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CALHOUN STATE PRISON

State Prison Medium Security GDC (Georgia Dept. of Corrections) Male
19 Source Articles 28 Events

Facility Information

Original Design Capacity
750 (at 222% capacity)
Bed Capacity
1,677 beds
Current Population
1,663
Active Lifers
567 (34.1% of population) · May 2026 GDC report
Life Without Parole
1 (0.1%)
Why design capacity matters: Adding beds to a prison does not increase medical facilities, educational programs, kitchen capacity, counseling services, or recreation areas. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Plata that severe overcrowding beyond design capacity violates the 8th Amendment prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.
Read: Brown v. Plata - A Legal Roadmap for Georgia's Prison Crisis →
Address
27823 Main Street, Morgan, GA 39866
Mailing Address
P.O. Box 249, Morgan, GA 39866
County
Calhoun County
Opened
1994
Operator
GDC (Georgia Dept. of Corrections)
Warden
Kendric Jackson
Phone
(229) 849-5000
Fax
(229) 849-5017
Staff

About

Calhoun State Prison, a medium-security facility in Morgan, Georgia, has become one of the most documented sites of institutional failure in the GDC system — marked by staff-enabled contraband networks, a federally documented dehydration death, a suspected balcony homicide, and an ongoing, unexplained purge of life-sentenced prisoners to close-security facilities. GPS has independently tracked deaths across the GDC system and documented conditions at Calhoun that federal investigators have described as constitutionally deficient. A systematic pattern of administrative cover-up — including dismissed drug prosecutions, suppressed grievances, and deliberate misclassification of security populations — suggests that dysfunction at Calhoun is institutional, not incidental.

Leadership & Accountability (as of 2025 records)

Officials currently holding positional authority at this facility, with deaths attributed to GPS-tracked records during their leadership tenure. Inclusion reflects role-based accountability, not legal findings of personal culpability. Death counts shown as facility / career.

RoleNameSinceDeaths
this facility / career
WARDEN 1 (facility lead) Jackson, Kendric2025-01-017 / 18
Deputy Warden of Security (facility deputy) Johnson, Curtis Tyrone2025-05-167 / 7
DEPUTY WARDEN (facility deputy) Scott, Tracey2025-01-0128 / 28
DEPUTY WARDEN (facility deputy) Spencer, Gwendolyn A2025-01-0114 / 14

Key Facts

  • 87 lifers Life-sentenced prisoners transferred out of Calhoun by Warden Jackson between February–April 2026, 79.3% sent to close-security (Level 5) facilities — 67% of all such transfers statewide
  • 29.4% Share of Calhoun's population classified as close-security while housed in a medium-security facility (487 of 1,657 inmates, as of October 2025)
  • 23 dismissed cases Drug smuggling cases near Calhoun State Prison dismissed (2018–2021) because GDC and the Calhoun County Sheriff failed to submit evidence for lab testing — allowing 5 prison employees to avoid prosecution
  • $464,920 Stolen from 119 victims across six states in a wire fraud and extortion operation run by two Calhoun inmates via contraband cell phones, resulting in federal convictions in January 2026
  • ~1 hour Delay before Willie Andrew Willis Jr. was airlifted after allegedly being thrown from a balcony at Calhoun — family alleges critical time was lost; he later died; medical records list sepsis

By the Numbers

  • 52,801 Total GDC Population
  • 1,797 Total Deaths Tracked by GPS
  • 1,243 Poorly Controlled Health Conditions
  • 13,057 Close Security (24.38%)
  • 40.99 Average Inmate Age
  • 24 Lawsuits Tracked

Mortality Statistics

30 deaths documented at this facility from 2020 to present.

Deaths by Year

  • 2026: 2
  • 2025: 7
  • 2024: 7
  • 2023: 5
  • 2022: 5
  • 2021: 1
  • 2020: 3

View all deaths at this facility →

County Public Health Department

Food service and sanitation at CALHOUN STATE PRISON fall under the jurisdiction of the Calhoun County Environmental Health Department. Incarcerated people cannot choose where they eat — public health inspectors carry an elevated responsibility to hold this kitchen to the same standards applied to any restaurant.

Contact

Title
Environmental Health Director
Address
P.O. Box 56
Morgan, GA 31766
Phone
(229) 849-2515
Email
calhoun.eh@dph.ga.gov
Website
Visit department website →

Why this matters

GPS has documented black mold on chow-hall ceilings, cold and contaminated trays, spoiled milk, and pest contamination at Georgia prisons. The Department of Justice's 2024 report confirmed deaths from dehydration and untreated diabetes tied to food and water deprivation. Advance-notice inspections let facilities stage temporary fixes that disappear once inspectors leave.

Unannounced inspections by the county health department are one of the few outside checks on kitchen conditions behind the fence.

How you can help

Write to the county inspector and request an unannounced inspection of the kitchen and food service operation at this facility. A short, respectful letter citing Georgia food-safety regulations is more powerful than you think — inspectors respond to public concern.

Email the Inspector

Food Safety Inspections

Georgia Department of Public Health

Latest score: 98 (Jan 7, 2026)
View DPH report ↗

What the score doesn't measure. DPH grades kitchen compliance on inspection day — food storage, temperatures, pest control. It does not grade whether today's trays are clean. GPS reporting has found broken dishwashers at most Georgia state prisons we've documented; trays go out wet, stacked, and visibly moldy — including at facilities with recent scores near 100.

Who inspects. Most Georgia state prisons sit in rural counties — often with fewer than 20,000 people, several with fewer than 10,000. The environmental health inspector lives in that community and often knows the kitchen staff personally. Rural inspection regimes don't have the structural independence you'd expect in a city-sized health department. Read the scores accordingly.

Read the investigation: “Dunked, Stacked and Served: Why Georgia Prison Trays Are Making People Sick”

Recent inspections

DateScorePurpose
Jan 7, 202698Routine
Jul 23, 202599Routine
Jan 8, 202598Routine
Jul 25, 202499Routine
Jan 10, 202498Routine
Jul 19, 202397Routine

Recent reports (30)

Source-attributed observations and allegations from news coverage and reports submitted to GPS. Each entry credits its source.

  • ALLEGATION According to Atlanta Journal-Constitution Published: Jan 21, 2025
    The DOJ report alleged that staff failed to follow procedures when moving Lackey's assailant between segregation and general population, leading to Lackey being housed with and killed by his cellmate.
    "The DOJ report said he was killed after staff moved the assailant out of segregation to general population and then back to segregation without following procedures. There, he was housed in a cell with another prisoner. That prisoner asked to be moved because the two weren't getting along. The next day, an orderly saw the victim being beaten by his cellmate with a fan motor in a net bag, the DOJ reported."
    Read source →
  • ALLEGATION According to Atlanta Journal-Constitution Published: Sep 5, 2024
    Murillo ordered the murder of a woman because the business relationship he had with her had collapsed and he no longer trusted her, resulting in her torture, murder and dismemberment.
    "In September 2023, the drug ringleader was sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to directing the 2021 torture, murder and dismemberment of a woman kidnapped from Plaza Fiesta Shopping Mall in DeKalb County. According to news reports, Murillo ordered the woman's murder because the "business relationship" he had with her had collapsed and he no longer trusted her."
    Read source →
  • ALLEGATION According to Atlanta Journal-Constitution Published: Jan 21, 2025
    Prison staff cut off a prisoner's food and water as retaliation, leading to his death from dehydration and renal failure.
    "At Calhoun State Prison in 2023, a prisoner died of dehydration with renal failure. According to the DOJ, prison staff had cut off his food and water after he had thrown water through the flap in his cell door."
    Read source →
  • ALLEGATION According to National Today Recorded by GPS: May 5, 2026
    Willis told his family he had been thrown from a balcony and left unable to move.
    "Willis told his family he had been thrown from a balcony and left unable to move, but the family says they still don't know how the incident happened or why it took nearly an hour before he was airlifted for treatment."
    Read source (archived) →
  • ALLEGATION According to National Today Recorded by GPS: May 5, 2026
    The family alleges critical time was lost due to an approximately one-hour delay before Willis was airlifted for treatment.
    "the family says they still don't know how the incident happened or why it took nearly an hour before he was airlifted for treatment. Medical records list sepsis as the cause of death, but the family believes critical time was lost and accountability is missing."
    Read source (archived) →

Calhoun State Prison

Calhoun State Prison, a medium-security facility in Morgan, Georgia, sits at the intersection of nearly every dysfunction documented across the Georgia Department of Corrections in recent years: federal findings of unconstitutional conditions, in-custody deaths from violence and medical neglect, contraband-driven criminal enterprises run from inside the walls, prosecutorial collapses tied to untested drug evidence, and — most recently — a sweeping and unexplained reshuffling of its long-term population. This page synthesizes federal investigative findings, court records, and reporting from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, WALB, and other outlets to map what is publicly known about the facility, alongside aggregated patterns documented by GPS staff and incarcerated correspondents.

A Federal Indictment of Conditions

Calhoun is one of the facilities cited in the U.S. Department of Justice's findings against the Georgia Department of Corrections. WALB reported the DOJ's conclusion that Georgia's prison system fails to provide incarcerated persons with the constitutionally required minimum of reasonable physical safety. According to that reporting, 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 responses to GDC prisons were delayed by an average of 30 minutes due to understaffing — a delay the investigators described as a matter of life and death.

National Today, summarizing the same federal report, described an "environment of fear and complacency" within GDC, with incarcerated people left unsupervised, found hours after dying, or left to tend their own severe injuries. The federal report covering 2018 to 2023 documented 142 deaths in GDC facilities and a homicide rate nearly triple the national average, with correctional officer vacancy rates exceeding 50% since mid-2021.

The DOJ also concluded, according to WALB, that Georgia deliberately underreports prison homicides — listing deaths internally identified as homicides as "unknown" in official mortality data. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution-cited figures bear this out: Georgia reported only 6 homicides in the first five months of 2024, while internal GDC incident reports for the same period documented at least 18 deaths as homicides. Investigative referral rates were equally damning: less than 10% of prison fights, less than 23% of inmate-on-inmate assaults, and less than 6% of incidents involving weapons were forwarded for investigation.

The Lackey Homicide and Classification Failures

A central case in the federal findings, as reported by WALB and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, is the May 16, 2022 killing of 21-year-old DaQuavious Cachone Lackey at Calhoun. The DOJ concluded that staff failed to follow procedures when moving Lackey's eventual assailant between segregation and general population, leading to Lackey being housed with the man who killed him. Lackey died from a stab wound to the neck and multiple blunt force injuries; the AJC's account specifies he was beaten with a fan motor placed inside a net bag. The DOJ explicitly tied the homicide to Calhoun staff's failure to follow classification and housing assignment procedures.

A grievance filed by an incarcerated person at Calhoun alleging extortion and gang violence was, according to WALB, rejected as untimely with no follow-up — one of the documentary signals federal investigators cited in describing the facility's accountability vacuum.

Death by Dehydration in Restrictive Housing

In February 2023, an incarcerated person was found dead in a restrictive-housing cell at Calhoun. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that prison staff cut off the 24-year-old man's food and water as retaliation after he threw water through his cell door flap; he died of dehydration with renal failure. WALB's account of the federal findings described the same death: staff shut off his water, closed the door flap, and did not deliver meals for two days. The coroner reportedly believed the man had been dead for seven to eight hours before he was found.

A Pattern of Inmate-on-Inmate Killings

Beyond the Lackey case, multiple homicides have been reported at Calhoun. According to news reporting drawing on incident report data, Martel Dorsey, 34, was stabbed by other prisoners on October 4, 2023, with several witnesses telling the GDC they saw him chased out of a dorm. Kenneth Piper, 37, was killed in an inmate-to-inmate assault on May 4, 2024, his death reported as still under investigation. Gonzalo Colmenero, 54, died on July 17, 2024 following another inmate-to-inmate assault.

WALB and National Today reported on the death of Willie Andrew Willis Jr., who suffered catastrophic injuries after his family alleges he was thrown from a balcony at Calhoun. Medical records list sepsis as the cause of death. The family alleges nearly an hour passed before Willis was airlifted for treatment, and that nursing staff later gave a conflicting account — claiming he had simply come for Tylenol and returned to his dorm before collapsing — when the family states he was paralyzed from the waist down and on a ventilator. Willis told his family he had been thrown from a balcony and left unable to move.

GPS has received accounts of a serious assault at Calhoun State Prison in 2026 involving injuries that required emergency medical transport to an outside facility.

Criminal Enterprises Run From Inside

Calhoun has been the operational base for several major federal drug and fraud prosecutions, all of which depended on contraband cell phones. News reporting documents that two inmates were convicted of running a nationwide wire fraud and extortion operation from Calhoun using contraband cell phones, with the scheme reaching 119 victims across six states.

The methamphetamine cases are unusually well-developed. Edwin Murillo, sentenced to 300 months in federal prison in April 2019 for brokering major meth sales in several northeast Georgia counties from Calhoun, was later sentenced to life in prison; the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that Murillo ordered the murder of a woman because, in the AJC's framing, his business relationship with her had collapsed and he no longer trusted her, resulting in her torture, murder, and dismemberment. Pedro Barragan Valencia was sentenced in December 2023 to 400 months for brokering the distribution of at least 250 kilograms of meth while in state custody. Jonathan Alvin Pope was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison as the leader of a drug ring operating in at least seven Georgia counties dating to 2018; thirteen others were indicted, seven of them also incarcerated. Irvin Falcon, a 23-year-old prisoner serving a burglary sentence, received 260 months for using a contraband cell phone to direct meth deliveries in the Fitzgerald area; six co-defendants were also convicted.

The GDC's response — installation of a Managed Access System (MAS) across 34 state prisons at a $50 million capital cost plus more than $15 million in annual operating expenses — arrived at Calhoun only in mid-2025, after the wire fraud scheme that victimized 119 people across six states had already run its course.

The Hot Pockets Cases and Evidentiary Collapse

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's reporting on drug smuggling prosecutions tied to Calhoun documents a systemic failure to test and submit evidence. In February 2020, correctional officers Corlethia Lattimore and Imani Ferguson were arrested after suspicious Hot Pockets packages they brought to work were found to allegedly contain, respectively, 112 grams of methamphetamine — four times the threshold for a trafficking charge — and tobacco. Both were immediately fired. In July 2023, charges against both were dismissed. The AJC reported there was no crime lab report or law enforcement report to support the charges because the drug evidence had never been submitted for testing; the four-year statute of limitations had run out. GDC investigator Ruby Long, who took out the arrest warrants, allegedly failed to submit the drug evidence to the crime lab.

The Hot Pockets cases were not isolated. The AJC found that nearly two dozen drug smuggling cases — leading to 33 arrests between 2018 and 2021 — were dismissed by District Attorney Joe Mulholland because drug evidence was never submitted to the GBI crime lab. Five prison employees and dozens of other suspected smugglers walked free as a result. The GDC failed to submit drug evidence in at least 11 of those cases, involving 15 defendants. The Calhoun County Sheriff's Department separately failed to submit evidence in 12 cases, despite, the AJC reported, the sheriff's claim that deputies had sent evidence to the state lab. In May 2021, three civilians were arrested simultaneously on meth trafficking charges; that case was dismissed in July 2022 with the GBI confirming testing was incomplete. The AJC found the GDC's public statement about the number of dismissed cases conflicted with what court files showed, suggesting the agency understated the scope of the failures.

A grand jury on June 2, 2025 heard 35 cases related to Calhoun State Prison, but more than 300 cases reportedly remained pending afterward. 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 Calhoun State Prison at $45 per hour — a financial relationship between the agency whose evidence collapsed and the local sheriff's office whose evidence also collapsed.

A separate 2019 case involved Calhoun officer Temperess Johnson, caught attempting to smuggle eight cellphones and 2.6 pounds of meth in a GDC van; she was sentenced to five years in federal prison.

The 2024–2026 Lifer Transfer Wave

Beginning in 2024 and accelerating sharply in early 2026, Calhoun became the origin point of one of the most concentrated population reshuffles documented at any single GDC facility. The GDC has stated that 87 lifers were systematically transferred out of Calhoun, predominantly to close-security (Level 5) facilities. News reporting refined the figure: 87 lifers transferred out, with 79.3% sent to Level 5 close-security facilities over a three-month period, and a concentrated wave of 36 lifer transfers in the final week of March 2026 alone. One transfer that drew specific reporting attention was that of John Morgan Coleman, age 82, moved from medium-security Calhoun to close-security Hancock State Prison.

GPS has received recurring accounts from incarcerated individuals, family members, and anonymous sources describing this same wave from inside — a pattern in which Calhoun administration appears to be removing long-term and life-sentenced incarcerated people, many with clean disciplinary records and active programming participation, and replacing them with shorter-term incoming transfers, including individuals reclassified upward to close custody following disciplinary issues at other facilities. GPS internal analysis indicates Calhoun has accounted for a disproportionately large share of statewide medium-to-close-security lifer transfers, that a large majority of the transferred lifers are Black, that a substantial portion are aged 60 or older, and that the transferred individuals are not classified as Life Without Parole — they retain parole eligibility under GDC's own designation. The pattern is consistent with a deliberate shift in population composition rather than ad hoc movement: rotating daily transfer schedules, multi-day cohorts, and destination facilities including Hancock, Hays, Telfair, and Ware State Prisons.

Leadership

In 2018, Smith was promoted to Warden at Calhoun State Prison, according to news reporting.

Sources

This analysis draws on reporting from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, WALB, and National Today; U.S. Department of Justice findings on the Georgia Department of Corrections; Georgia Department of Corrections public statements and transfer records; federal court records from drug, fraud, and homicide-related prosecutions tied to Calhoun State Prison; and aggregated accounts from incarcerated individuals, family members, and anonymous sources collected by GPS staff.

Timeline (68)

May 6, 2026
The DOJ report alleged that staff failed to follow procedures when moving Lackey's assailant between segregation and general population, leading to Lackey being housed with and killed by his cellmate. report
May 5, 2026
Murillo ordered the murder of a woman because the business relationship he had with her had collapsed and he no longer trusted her, resulting in her torture, murder and dismemberment. report
May 5, 2026
Prison staff cut off a prisoner's food and water as retaliation, leading to his death from dehydration and renal failure. report
May 5, 2026
Willis told his family he had been thrown from a balcony and left unable to move. report
May 5, 2026
The family alleges critical time was lost due to an approximately one-hour delay before Willis was airlifted for treatment. report
May 5, 2026
A federal report found that incarcerated individuals were left unsupervised, found hours after dying, or left to tend to their own severe injuries due to significant delays in emergency medical responses. report
May 5, 2026
A federal report describes an 'environment of fear and complacency' within the GDC system, with a disturbing pattern of violence, neglect, and lack of accountability. report
May 5, 2026
Willie Andrew Willis Jr. (Inmate) is the subject in news coverage report

Source Articles (19)

The Quiet Purge: Calhoun Edition
Monitor, Don't Block: Georgia's $50M Phone Fix Is Already Installed
Blood on Blood: Georgia Statewide Prison Lockdown
WALB
Family Demands Answers After Inmate Dies in Fall at Georgia Prison

Former leadership

Officials who previously held leadership roles at this facility.

RoleNameTenureDeaths
this facility / career
Warden (facility lead) Jackson, Kendric2024-12-16 → present7 / 18
CORRECTIONAL SUPERINTENDENT (facility lead) Peoples, Delvin Rasaunn2019-01-01 → 2019-12-3119 / 44
WARDEN 1 (facility lead) Smith, Tarmarshe A2019-01-01 → 2019-12-31— / 36
WARDEN 1 (facility lead) Ford, Benjamin2017-01-01 → 2017-12-31— / 35
WARDEN 1 (facility lead) Ford, Benjamin2016-01-01 → 2016-12-31— / 35
DEPUTY WARDEN (facility deputy) Johnson, Curtis Tyrone2025-01-01 → 2025-05-157 / 7
DEPUTY WARDEN (facility deputy) Spencer, Gwendolyn A2024-01-01 → 2024-12-3114 / 14
DEPUTY WARDEN (facility deputy) Scott, Tracey2024-01-01 → 2024-12-3128 / 28
DEPUTY WARDEN (facility deputy) Peoples, Delvin Rasaunn2024-01-01 → 2024-08-3119 / 44
DEPUTY WARDEN (facility deputy) Scott, Tracey2023-01-01 → 2023-12-3128 / 28
DEPUTY WARDEN (facility deputy) Peoples, Delvin Rasaunn2023-01-01 → 2023-12-3119 / 44
DEPUTY WARDEN (facility deputy) Peoples, Delvin Rasaunn2022-01-01 → 2022-12-3119 / 44
DEPUTY WARDEN (facility deputy) Scott, Tracey2022-01-01 → 2022-12-3128 / 28
DEPUTY WARDEN (facility deputy) Peoples, Delvin Rasaunn2021-01-01 → 2021-12-3119 / 44
DEPUTY WARDEN (facility deputy) Scott, Tracey2021-01-01 → 2021-12-3128 / 28
DEPUTY WARDEN (facility deputy) Peoples, Delvin Rasaunn2020-01-01 → 2020-12-3119 / 44
DEPUTY WARDEN (facility deputy) Scott, Tracey2020-01-01 → 2020-12-3128 / 28
DEPUTY WARDEN (facility deputy) Smith, Tarmarshe A2018-01-01 → 2018-12-31— / 36
Chief Counselor (specialty lead) Spann, James Clarence2009-01-01 → 2009-12-31— / 44

View full GDC Leadership Accountability page →

Location

27823 Main Street, Morgan, GA 39866 31.53980, -84.61677

Aerial View

Aerial view of CALHOUN STATE PRISON

Architecture documents what the building was designed to hold. See the system-wide receipts at gps.press/warehouse.

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