AUGUSTA STATE MEDICAL PRISON

Analysis written on August 2, 2026.

A Prison Designed to Heal, a Record of Death

Augusta State Medical Prison, a close-security facility that houses acutely ill and disabled men from across Georgia's prison system, was never built to hold this many people. Its original design capacity was 535 beds; today it holds 1,155, and its on-site hospital and long-term care units are supposed to provide the state's highest level of medical and mental-health care. Yet GPS's mortality database records 384 deaths at ASMP since 2020 — a toll that, even in a facility that concentrates the system's sickest patients, far outstrips what would be expected in a community hospital. Of those deaths, 252 are classified as natural or medical, 103 are listed as cause unknown or pending, and 10 are homicides. Ten more are suicides, and nine are accidents.

The homicides trace a grim timeline. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, in a sustained investigation of Georgia prison violence, documented that Eddie Gosier, 39, was killed by ligature strangulation on May 2, 2020, hours after guards moved Daniel Luke Ferguson — who had a documented history of strangling an inmate at Hays State Prison — into his cell. Thomas Henry Giles, 31, died on October 28, 2020, from smoke inhalation after officers evacuated other prisoners but left Giles locked in his smoke-filled cell; the Georgia Bureau of Investigation ruled his death a homicide. Since then, the AJC has recorded at least eight more homicides at ASMP: 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 suffered weeks earlier; Raphael Zachery Milligan, 41, killed by blunt force and strangulation in July 2022; Amos Bennett Huff Jr., 60, strangled by his 26-year-old cellmate in March 2023; Randall Joey Futch, 61, who died in June 2023 of delayed complications of blunt force head trauma; Thomas Preston Johnson, 56, killed in April 2024; and Rodarick Lee Hayes, 29, stabbed to death in May 2024. Two other prisoners and a correctional officer were charged with murder in Hayes's killing. The officer is accused of aiding the attack.

In 2026, the pace of homicide at ASMP has only accelerated. GPS records three homicides in the first seven months of the year: Jerry Wayne Merritt, 59, on January 20; Jacobi Alandis Chomicki, 23, on May 22; and Wanique Marsay Odwin on June 29. The Georgia Department of Corrections announced Chomicki's death with its standard line — "the Office of Professional Standards is investigating the death as standard procedure" — and his cause of death is officially undetermined, but GPS's mortality database classifies it as homicide based on available incident data. Odwin's death is also recorded as a homicide. The May-June cluster is part of a broader surge in reported inmate-on-inmate assaults at ASMP: across the 12 months ending July 2026, GPS's intelligence system recorded 15 distinct sources reporting assault allegations at the facility, concentrated in April and May of 2026.

Staff Misconduct and the Abuse of Disabled Patients

The violence at ASMP is not limited to prisoner-on-prisoner attacks. In February 2026, two incidents involving certified nursing assistants and severely disabled patients brought staff misconduct into sharp focus. On February 14, Janette Shields, a CNA at ASMP, allegedly struck Bruce Charles Smith, a disabled inmate housed in the medical wing, with an open hand around dinnertime. Smith, who requires assistance with daily living and medical care, weighed just 103 pounds according to GDC records. Shields was arrested. The next day, a CNA named Williams allegedly locked the door of quadriplegic inmate Anthony Shedd's room, refused to help him eat, refused to empty his catheter bag, and cursed at him. Shedd, who is entirely dependent on staff for all activities of daily living, had been reporting mistreatment that his family and GPS staff characterized as denial of basic medical care.

The fallout from those reports exposed a chain of retaliation that reaches the facility's top leadership. GPS reporting describes accounts that the ASMP warden made threats of retaliation against Shedd for reporting CNA Williams, communicating to his family by phone around February 20-21 that any grievance filing would result in a disciplinary report. GPS staff observed that ongoing harm — including continued inadequate care, retaliation, and unclear cancer treatment — may affect statute of limitations calculations for Shedd's claims, and assessed that the warden's conduct may implicate federal civil rights laws, including the First Amendment and the Americans with Disabilities Act. The underlying pattern is not isolated: GPS staff have observed a documented pattern of staff abuse and administrative cover-up at Augusta State Medical Prison, and have received multiple reports from family members and inmate witnesses describing refusal of care, verbal abuse, and intimidation of those who complain. Over the past 12 months, GPS records seven sources alleging medical neglect and six sources reporting staff misconduct at the facility.

Settlements and Litigation: The Cost of Neglect

The human toll at ASMP is increasingly reflected in court dockets and state checkbooks. Georgia's Department of Administrative Services risk-management settlement ledger shows at least eight liability payouts tied to incidents at the facility. The largest — $3 million — went to the family of Thomas Henry Giles, the 31-year-old left to die in his smoke-filled cell while officers evacuated others. News reports at the time cited a $5 million settlement figure, but the state ledger records $3 million as the State of Georgia's payout. Other settlements include $300,000 to the estate of George Washington Hardy after a 2015 incident that is linked in GPS records to a documented death; $517,000 to Terry Anthony for a 2021 incident; $100,000 to Adrian Jenkins; and smaller five-figure sums to Eugene Griggs, Montra Moss, Tangela Williams, and Justina Collins-Powell.

ASMP has also been the epicenter of a First Amendment battle that reached federal court. Ralph Harrison Benning, an inmate at the facility, sued in 2018 to challenge GDC's policy that limited his email contacts to just 12 people tied to his in-person visitation log. In 2024, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in Benning's favor, concluding the restriction was unconstitutional. GDC continued to enforce the policy even after the ruling. Benning filed a motion in November 2024 alleging the department was "willfully and intentionally" refusing to comply, and in a February 2026 hearing in Macon, U.S. District Judge Tilman E. Self III summoned GDC Commissioner Tyrone Oliver to the witness stand and scolded the department, calling it "shocking" and "unbelievable" that the agency acted as if it were "above the law." Early in 2026, following the judge's order, GDC finally sent a directive to wardens to stop enforcing the email-contact limit.

The Fog of an Incomplete Count

The 103 deaths at ASMP that GPS classifies as cause unknown or pending are a window into the opacity of Georgia's death-reporting system. GDC typically reports deaths two months late, and many remain "pending investigation" indefinitely. In the first seven months of 2026 alone, GPS has recorded 17 deaths at ASMP with a known or pending cause. Among the undetermined cases are Frederick Raskin, 84, James Dean Wilkinson, 69, Tristan McLennon Trimm, 42, Wilburn W. Dobbs, 76, Alphonso Watts, 54, Dequan Osborne, 33, Michael Jefferson, 38, and a man identified in GPS records only as John Doe, who died on July 3, 2026. Several of these deaths came despite the facility's stated medical mission; others raise questions about what monitoring, if any, was occurring in housing units that family members describe as unmonitored because guards congregate away from their posts.

System-wide, GPS has independently tracked 1,859 deaths in GDC custody since 2020. ASMP accounts for 384 of them, or roughly one in five.

Systemic Rot: Understaffing, Gang Control, and Deferred Maintenance

The crisis at ASMP cannot be understood in isolation. Georgia's Department of Corrections has run officer vacancy rates between 49.3% and 60% systemwide for years, against a national standard of no more than 10%. The October 2024 DOJ findings letter concluded that "the leadership of the Georgia Department of Corrections has lost control of its facilities" and that GDC placed "too much blame on gangs and insufficient emphasis on understaffing." GPS reporting has documented that approximately 31% of the system's roughly 49,000 incarcerated people are validated members of 315 different security threat groups, more than double the national average. At ASMP, GPS records show four sources reporting severe staffing shortages in the past 12 months, and family accounts collected by GPS describe staff often leaving buildings unmonitored, allowing gang leaders to function as de facto authorities.

The gang dynamic has been lethal. In January 2026, a Blood-on-Blood factional war between ROLACC and G-Shine sets erupted into coordinated violence across the Georgia prison system, triggering a statewide lockdown. The worst single event was at Washington State Prison, where four people were killed in a riot on January 11 — two stabbed, one beaten, a fourth dying of injuries days later — and the facility remained on continuous lockdown for months. GPS has documented that 12 inmates were subsequently charged with felony murder and related offenses. ASMP, though not the site of that riot, has experienced its own surge of gang-related violence. GPS records show 15 distinct sources reported inmate-on-inmate assaults at the facility over the past 12 months, concentrated in April and May 2026, and the facility has been on lockdown. Inmate witnesses at ASMP report that a stabbing occurred in a housing unit and that the facility has remained locked down since. Multiple anonymous tips describe a mass stabbing incident and a death before medical staff arrived.

Beyond the violence, the conditions inside ASMP reflect the systemwide infrastructure and nutrition failures GPS has documented across the state. Despite the Georgia Department of Public Health issuing mostly high scores on scheduled kitchen inspections — ASMP's food-service scores ranged from 90 to 100, all Grade A, across six inspections between 2023 and 2026 — GPS's systemic investigation has found that such scores often conceal sustained equipment failures, pest infestation, and contaminated food that inspections do not capture because they are scheduled walkthroughs that do not test equipment under load. GDC spends approximately $1.69 per person per day on food, or under 60 cents per meal, and GPS has received multiple reports of food served at unsafe temperatures, special-diet sandwiches containing perishable meats left unrefrigerated, and widespread pest problems at the facility.

Sources

This analysis draws on reporting by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Georgia Public Broadcasting; federal court filings in Benning v. Oliver; Georgia Department of Administrative Services settlement records; Georgia Department of Public Health inspection reports; GPS's own mortality database, facility records, and investigative reporting; and on-record testimony from former GDC officials, as well as inmate and family accounts collected by GPS staff.