Last updated November 8, 2026.(DS)

Burruss Correctional Training Center: A Special-Mission Prison Built for 300, Rated for 806

Burruss Correctional Training Center sits on Indian Springs Drive in Forsyth, in Monroe County, and has operated since 1986 as a medium-security "special-mission" prison — one that houses both adult men and juveniles sentenced as adults, and that carries a stated emphasis on education and vocational training, including a charter high school, GED and adult basic education, and technical programs, alongside outside details and industries. The facility's standing record describes general-population housing combined with specialized units for youthful offenders. Its original design capacity was 300; its current rated capacity is 806, and GPS's facility data records a population of 679 — 84.2 percent of rated capacity. What follows examines the facility through three lenses: the deaths GPS has recorded there since 2020, the contracted medical and mental-health staffing that serves the population, and the long record of contraband arrests at the front gate and inside the compound.

Six Deaths Since 2020, and the Homicide of Tyler Michael Zacher

GPS's mortality registry records six deaths at Burruss C.T.C since January 1, 2020 — a figure that is a floor, not a ceiling, because GDC reports deaths roughly two months late. Three of the six carry a cause listed as Unknown/Pending, meaning GPS does not yet know the cause and does not guess at one.

Robert Carey Seymour died March 9, 2022, at Burruss C.T.C; GPS's registry lists the cause as Suicide. He was 58. Jonathan Lee Mischloney died March 3, 2024, at Burruss C.T.C; the registry lists the cause as Unknown/Pending. He was 46. Christopher Troy Campbell died June 26, 2024, at Burruss C.T.C; the registry lists the cause as Unknown/Pending. He was 58. Anthony James Walkertriplett died September 9, 2024, at Burruss C.T.C; the registry lists the cause as Unknown/Pending. He was 21. Ashley Lloyd Neesmith died July 15, 2026, at Burruss C.T.C; the registry lists the cause as Accident. He was 50.

The sixth is the case with the fullest public record. Tyler Michael Zacher died February 3, 2025, at Navicent Health in Macon; GPS's registry lists the cause as Homicide. He was 22. The Monroe County Coroner's Office death-investigation report, court-verified, lists the manner of death as homicide under coroner's case number 2025-02-003, with Dr. Samuel Goberdhan as the pronouncer of death and GBI Medical Examiner Dr. Geller handling the case under number ME-25-10458. The same record establishes the mechanism: Zacher was assaulted by others on or about January 6, 2025, at Burruss Correctional Training Center in Forsyth, Monroe County, and suffered a sharp force injury of the head and neck. He died nearly four weeks later at the Macon hospital. Moreen Brennin is listed as his next of kin, his mother.

GDC assigned the death case number 2025-69, with Agent Youngberg as investigator. GPS's records indicate that GDC has not officially confirmed a death at Burruss C.T.C, and that this death was identified through public records rather than through a user-submitted report — a distinction that matters for how the facility's mortality picture has been assembled. The registry's homicide count at Burruss stands at one. The systemwide count is far larger: GPS has independently tracked 1,928 deaths in GDC custody since 2020.

Contracted Care: 3.25 Positions, Day Shift Only, Shared With Another Prison

The staffing documents attached to Georgia's contracted prison medical care describe a facility served at a fraction of an FTE. Under the MHM Amendment 5 and Amendment 7 staffing matrices, Burruss C.T.C carries 2.25 total mental-health positions — 0.25 MH nurse FTE and 2.00 mental health counselor FTEs — and 0.50 dental positions, a single dental assistant FTE. The combined dental and mental-health total is 3.25 FTEs. The same matrices note, repeatedly, that Burruss shares staff with CSP. The MHM schedule assigns a 0.50 MH Nurse Practitioner position to Burruss, which shares staff with CSP.

The Centurion Amendment 1 contract materials describe a different and larger staffing picture, and the contrast is itself the finding. Centurion's proposed staffing matrix for Burruss lists a grand total of 256 weekly hours, or 6.40 FTE — and includes only day-shift positions: LPN, Medical Records Clerk, NP/PA, Office Associate/Administrative Assistant, RN, and RN Administrator. No evening or night staffing appears on the matrix at all. The same amendment sets estimated weekly hours for social work services at 168 hours for Burruss, and lists 30 estimated weekly primary care physician hours at a weekly rate of $144 per hour.

Two capacity figures appear in the contract record alongside these staffing numbers. Exhibit 3-B of the Centurion Amendment 1 contract lists Burruss CTC with a physical capacity of 719 offenders and on-site X-ray marked Yes. GDC's own stated institution capacity for the facility is 758. GPS's facility record carries a current rated capacity of 806 and a population of 679. Whatever figure is used, the ratio of contracted clinical hours to people held is the analytical center: a facility that houses juveniles sentenced as adults alongside adult general population, with a mental-health complement of 2.25 FTE shared in part with another institution and a medical matrix that stops at the end of the day shift.

The Front Gate: Fifteen Years of Contraband Arrests

GDC's own published contraband reports — arrests as reported, not convictions; GDC publishes no dispositions — record eight incidents at Burruss C.T.C between 2011 and 2021, and the pattern runs in both directions: staff bringing contraband in, and visitors trying to.

On April 24, 2021, GDC reported, security staff noticed a bulge in the waist area of Officer Brian Walker as he attempted to enter the facility. Walker consented to a search, and officers found ecstasy pills, oxycontin, Xanax pills, marijuana, tobacco, and strips of paper. He was arrested and transported to the Monroe County jail. Three months earlier, on January 17, 2021, staff spotted a package in the jacket of Officer Monica Patrick as she entered; it contained tobacco, and she was arrested and taken to the Monroe County Jail. In November 2018, Officer Deasia George was arrested by the Monroe County Sheriff's Office at the facility due to an ongoing investigation. In January 2012, Officer Darrell Hobbs was arrested by the Monroe County Sheriff's Office at Burruss and admitted to having marijuana in his possession for an inmate. Across the facility's reported incidents, four staff-class actors appear under the printed role "Officer."

Visitors account for the rest. In April 2014, visitor Karen Scott was stopped when an officer noticed she was wearing two shirts and had an odd bulge in the chest area; a white, rocky-like substance wrapped in clear plastic fell to the floor, she produced tobacco, and a search of her vehicle turned up a .380. She was arrested by the Monroe County Sheriff's Department. In September 2016, the Monroe County Sheriffs Department arrested visitors Natashia Lambert and Tammy Griff after a search of their vehicle revealed 27 plastic bags of tobacco, two lighters, and two rolls of black electrical tape; per GDC's account, Lambert admitted a previous contraband drop at the Butts County outside detail site, and both admitted to having contraband in the car with the intention of introducing it into the facility. In March 2018, officers observed visitor Katrazus Thompson give an offender a pack of cigarettes; Thompson was arrested by the Monroe County Sheriff's Office. And in October 2011, Tamirra Oliver was arrested at the facility by the Monroe County Sheriff's Office while there to visit an inmate, with crack cocaine found in her possession.

The yearly distribution — one incident each in 2011, 2012, 2014, and 2016; two each in 2018 and 2021 — is a record of what GDC chose to publish, not a measure of what moved through the facility. But it establishes that the gate at Burruss has been a documented point of entry for drugs, tobacco, and once a firearm — carried in roughly equal measure, in GDC's own published accounts, by the officers assigned to guard it and by the people coming to visit.

Audits, Inspections, and the Paper Record

GDC's internal audit calendars place Burruss on a recurring review cycle: an internal audit in September 2021 under the FY2022 calendar; audits on July 24, 25, and 26, 2023, under the FY2024 calendar; and three consecutive days — January 5, 6, and 7, 2026 — under the FY2026 calendar. GDC's spreadsheet lists Burruss among state prisons with an accreditation schedule.

The Georgia Department of Public Health's food-safety inspections of the facility's kitchen tell a steadier story than GPS's systemwide findings would predict. Ten routine inspections between June 2023 and October 2026 all returned Grade A: 98 and 99 in 2023; 95, 93, 95, and 91 across 2024; 95, 95, and 94 across 2025; 97 in March 2026 and a perfect 100 in October 2026. The cited violations were the ordinary run of kitchen findings — food-contact surfaces not cleaned and sanitized, utensils and linens improperly stored, physical facilities not maintained and clean, and on two inspections, insects, rodents, and animals present.

That last citation is worth pausing on, because GPS has documented a systemic pattern in which DPH scores systematically fail to capture food-service sanitation failure across GDC kitchens — broken tray-sanitizing dishwashers, sustained roach and rodent infestation, meals served on visibly contaminated trays — and has attributed the gap in part to the fact that inspections are scheduled walkthroughs that do not assess equipment under load. GPS treats high DPH scores coexisting with sustained witness reports of equipment failure and contamination as the analytical contradiction at the center of its food-service investigation. Burruss's own record — a 100 in October 2026 following a citation for insects, rodents, and animals present in February 2025 — is a clean illustration of why a score is not a kitchen.

Leadership and the Shape of the Institution

Chanel Samuel has served as Warden of Burruss C.T.C since July 5, 2026. Delores Henderson has been Deputy Warden of Administration since July 16, 2026; Jacqueline Fanning has been Deputy Warden of Care and Treatment since January 1, 2023; and Stephen Foster has been Deputy Warden of Security since July 1, 2026. Three of the four arrived within the past year — a leadership turnover pattern that GPS treats as a recurring feature of the system rather than a fact about any one facility.

The larger structural context is one GPS has documented systemwide and applies here without claiming a facility-specific finding: officer vacancies across Georgia's prisons have run between 49.3 and 60 percent for multiple years against a national standard of no more than 10 percent; the October 2024 DOJ findings letter concluded that GDC's leadership "has lost control of its facilities" and faulted the Department for placing "too much blame on gangs and insufficient emphasis on understaffing"; and roughly 31 percent of the system's incarcerated population are validated members of 315 different security threat groups. GPS has received recurring reports of lockdowns and limited-movement status at Burruss, with accounts describing only outside details released while meal service continued — the ordinary rhythm of a facility managing a security incident. Those accounts are unconfirmed by GDC, and GPS treats them as reports rather than findings.

What the record supports is narrower and more durable. A prison built in 1986 for 300 people is rated for 806 and holds 679, including juveniles sentenced as adults. Its contracted clinical staffing totals 3.25 dental and mental-health FTEs, shared in part with another institution, on a medical matrix that lists no evening or night positions. Six people have died there since 2020, one of them a 22-year-old assaulted with a sharp weapon and dead four weeks later in a Macon hospital, in a case the coroner ruled a homicide. And for fifteen years, the front gate has been a documented entry point for contraband — carried, in GDC's own published accounts, by officers and visitors alike.

Sources

This analysis draws on GDC's published contraband arrest reports and its internal audit and accreditation calendars; the Monroe County Coroner's Office death-investigation report and GBI Medical Examiner records for the death of Tyler Michael Zacher; the Centurion Amendment 1 contract materials and the MHM Amendment 5 and Amendment 7 staffing matrices; Georgia Department of Public Health food-safety inspection reports for the facility; GDC purchase order 624069; GPS's mortality registry and facility records; and GPS's own systemic reporting on staffing collapse, classification, food service, and infrastructure across Georgia's prisons.