Last updated November 8, 2026.(DS)

Calhoun State Prison: Classification Drift, a Lifer Purge, and the Violence It Leaves Behind

Calhoun State Prison sits on 27823 Main Street in Morgan, in Calhoun County, a medium-security prison for adult male felons that opened in 1994 after construction in 1993 and was renovated in 1999 and 2008. Its housing is mainly double-bunked cells and dormitory units, with a segregation and disciplinary area; it supports standard work details and limited programming. The facility was built for 500 people and is now rated for 1,677. GPS's registry records 30 deaths there since January 1, 2020, seven of them homicides. A U.S. Department of Justice findings report faulted staff at Calhoun for classification and housing failures that contributed to a 2022 killing. And in the past two years, GPS's reporting and its transfer data describe a prison whose population is being reshaped — long-serving men moved out, short-timers moved in — even as incarcerated people and their families describe violence, group punishment, and a food-distribution system left largely unsupervised.

The Plant, the Population, and the Gap Between Them

Calhoun's rated capacity is 1,677 and its current population is 1,540, about 91.8 percent of rated capacity. That figure understates the pressure: the original design capacity was 500. The prison is designated medium-security, but GDC's own population data show that in October 2025, 487 of the facility's 1,657 people — 29.4 percent — were classified close-custody. By September 2026, that number had risen to 619 of 1,516, or 40.8 percent. In other words, a prison built for 500 and designated medium-security was holding a population that was more than 40 percent close-security by the fall of 2026, with a total population nearly three times its original design.

That is the classification drift GPS has documented across Georgia's medium-security prisons: facilities operating at security levels well above their designation, without the staffing or infrastructure that designation implies. At Calhoun the drift is measurable in the state's own numbers. GPS records show the incarcerated population fell by 141 while the close-custody count rose by 132 over a one-year period spanning late 2025 into 2026 — a population shrinking at the bottom and growing at the top.

The medical staffing matrix attached to the state's contract with Centurion of GA lists a grand total of 816 weekly hours (20.40 FTE) for Calhoun, including a physician position budgeted at 16 weekly hours (0.40 FTE) and nurse practitioners or physician assistants at 24 hours. The MHM staffing schedules show a smaller footprint still: 2.25 total positions across medical, mental health, and dental in one amendment, with a dental hygienist shared with Autry State Prison. Later MHM amendments list 4.50 mental health FTE and 2.25 dental FTE at Calhoun, at an annual cost of roughly $472,718 and $310,793 respectively. Whatever the contract version, the ratios are thin against a population of more than 1,500.

Thirty Deaths, Seven Homicides, and a Coroner's Record

GPS's mortality registry records 30 deaths at Calhoun State Prison since January 1, 2020 — a floor, since GDC reports deaths roughly two months late. By cause, GPS's registry lists 14 as Unknown/Pending, seven as Natural/Medical, seven as Homicide, one as Suicide, and one as Deliberate Indifference. The full list is maintained at https://gps.press/georgia-prison-deaths/facility/calhoun-state-prison/.

The most recent 25 people GPS has recorded as dying at Calhoun:

• Randy Walton died August 21, 2026, at Calhoun State Prison; GPS's registry lists the cause as Unknown/Pending. He was 67.
• Freddie Lee Patterson died May 13, 2026, at Calhoun State Prison; the cause is Unknown/Pending. He was 51.
• Jimmy McMullen died January 28, 2026, at Calhoun State Prison; the cause is Natural/Medical. He was 67.
• Matthew Len Nutt died December 21, 2025, at Calhoun State Prison; the cause is Homicide. He was 37.
• Thomas Haugabook died September 25, 2025, at Calhoun State Prison; the cause is Natural/Medical. He was 67.
• Tyler Jackson died June 28, 2025, at Calhoun State Prison; the cause is Unknown/Pending. He was 30.
• Gary Bernard Duncan died May 4, 2025, at Calhoun State Prison; the cause is Unknown/Pending. He was 67.
• Theodore Roundtree died January 19, 2025, at Calhoun State Prison; the cause is Homicide.
• Charles Owens died January 6, 2025, at Calhoun State Prison; the cause is Unknown/Pending.
• Kent Tyrik Robinson died November 5, 2024, at Calhoun State Prison; the cause is Unknown/Pending. He was 26.
• Willie Andrew Willis died October 21, 2024, at Calhoun State Prison; the cause is Homicide. He was 27.
• William Dutton Maddox died August 1, 2024, at Calhoun State Prison; the cause is Unknown/Pending. He was 62.
• Terry Paul Smith died July 20, 2024, at Calhoun State Prison; the cause is Unknown/Pending. He was 62.
• Gonzalo Colmenero-Ayala died July 17, 2024, at Calhoun State Prison; the cause is Homicide. He was 54.
• Tyler Jackson Blackwell died July 13, 2024, at Calhoun State Prison; the cause is Unknown/Pending. He was 31.
• Kenneth Scott Piper died May 4, 2024, at Calhoun State Prison; the cause is Homicide. He was 37.
• Martel Orlando Dorsey died November 24, 2023, at Calhoun State Prison; the cause is Homicide. He was 32.
• Randy Dixon died November 23, 2023, at Calhoun State Prison; the cause is Unknown/Pending. He was 63.
• Paul Russell Gordon died November 13, 2023, at Calhoun State Prison; the cause is Unknown/Pending. He was 63.
• Sergio Andres Lopez-Herrera died July 15, 2023, at Calhoun State Prison; the cause is Natural/Medical. He was 41.
• Reginald Jerome Jr Jacobs died February 6, 2023, at Calhoun State Prison; the cause is Deliberate Indifference. He was 24.
• Timothy Edwin Bryant died October 11, 2022, at Calhoun State Prison; the cause is Natural/Medical. He was 64.
• James Thomas Ennis died September 30, 2022, at Calhoun State Prison; the cause is Unknown/Pending. He was 63.
• Daquavious Lackey died May 16, 2022, at Calhoun State Prison; the cause is Homicide. He was 21.
• Christopher Edward Oliva died April 9, 2022, at Calhoun State Prison; the cause is Suicide. He was 43.

The Calhoun County coroner, Darien D. Brown, is the source of record for many of these deaths, and GPS has obtained his certificates through open-records requests received July 2, 2026. Those records carry detail the state's own coding does not. Christopher Edward Oliva's certificate lists hanging as the cause and suicide as the manner; the GBI Division of Forensic Sciences autopsy (case DOFS 2022-4001634, performed by Medical Examiner Natasha Grandhi) certified the same, and noted a ligature tied to the top bunk rail, superficial healing wounds on the forearms, and an illicit substance on postmortem toxicology. DaQuavious Lackey's certificate lists a stab wound of the neck and multiple blunt force injuries, manner homicide. Martel Orlando Dorsey was stabbed by others with sharp instruments. Theodore Roundtree died of sharp force abdominal trauma. Gonzalo Colmenero-Ayala's certificate lists multiple blunt force injuries and neck compressions, with atherosclerotic vascular disease as a contributing condition. Matthew Len Nutt's certificate lists blunt force trauma and states he was assaulted by another individual.

Two records stand apart. Jimmy McMullen died of pancreatic cancer, manner natural, with no autopsy performed, per the coroner's record. And Reginald Jerome Jr Jacobs — whose death GPS's registry classifies as Deliberate Indifference — died of dehydration with renal failure, manner natural, per the coroner. The circumstances of his death are the subject of a federal lawsuit.

Jacobs v. GDC: A Man, a Cut Water Line, and a $3.25 Million Settlement

The verified First Amended Complaint in Jacobs v. GDC, 4:25-cv-00111 (M.D. Ga.), alleges that Reginald Jerome Jr Jacobs was held in solitary confinement in Calhoun's J Building from at least December 21, 2021, through his death — a period exceeding one year. It alleges that a GDC employee disabled the water supply to his cell around January 27, 2023, and that, contrary to GDC SOP 209.06, no 30-minute segregation rounds were provided through his death and no alternate drinking water was supplied. Jacobs was found emaciated on February 5, 2023, roughly seven to eight hours before he died. The medical examiner ruled the cause dehydration.

The case was removed from Muscogee County State Court (SC2024CV002716), settled per a Notice of Settlement filed August 15, 2025, and closed via an all-defendant Stipulation of Dismissal filed December 16, 2025. The Georgia DOAS Risk Management settlement ledger, obtained through open records, records a state liability payout of $3,250,000 to Reginald Jacobs Sr. for the Estate of Reginald Jacobs Jr., tied to Calhoun State Prison and a 2023 incident. The same ledger records other payouts tied to the facility: $998,715 to Angel M. Ortiz (2019 incident), $10,000 to Asmar Rasheed (2018), and $1,400 to Lasharon Brantley (2020).

The DOJ's findings, as reported by WALB, describe the same case in plain terms: an incarcerated person at Calhoun State Prison died of dehydration after staff shut off his water, closed the door flap, and did not deliver meals for two days.

What the DOJ Found at Calhoun

The Justice Department's October 2024 findings letter, covered by WALB in February 2026, concluded that Georgia's prison system fails to provide incarcerated people the constitutionally required minimum of reasonable physical safety. Several of its specific findings land at Calhoun. Federal investigators found that staff at the facility failed to follow classification and housing assignment procedures, contributing to a 2022 homicide. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that the DOJ alleged staff failed to follow procedures when moving DaQuavious Lackey's assailant between segregation and general population, leading to Lackey being housed with — and killed by — his cellmate; the AJC's account describes Lackey being beaten with a fan motor in a net bag.

The findings also describe a grievance system that does not function. A grievance filed by an incarcerated person at Calhoun alleging extortion and gang violence was rejected as untimely with no follow-up. Systemwide, the DOJ found that less than 10 percent of prison fights, less than 23 percent of inmate-on-inmate assaults, and less than 6 percent of incidents involving weapons were forwarded for investigation. Federal investigators documented incarcerated people cleaning and dressing their own wounds with toothpaste, coffee grounds, dirt, and makeshift bandages because medical help was delayed or unavailable, and found that EMS teams are delayed an average of 30 minutes during emergency responses to GDC prisons due to understaffing.

The DOJ also found that Georgia deliberately underreports prison homicides, listing deaths clearly identified as homicides in internal reports as "unknown" in official mortality data — a finding that bears directly on the 14 Calhoun deaths GPS's registry still carries as Unknown/Pending.

Violence Inside the Walls

The homicides in GPS's registry are not abstractions. Kenneth Piper, 37, was killed in an inmate-to-inmate assault on May 4, 2024, per incident report data cited by the AJC. Gonzalo Colmenero, 54, died July 17, 2024, following an inmate-to-inmate assault. Martel Dorsey, 32, was stabbed by other prisoners; the AJC's incident entry dates the stabbing to October 4, 2023, while GPS's registry records his death as November 24, 2023. The GDC told a television station that several witnesses saw Dorsey run out of a dorm as he was chased by other prisoners. Willie Andrew Willis Jr. suffered catastrophic injuries from a fall at Calhoun and later died, with medical records listing sepsis as the cause; his family alleges he was thrown from a balcony by other inmates and that nearly an hour passed before he was airlifted, while nurses gave a conflicting account that he had come for Tylenol and returned to his dorm before collapsing. Kenneth Piper was also reported found dead in May 2024 with his death under investigation.

Beyond the deaths, GPS has received recurring reports from inside Calhoun describing violence as routine. Multiple sources describe assaults in dorm and protective-custody housing, including stabbings, and describe a facility where fights at meal times have become ordinary. GPS records show 31 distinct sources reporting alleged inmate-on-inmate assaults at Calhoun across seven months of 2026, with severity ranging from moderate to critical, and five sources reporting alleged staff-on-inmate assaults across three months of 2026. GPS has received accounts of use-of-force incidents at the facility, and of a housing unit where a man was attacked repeatedly. These are accounts GPS has received; they are not adjudicated findings.

The facility's own population data and the DOJ findings give those accounts a structural context. A prison designated medium-security, holding a population more than 40 percent close-custody, with a physician budgeted at 16 hours a week, is a prison where the ratio of people to supervision has broken down.

Food, Group Punishment, and the Commissary Economy

A recurring theme in what GPS has received from Calhoun is the meal system. Multiple accounts describe trays brought into dorms on large carts, with distribution left to the dorm population itself — a practice several sources trace to the COVID-19 lockdowns, when staff became accustomed to pushing food into dorms and relying on incarcerated people to police one another. The consequence described is unequal distribution: some people get extra trays, others none, and arguments over food escalate into fights. GPS has received accounts of a civilian beaten in a dayroom after commenting on a lack of trays, and of at least three additional fights involving bloodied participants on the same day.

Layered on top is what multiple sources describe as group punishment — the withholding of commissary or meals from an entire housing unit as discipline for the acts of a few. GPS has received accounts that a housing unit lost commissary access for weeks, and that the loss of commissary impedes access to stationery and therefore to courts. Several accounts describe an artificial food scarcity that feeds a resale market in commissary goods moving thousands of dollars a week, and a financial incentive to violence. GPS records show five distinct sources reporting food-quality complaints at Calhoun across three months of 2026, and five reporting grievance obstruction across three months.

The state's own food-safety inspections tell a different story. The Georgia Department of Public Health inspected Calhoun's food service repeatedly between 2023 and 2026, and the scores were consistently high: 100 on July 19, 2023; 100 and 97 on the same day in July 2023; 96 and 98 in January 2024; 100 and 99 in July 2024; 100 and 98 in January 2025; 100 and 99 in July 2025; 96, 96, and 98 in January 2026; and 100 and 96 in July 2026, all Grade A. The violations cited were minor — handwashing facilities, thermometers, physical facilities maintained and clean, insects and rodents not present. GPS has documented a systemic pattern in which DPH scores fail to capture what incarcerated people describe inside GDC kitchens, because inspections are scheduled walkthroughs that do not assess equipment under load. The contradiction between a 100 and the accounts from inside is the analytical center of that finding, not a refutation of either.

The Quiet Purge: Transfers of Life-Sentenced Men

In early 2026, GPS staff observed a pattern of transfers out of Calhoun involving people serving life sentences. GPS's transfer data show a significant volume of outgoing transfers, with life-sentenced people representing a substantial share, and a notable acceleration — a high volume of such transfers within a single month. GPS staff observed that Calhoun accounted for a disproportionately high share of statewide medium-to-close security lifer transfers, and that a large majority of the lifers transferred from Calhoun are Black, with a significant portion aged 60 or older and a large majority convicted of murder. GPS data indicate that most of those transferred from Calhoun with medium security classifications were sent to close-security facilities.

The incoming side is the mirror image. GPS's analysis indicates that a large majority of incoming transfers to Calhoun are short-term sentences, with release dates within a short-term horizon, and that a substantial volume arrived from Level 5 close-security facilities — predominantly people being reclassified to lower security. GPS staff analysis describes a deliberate shift in population composition: away from a medium-security facility with a significant long-term population, toward a short-term throughput model. GPS staff have flagged for verification a pattern in which incoming close-security disciplinary transfers may be replacing outgoing stable long-term residents.

Incarcerated people and their families describe the same thing from the inside. GPS has received accounts that administration has been transferring people serving life sentences to close-security facilities, that transfers have been occurring on a recurring schedule, and that administration has expressed a goal of removing people serving life or long-term sentences. GPS has received accounts that some transferred men had clean disciplinary records and were participating in programming. A family member attributed the transfers to violence and to the Department of Corrections stopping outside details; another described a property-owner contract dispute. GPS's reporting has described accounts of a large group of life-sentenced men moved out over a short period, though those accounts have not been independently confirmed.

The warden of Calhoun State Prison is Charles Leonard Hudson, who has held the post since June 1, 2026. The deputy wardens are Sawanda Owens (Administration, since August 2026), Tracey Scott (Care and Treatment, since 2020), Curtis Tyrone Johnson (Security, since May 2025), and Gwendolyn A. Spencer (Security, since November 2023).

Contraband, Contraband Cellphones, and the Scam Economy

Calhoun has been a repeated node in contraband cases. In 2019, officer Temperess Johnson was caught attempting to smuggle eight cellphones and 2.6 pounds of methamphetamine in a GDC van; she was sentenced to five years in federal prison. In February 2020, correctional officers Corlethia Lattimore and Imani Ferguson were arrested after arriving for their shifts with Hot Pockets packages allegedly containing methamphetamine and tobacco; both were immediately fired. Lattimore's package allegedly held 112 grams of methamphetamine — four times the amount for a trafficking charge. The charges were dismissed in July 2023 because there was no crime lab report or law enforcement report to support them, and the four-year statute of limitations had run out. GDC investigator Ruby Long took out the arrest warrants but, per the AJC, failed to submit the drug evidence to the crime lab.

That failure was not isolated. The AJC reported that nearly two dozen drug smuggling cases leading to 33 arrests between 2018 and 2021 related to Calhoun State Prison were dismissed by District Attorney Joe Mulholland because drug evidence was never submitted to the GBI crime lab for testing — five prison employees and dozens of other suspected smugglers walked free. The Calhoun County Sheriff's Department likewise failed to submit drug evidence in 12 dismissed cases, despite the sheriff's claim that deputies had sent evidence to the state lab. The GDC's public statement about the number of dismissed cases conflicted with what the AJC found in court files. On June 2, 2025, a grand jury heard 35 cases related to Calhoun State Prison; more than 300 remained pending afterward, according to the Superior Court clerk.

Contraband cellphones at Calhoun have also powered offenses that reached far outside the walls. A federal jury in January 2026 found Joey Amour Jackson and Lance Riddle guilty of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering after a five-day trial; they were sentenced to 120 and 200 months respectively, consecutive to their state sentences. Per FOX 5 Atlanta, inmates used Voice Over Internet Protocol to spoof police department numbers and pose as officers, telling victims they had arrest warrants for missing jury duty and demanding bond payments; some victims were instructed to undress in a Target restroom and film a self-conducted cavity search, then received lewd messages and violent threats. A Florida sheriff, Volusia County's Mike Chitwood, told the AJC that a "huge scam" operation was being run out of Calhoun State Prison and Wheeler Correctional Institution; Annie Ashley of Atlanta was charged with grand theft in connection with the network, one of roughly two dozen people arrested by Volusia County in a year.

Other cases from Calhoun's cellphones: Pedro Barragan Valencia brokered the distribution of at least 250 kilograms of methamphetamine while serving a state sentence and was sentenced to 400 months in federal prison in December 2023. Jonathan Alvin Pope led a drug ring operating in at least seven Georgia counties as far back as 2018, with 13 others indicted, seven of them incarcerated; he was sentenced to 20 years. Edwin Murillo brokered major methamphetamine sales in several northeast Georgia counties and was sentenced to 300 months in April 2019; he was later sentenced to life for directing a 2021 torture and murder. Irvin Falcon, 23, used a contraband cellphone to direct methamphetamine deliveries in the Fitzgerald area; six others were convicted.

GDC has since deployed a Managed Access System to block contraband cell signals across 34 state prisons at a reported $50 million capital cost, with Calhoun among the facilities where the technology was installed. The system arrived after much of the conduct above had already occurred.

Perimeter, Payroll, and the Sheriff's Patrol

Calhoun's security perimeter has been partly outsourced. In the first three months of 2025, the GDC made payments totaling nearly $127,000 to Calhoun County Sheriff Josh Hilton and eight of his deputies for off-duty perimeter patrol of the prison at $45 per hour, the AJC reported. The arrangement is a window into staffing: a state prison paying its county sheriff's office to watch the fence.

GPS records show six distinct sources reporting staffing shortages at Calhoun across four months of 2026, and 17 sources reporting alleged staff misconduct (unnamed) across five months of 2026, alongside 13 sources reporting alleged named staff misconduct across six months. GPS has received accounts of staff denying meals as punishment, of threats of group punishment used to pressure incarcerated people into policing one another, and of a warden denying that group punishment occurs at the institutional level. These are accounts GPS has received; they have not been adjudicated.

Sources

This analysis draws on the Georgia Department of Corrections' own statistical reports, mortality reports, audit calendars, and contract documents; Calhoun County coroner records obtained by GPS through open-records requests; the verified First Amended Complaint and docket in Jacobs v. GDC, 4:25-cv-00111 (M.D. Ga.); the Georgia DOAS Risk Management settlement ledger; Georgia Department of Public Health food-service inspection records; reporting by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, FOX 5 Atlanta, and WALB; the U.S. Department of Justice's October 2024 findings on Georgia prisons; GPS's mortality registry and transfer data; GPS's own investigative reporting; and accounts from incarcerated people and their families collected by GPS staff.