDC statements and data; federal court filings and 11th Circuit rulings; and GPS's own investigative reporting, including the on-record interview with former assistant warden Russell Zirkle published as "Two Commanders Say Georgia Hides Its Prison Staffing Crisis." Inmate and family accounts collected by GPS staff informed the analytical framing and are aggregated to prevent reidentification.