Last updated November 8, 2026.(DS)

Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison: Intake, Death Row, and a Mortality Record That Does Not Add Up

Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison (GDCP) sits on Highway 36W in Jackson, in Butts County, and it is the door most men in Georgia's prison system walk through. Opened in 1968 and renovated in 1998, GDCP is the state's largest prison and its central intake facility for men: it processes every male offender entering the system, houses Georgia's male death-row unit, operates a 192-bed Special Management Unit for the most restrictive custody, and conducts state-ordered executions. Its housing runs to eight cellblocks of single- and double-bunked cells, seven general-population dormitories, a 17-bed Segregated Transition Education Program (STEP) unit, and a medical unit. It also maintains a CERT Team, a Tactical Squad, and an on-site fire station.

The facility's rated capacity is 2,487 and its current population is 2,428 — 97.6 percent of capacity — against an original design capacity of 500. Jacob Beasley has served as warden since July 2025, working with a deputy corps that includes Patricia Watts (Care and Treatment), Reginald Tyrone Clark, Nicholas Brown, and Jacinta Booker Johnson (Security), Tandra Tiease Rogers (Administration), and Terrion Thurman (Diagnostics).

What follows is an analysis of the record GPS has assembled on GDCP: a mortality file of 127 deaths since January 2020 in which the largest single cause category is "Unknown/Pending"; a medical operation that is simultaneously the system's hub and the subject of repeated allegations of delayed and absent care; a staffing picture that on-record testimony describes as hollowed out; and a violence record that includes homicides, suicides in mental-health housing, and a federal civil rights lawsuit over a kitchen work assignment that cost a man his hands.

A Mortality Record Where the Largest Category Is "We Don't Know"

GPS has recorded 127 deaths at GDCP since January 1, 2020 — a floor, not a ceiling, since GDC reports deaths roughly two months late. The breakdown is the analytical center of this page: 52 deaths coded Natural/Medical, 42 coded Unknown/Pending, 18 Suicide, 7 Homicide, 4 Overdose, 2 Accident, 1 Execution, and 1 Medical Neglect.

That 42-death Unknown/Pending block is not a rounding artifact. It is a third of the facility's recorded mortality, and it recurs in the individual records. GDC's records list the cause category for Tabaya Marshall Gray, Christopher Wayne Crook, Albert Stinson, Henry Fred Smith, and Robert Brian Cox as Unknown/Pending, with GDC as the cause source. For Crook, no manner of death is certified in the GBI Division of Forensic Sciences production at all. For Alvin Nelson, the GBI production certifies neither cause nor manner, and no autopsy or external examination was performed by the medical examiner's office. The same is true for William J Pierce — no certified cause or manner in the GBI production, no autopsy or external examination — even though GDC coded his death "Natural" in the UCLA Law Behind Bars Data Project custodial mortality dataset (GA-Individual.csv, GDC #363689). Pierce died May 18, 2020, at age 88.

GPS's own analysis of these records has repeatedly found that a GDC cause coding is an administrative classification, not an autopsy finding. In multiple GDCP cases, no pathologist examined the body to support the determination. That distinction matters most where the stakes are highest: a "suicide" or "natural" label entered by the Department is not the same evidentiary object as a medical examiner's certified manner of death.

The most recent deaths in GPS's registry, in reverse order, are:

• Wendell Thomas Cochran died September 22, 2026, at GDCP; GPS's registry lists the cause as Natural/Medical. He was 68.
• Dru Eggebrecht died September 5, 2026, at GDCP; the cause is Unknown/Pending. He was 39.
• Thomas Harold Broach died August 22, 2026, at GDCP; the cause is Unknown/Pending. He was 81.
• Michael Wayne Forker died August 8, 2026, at GDCP; the cause is Unknown/Pending. He was 74.
• Tommy L Tucker died August 6, 2026, at GDCP; the cause is Unknown/Pending. He was 77.
• Walter Brown died August 3, 2026, at GDCP; the cause is Unknown/Pending. He was 66.
• Shaun Corey Farrell died July 13, 2026, at GDCP; the cause is Unknown/Pending. He was 48.
• James Nelson Hall died July 2, 2026, at GDCP; the cause is Unknown/Pending. He was 67.
• Leonel Cedillo died June 27, 2026, at GDCP; the cause is Unknown/Pending. He was 42.
• Mark Rutledge died June 26, 2026, at GDCP; the cause is Homicide. He was 72.
• Phillip Dwayne Rogers died June 14, 2026, at GDCP; the cause is Unknown/Pending. He was 66.
• Terry Junie Marshall died March 2, 2026, at GDCP; the cause is Natural/Medical. He was 59.
• James Thompson died February 6, 2026, at GDCP; the cause is Unknown/Pending. He was 76.
• Christopher Lee died January 31, 2026, at GDCP; the cause is Natural/Medical. He was 19.
• Novice H Langston died January 12, 2026, at GDCP; the cause is Natural/Medical. He was 60.
• Trevone Lavelle Lovett died January 10, 2026, at GDCP; the cause is Natural/Medical. He was 33.
• Juan Jose Rodriquez died December 10, 2025, at GDCP; the cause is Overdose. He was 53.
• Tabaya Marshall Gray died November 27, 2025, at GDCP; the cause is Unknown/Pending. He was 52.
• Charles Ramen Coppeak died November 19, 2025, at GDCP; the cause is Overdose. He was 26.
• Christopher Wayne Crook died August 5, 2025, at GDCP; the cause is Unknown/Pending. He was 49.
• Daniel Claude Callahan died July 26, 2025, at GDCP; the cause is Natural/Medical. He was 72.
• Woodrow Wilson Hodges died July 14, 2025, at GDCP; the cause is Natural/Medical. He was 68.
• Jacob Scott Wilcox died June 28, 2025, at GDCP; the cause is Natural/Medical. He was 27.
• Mark Smith died June 7, 2025, at GDCP; the cause is Natural/Medical. He was 53.
• David Octavious Robbs died April 30, 2025, at GDCP; the cause is Unknown/Pending. He was 37.

The full registry list is maintained at gps.press/georgia-prison-deaths/facility/georgia-diagnostic-and-classification-prison. Across the system, GPS has independently tracked 1,928 deaths in GDC custody since 2020.

The Medical Hub That Families Describe as a Place Care Does Not Arrive

GDCP is designated a medical hub, and its medical unit is where the sickest men in the system are sent. The record of what happens inside it is the most consequential thread on this page.

Wendell Thomas Cochran arrived at GDCP on July 28, 2026, and was housed in the infirmary — Medical Unit 16, a single cell — for his entire stay. He was on hospice care with a signed DNR. He was last known alive at 05:00 on September 22, 2026, and was found by a nurse at 05:39; the coroner pronounced him dead at 07:22 in the GDCP infirmary. The GBI Medical Examiner, Dr. DiMarco, was consulted that day but did not accept the body, so no autopsy was performed. GDC's September 2026 mortality report gave no cause of death. A close friend told GPS on October 26 that the cause was stage 4 lung cancer; GPS set the cause on that basis, and the Butts County Coroner's report — case 26C-012, marked DRAFT, provided to GPS by Coroner Lacey Prue in reply to an October 23 records request — subsequently listed the manner as "Natural" and the immediate cause as "Stage 4 lung cancer."

Billy Joe Farmer's case is documented in GDC's own incident records and the autopsy file. Farmer (GDC #1026472) told Lt. Allyson Jackson at 18:02 on March 25, 2023 that other offenders were going to kill him and he couldn't let them get him like that. Jackson took his ID card and told him she would escort him to speak with the mental health nurse upon her return. When she returned to D House to escort him to medical, she observed a sheet around his neck, immediately radioed Control for medical assistance, and she and Nurse Tammy Cooper cut him free and began life-saving measures. He arrived at medical at 18:12. The autopsy certified the cause of death as "Hanging," with rib fractures consistent with CPR and toxicology negative for drugs and ethanol. Farmer had been at GDCP since March 21, 2023 — four days.

The pattern extends across years. Reginald Brice was transferred from GDCP to Atlanta Medical Center on April 15, 2022, with abdominal pain and altered mental status; the GBI autopsy lists the manner of death as homicide and the cause as peritonitis and pneumonia due to delayed complications of traumatic brain injury. Benjamin Bowles was taken from GDCP's medical unit to Spalding Regional on September 23, 2021, with stomach pain and three days unable to urinate. Robert McCall was moved to the prison medical unit on January 7, 2022, for evaluation of abdominal pain, was scheduled to be evaluated for colon cancer, and died in bed the morning of January 8 before a medical evaluation could be completed; the autopsy found a large hemorrhagic, necrotic tumor of the ascending colon with the proximal colon dilated and filled with hard stool, and numerous metastatic tumors in the liver. Daniel Callahan went to the medical unit on July 26, 2025, feeling unwell with a blood sugar of 342, was given Lantus on a sliding scale and Tylenol for a low-level fever, and was released back to his dorm at 06:40; hospital staff later said he had not taken his medications for three days.

GPS staff have characterized rapid returns from medical without adequate treatment as a recurring pattern documented across multiple cases at GDCP. GPS records show 16 distinct sources alleging medical neglect at this facility over the past twelve months, spanning nine months and carrying critical, high, and moderate severity ratings, with the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia appearing among the external entities involved.

Allen v. Georgia Department of Corrections: Two Thin Gloves and a Kitchen Freezer

The most fully documented medical-neglect case in the GDCP record is a federal lawsuit. Ronald Allen, a former GDCP inmate, filed a civil rights action in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia naming the Georgia Department of Corrections. The suit alleges that in early April 2024, during a disturbance at the prison, Allen was ordered into the freezer to separate hundreds of frozen beef patties by hand so they could be cooked immediately — without gloves or proper protective equipment. It alleges he suffered cold-induced vascular injuries to both hands, developed infections, and underwent amputations including his dominant hand, and it raises Eighth Amendment deliberate indifference to serious medical needs alongside negligence and medical malpractice claims. Dr. Michael M. Neeki is listed as an expert witness; per the suit's framing, he opines that GDC and the defendants disregarded escalating complaints, delayed evaluations, and deviated from the standard of care through inadequate treatment.

The case is not an isolated allegation in GPS's files. GPS records show 10 sources across four months in the past year logging lawsuit filings at GDCP, with severity ratings of critical and high, and the Middle District of Georgia named as the external forum.

Suicide, Mental-Health Housing, and the Question of Monitoring

Eighteen deaths in GPS's GDCP registry are coded Suicide. The individual files show a facility in which people who voiced suicidal ideation were placed in single cells and then died in them.

Desmond Layne Hattaway was placed in a single cell because he voiced suicidal ideation, on a date the report does not specify. He had been at GDCP since April 13, 2023, and was last known alive on April 16 at about 14:00 when lunch was served. The ligature was a pair of inmate pants tied around the metal bar of the bunk bed with the knot behind his neck; when found, his neck was extended, knees bent, and feet touching the ground. EMS arrived at 18:55 and did not perform resuscitation; he was pronounced dead at 19:30 at the scene by the coroner. The certified manner of death was "Suicide." The examination found a ligature furrow about 9½ inches long and no evidence of anatomic natural disease; toxicology on femoral blood was positive for methamphetamine at a level lower than the lowest calibrator of 20 ug/L.

Joshua Mark Holliday was found unresponsive at 19:30 on October 21, 2024, on his knees, fully clad, with a ligature made from a pair of pants secured to the metal posts of the cell door around his neck. The warden had seen him walking in the prison at 18:30. Per the investigator narrative, EMS did not perform resuscitative measures on arrival.

James Douglas Arrendale was brought back to GDCP on June 20, 2024, on a probation violation after admitting alcohol use, and was placed in a bare detox cell in the infirmary clad only in boxer shorts. He removed the elastic waistband from his boxers, affixed it to the door, and attempted to hang himself by sitting and leaning forward. Staff found him unresponsive and 911 was called at 21:27 on June 21.

John Irvin Tidd was housed in the mental health area in a two-man cell, with a medical history of depression and mixed anxiety and adjustment disorder. Camera footage showed Tidd tying a bedsheet to the cell bar, wrapping it around his neck, and sitting on the floor.

The pattern is not confined to the mental-health unit. In one case documented in the coroner's narrative, EMS found Kitchens cold with rigor mortis in his legs, arms, hands and neck. In another, Royes was last seen on security camera at 23:30 on January 14 going under the blanket on his bunk and was found by another inmate at about 08:20 on January 16 during a dorm inspection — about 33 hours later, in Dorm 1, which held 30 to 40 men. Per the ROME narrative, hourly checks are supposed to occur at the prison, and it is unknown how Royes's absence went unnoticed. No resuscitation was attempted and EMS was not called.

GPS records show four distinct sources alleging unattended mental-health crises at GDCP in the past year, with critical and high severity ratings.

Homicide, Assault, and a Facility Where the Gates Do Not Hold

Seven deaths in the registry are coded Homicide. The most recent is Mark Rutledge, 72, who died June 26, 2026. The coroner's record states the injury occurred June 21 when another inmate punched Rutledge in the face; he fell backwards and struck his head on concrete. Foul play is suspected. He was pronounced dead at 15:21 at Grady after life support was removed, with the Medical Examiner's Office determining cause and manner under GBI case ID 26-12011/2026-1021650, examiner Mattox, procedure Autopsy. GDC's Office of Professional Standards led the investigation into the death, and the body was sent to a GBI crime lab.

Daniel Charriez died February 23, 2022. The assault that preceded his death occurred October 23, 2021, at GDCP and was captured on video; a GBI agent told the coroner it was carried out by another prisoner. The GBI autopsy lists the manner as homicide and the cause as peritonitis and pneumonia due to delayed complications of traumatic brain injury.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's running list of Georgia prison homicides documents several more GDCP deaths. Brandon Trace Burrell, 31, died January 28, 2024, from methamphetamine intoxication complicated by a physical altercation; the AJC reports he was assaulted by another inmate while under the effects of methamphetamine and reportedly suffered numerous stab wounds. Carrell Beontae Johnson, 32, died June 6, 2023, from chopping injuries to the head and sharp force injuries to the torso. Elmer W. Pless, 65, died May 15, 2023, by strangulation. Boyd Henry Williams, 64, died October 3, 2022, from manual strangulation and blunt force trauma to the head.

The AJC has also documented the security failures that surround this violence. In January 2025 it reported that Charles Lee Broady Jr., despite requesting protection from threatening gang members, was moved to a location where six gang members attacked him with razor blades, nearly killing him. In June 2024 the same outlet reported that Shane Tassi, within days of being convicted of malice murder and sentenced to life without parole plus 80 years, was photographed on social media displaying a homemade shank and making a gang gesture at GDCP; Tassi and two other inmates received disciplinary sanctions. In March 2025 the AJC reported that almost every part of the prison had been vandalized by prisoners, with widespread infrastructure failures.

GPS records show five distinct sources alleging inmate-on-inmate assault at GDCP over the past year, with critical, high, and moderate severity ratings, and three sources alleging excessive force. A family member wrote publicly in the Ga. Prisons Exposed Facebook group on October 25, 2026, that his stepson had been at the facility since May and "got stabbed last Tuesday five times," asking whether staff are supposed to notify loved ones. That is the family member's account, not a GPS finding.

Staffing, Contraband, and the Machinery of a Diagnostic Center

The 2023-03-25 GDCP staff roster lists 192 staff members by name and job title. Of those, 84 are uniformed custody — 23 CSM Correctional Officer 1 positions and 61 CSM Correctional Officer 2 positions — alongside 14 sergeants, 12 lieutenants, 7 unit managers, 4 captains, and 7 deputy wardens. The roster lists 4 Behavioral Health Counselor 3 positions. Antoine Galen Caldwell held the position of Warden 3 on that roster; Allyson Jackson held the position of CSM Correctional Lieutenant.

The roster is also a documentary instrument. It does not list Nurse Tammy Cooper as GDC staff, and it lists only one Childs — Angela Childs, HR Tech 3 — not Albert Childs. Those absences are facts about what the roster contains, not conclusions about why.

On-record testimony describes a facility hollowed out by vacancies. Tony Jordan, who says he was incarcerated at GDCP, wrote on Facebook on September 13, 2026: "I was at GDCP in Jackson & they are poorly staffed. It took over 45 mins for an inmate that suffered a heart attack in J4 back in March to receive any help from staff due to no CO's being in the booth. We were beating on the pod doors & windows, holding signs asking for help in front of the cameras & to this day I don't know if he survived or not. We never got an update on him." That is Jordan's account as posted publicly. GPS's systemic finding is that officer vacancies across Georgia's prisons have run between 49.3 percent and 60 percent systemwide for multiple years against a national standard of no more than 10 percent, and that the October 2024 DOJ findings letter concluded GDC leadership had "lost control of its facilities." GPS records show five distinct sources reporting staffing shortages at GDCP over the past year, with critical, high, and moderate severity ratings and the U.S. Department of Justice named among external entities.

Contraband is a documented feature of the plant. GDC purchase orders 607012 and 588950 carry line items for a "GDCP Drone Detection Project" at 2978 Highway 36W, Jackson. In September 2026, GDC announced that Deivon Waller was sentenced to 240 months in federal prison plus a $2,000 fine and three years of supervised release after pleading guilty to conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute methamphetamine and marijuana; per WGXA, Waller conspired to smuggle methamphetamine, marijuana and cell phones into multiple Georgia state prisons using drones. In a separate case, the AJC reported that at the time of Zavala's guilty plea, officers had seized 35 cellphones from him.

Staff misconduct has surfaced repeatedly. The AJC reported that in 2018 GDCP officer Vera Jackson admitted she was paid several thousand dollars to provide death row inmate Eric Perkinson with information on upcoming shakedowns and staff; she pleaded guilty to violating her oath and received five years' probation. Chief Counselor Bethune reported former Counselor Gibbs's initial arrest to the Butts County Sheriff's Office; Gibbs was subsequently charged with violation of oath of office, conspiracy, and crossing the guard line, and was arrested April 17, 2025, for failure to appear on an assault charge. GPS records show 20 distinct sources alleging named staff misconduct at GDCP over the past year — the largest single signal category in the facility's twelve-month rollup — spanning eight months and carrying critical, high, and moderate severity ratings.

Death Row, Executions, and the Machinery at the End of the Line

GDCP houses Georgia's male death-row unit and carries out the state's executions. In the past year that has meant the Humphreys litigation. Stacey Ian Humphreys, 52, was scheduled to be executed by lethal injection at 7:00 p.m. on September 16, 2026, at GDCP; the AJC reported he would be the 55th person put to death by lethal injection in Georgia since 1976. Georgia's Board of Pardons and Paroles denied clemency one day before the scheduled execution. A prior December 2025 execution date had been halted after Humphreys' lawyers argued two Board members had conflicts of interest; a Fulton County judge ruled that Board member Kimberly McCoy had a conflict and must recuse herself but found no conflict for the other, and the Georgia Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal. U.S. District Court Judge Leigh Martin May declined to halt the September execution, ruling that Humphreys had failed to show his due-process and equal-protection rights would be violated.

The death-row unit has its own mortality record. Tharpe, 61, was an inmate on death row at GDCP found in his cell with altered mental status. Dubose was housed alone on death row at the time of death and was found at 16:40 after a blanket hung over the cell front went unanswered; per the coroner's narrative, EMS was delayed at the back door before reaching him, found rigor mortis in small and major joints on arrival at approximately 17:06, and resuscitation efforts ceased at 18:36.

Climate, Food, and the Conditions of Confinement

The physical plant at GDCP has generated a distinct line of complaint. GPS records show six distinct sources alleging inadequate climate conditions at the facility over the past year, with critical, high, and moderate severity ratings. GPS staff have observed that heat conditions at GDCP have been a long-running advocacy issue, and that reports of inadequate heating and cooling in housing units have prompted follow-up inquiry into affected areas, contractors, and documentation.

The food record is similarly contested. The Georgia Department of Public Health inspected the GDCP kitchen twice in the recent record — March 26, 2025, and May 27, 2026 — and both inspections, conducted by Robert Waggoner, scored 100. GPS has documented a systemic pattern across GDC kitchens in which DPH inspection scores systematically fail to capture sanitation failure, because inspections are scheduled walkthroughs that do not assess equipment under load. GPS records show three distinct sources alleging sanitation failure at GDCP in the past year and three alleging food-quality problems.

What the Record Shows

Three findings organize the GDCP file. First, the mortality record is incomplete on its face: 42 of 127 deaths since 2020 carry an Unknown/Pending cause, and in case after case the GBI production certifies neither cause nor manner while GDC's own coding supplies a label no pathologist examined the body to support. Second, the facility's dual role — medical hub and intake point — concentrates risk: people arrive sick, are processed through a diagnostic center, and die in its infirmary or its mental-health cells within days or weeks of arrival. Third, the accountability record runs through the courts and the coroner's office rather than through the Department: a federal civil rights suit over a freezer and two pairs of disposable gloves, a homicide investigation referred to a GBI crime lab, and a coroner in Butts County producing draft death investigation reports in reply to open-records requests.

Sources

This analysis draws on GDC official records including incident reports, mortality reports, staffing rosters, purchase orders, and MHM Amendment 13 and Centurion Amendment 1 staffing and cost exhibits; Butts County Coroner death investigation reports and GBI Division of Forensic Sciences autopsy and declination records obtained through open-records requests; federal court filings in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia, including Allen v. Georgia Department of Corrections; reporting by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Georgia Virtue, WGXA, and WRDW; Georgia Department of Public Health inspection records; public Facebook posts by Nathan Troy Towe Sr and Tony Jordan; firsthand narratives published in Georgia Prisoners' Speak — Tell My Story; and inmate, family, and staff accounts collected by GPS. Mortality figures are drawn from GPS's own registry, which is a floor rather than a complete count because GDC reports deaths roughly two months late.