Last updated October 18, 2026.(DS)

Georgia State Prison: A Closed Institution and the Record It Left Behind

Georgia State Prison stood in unincorporated Tattnall County, outside Reidsville, and for decades was the state's principal maximum-security institution. The main building was designed by the Atlanta firm Tucker & Howell in a Stripped Classical style, completed in late 1936 at a cost of about $1.5 million with Public Works Administration funding, and the prison opened in 1938. It held Georgia's death row until 1980. Martin Luther King Jr. was moved here from the DeKalb County jail in October 1960 and released on bond that month; the civil-rights organiser H. Rap Brown, now Jamil Al-Amin, was also held here. The Department of Corrections closed the prison on 19 February 2022. The building was not demolished — the state cited its historical value and has since used it for tours and as an emergency evacuation site for people held at other facilities.

That closure is the hinge on which this page turns. What follows examines the record Georgia State Prison accumulated before it shut: the federal litigation that once governed it, the violence of its final two years, the deaths GPS has documented there, and the money the state paid out in settlements tied to the facility.

Guthrie v. Evans and the Reform Era That Ended

In 1972, incarcerated people at Georgia State Prison filed a class action lawsuit against prison officials in federal court — the case that became Guthrie v. Evans, filed by Black inmates at the facility. GPS's own reporting describes a 13-year span of federal court oversight and comprehensive remedial decrees addressing constitutional conditions at the prison, and it describes those reforms as later dismantled after federal oversight ended. GPS reporting also describes a 1978 riot at Georgia State Prison resulting in three deaths, and a federal court order re-segregating the prison by race in its aftermath.

These are GPS's analytical findings about the facility's legal history, and they carry the weight GPS assigns them. What the public record shows plainly is the arc: a prison that once operated under court supervision, and a state that later walked away from it.

The Final Two Years: Seven Homicides and a Closing

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that Georgia State Prison, where 7 homicides occurred between 2020 and 2021, was closed in early 2022. The AJC's homicide tracking named the dead: Raul Garcia Bailon, 39, died April 21, 2020, from positional asphyxia and suffocation due to assault, blunt trauma to soft tissues. Joctavious Artez Newsome, 25, died November 4, 2020, from a stab wound. Demetrius Stubbins, 38, died December 21, 2020, from a stab wound to the chest. Christopher Dewayne Mathis, 37, died February 26, 2021, from blunt force trauma to the head. Christopher D'Corro Ward, 29, died May 25, 2021, from carbon monoxide poisoning due to smoke inhalation and methamphetamine toxicity, with an incident report showing a fire. Fabian Garcia-Mata, 27, died September 10, 2021, from multiple stab wounds. Troy Donald Harvey, 34, died September 12, 2021, from a stab wound to the chest.

GPS's mortality registry independently records 7 homicides at the facility, consistent with the AJC's count, and places the deaths within a broader toll: 46 deaths at Georgia State Prison since January 1, 2020 — 29 in 2020 and 17 in 2021, with none recorded after the closure. By cause, GPS lists 18 Natural/Medical, 12 Suicide, 7 Homicide, 4 Overdose, 2 Accident, 1 Medical Neglect, 1 Unknown/Pending, and 1 Other. The full list is maintained at GPS's facility death page.

The Named Dead

GPS's registry names the people who died at Georgia State Prison in its final years. Angelo Ortiz Roxbury died December 8, 2021, at Georgia State Prison; GPS's registry lists the cause as Natural/Medical, age 65. Lamont Avery Morris died November 30, 2021, at Georgia State Prison; the registry lists Accident, age 33. Zachary Daniel Strudgeon died November 29, 2021, at Georgia State Prison; Suicide, age 27. Matthew Michael Cooney died November 6, 2021, at Georgia State Prison; Suicide, age 43. Troy Donald Harvey died September 12, 2021, at Georgia State Prison; Homicide, age 34. Fabian Mata Garcia died September 10, 2021, at Georgia State Prison; Homicide, age 27. Paul Kozachyn died August 24, 2021, at Georgia State Prison; Natural/Medical, age 59. Ted Howard Screws died August 8, 2021, at Georgia State Prison; Natural/Medical, age 53. Carlos Smith-Jones died July 14, 2021, at Georgia State Prison; Overdose, age 33. Charles Clifton died July 11, 2021, at Georgia State Prison; Natural/Medical, age 57.

Christopher Dcorro Ward died May 25, 2021, at Georgia State Prison; Homicide, age 29. Malik Pitts died May 21, 2021, at Georgia State Prison; Suicide, age 37. Calvin Lavert Lewis died May 5, 2021, at Georgia State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Other, age 33. John Kennedy Cope died April 12, 2021, at Georgia State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Unknown/Pending — GPS does not yet know it — age 60. Collin Jackson Donaldson died April 10, 2021, at Georgia State Prison; Suicide, age 21. Roberto Garza Bazan died February 27, 2021, at Georgia State Prison; Natural/Medical, age 69. Christopher Dewayne Mathis died February 26, 2021, at Georgia State Prison; Homicide, age 37. Demetrius Terrell Stubbins died December 21, 2020, at Georgia State Prison; Homicide, age 38. Tommy James Bullard died December 11, 2020, at Georgia State Prison; Natural/Medical, age 64. Steve Neal Williams died December 1, 2020, at Georgia State Prison; Natural/Medical, age 63.

Brandon Allen Peters died November 23, 2020, at Georgia State Prison; the registry lists Medical Neglect, age 44. Joctavious Nmn Newsome died November 4, 2020, at Georgia State Prison; Homicide, age 25. Victor Vean Thompson died October 28, 2020, at Georgia State Prison; Natural/Medical, age 58. Linward Adams died October 24, 2020, at Georgia State Prison; Natural/Medical, age 64. Terrell Toshra Hamilton died October 20, 2020, at Georgia State Prison; Suicide, age 40.

Brandon Peters and the Question of Care

The death of Brandon Allen Peters is the one GPS's registry codes as Medical Neglect, and it is the one the Atlanta Journal-Constitution examined directly. The AJC reported that officials failed to intervene and provide proper medical care to Peters, who suffered for days from severe symptoms before dying in his cell. The state later paid $750,000 in a liability settlement tied to Georgia State Prison and linked to a documented death record, according to the Georgia Department of Administrative Services Risk Management settlement ledger obtained through open records.

The same AJC reporting described a second prisoner at the facility, found in 2020 so malnourished that every bone in his spine was bruised, with a jaw fracture and human bite marks across his body; he reported being sexually assaulted by his cellmate and having his food stolen for months. The AJC's account is that staff failed to notice.

The Settlement Ledger: $5.6 Million Across a Decade

The DOAS Risk Management settlement ledger, obtained by open records request, records state liability payouts tied to Georgia State Prison stretching back to 2010. The largest is $2,998,994 to Khalid Mouton, tied to a 2021 incident. Nicholas Baldwin's settlement was $1,000,000, tied to a 2014 incident. Brandon A. Peters's was $750,000, tied to a 2020 incident and linked to a documented death record. Collin Jackson Donaldson's was $625,000, tied to a 2021 incident and also linked to a documented death record. Seth Rouzan's was $115,000 (2018); Jermarae Herbert's was $62,500 (2019), with a further $5,000 tied to a 2021 incident; Jamaal Wright's was $35,000 (2021); Curtis (Canupp J) Spires's was $30,000 (2010); Sue Hobbs's was $8,408 (2018); Norman Simpson's was $7,500 (2021); Quonterious Toles's was $7,500 (2018); William Navarro Castillo's was $5,000 (2016); Aaron Jewann Robinson's was $2,500 (2019); Kelton Alston's was $1,000 (2018); Micki Brown's was $700 (2019).

Taken together, the ledger shows more than $5.6 million in state payouts tied to a single facility over roughly a decade — a figure that does not include the cost of defending the underlying claims.

Cassady's Allegations and the Segregation Record

The Georgia Virtue reported in February 2026 on allegations by Cassady, a transgender prisoner, about his time at Georgia State Prison. Cassady alleges that the PREA hotline phone was inaccessible to him because it was inside a locked box, and that Warden James Deal told him courts and GDC do not care about transgender inmates. Cassady was held in solitary confinement for months without required 30-day segregation hearings, according to the reporting, in conditions including feces-covered walls, black mold, rodents, no lighting, and no heat or cooling. At the time he mailed the bombs — the reporting's reference to the offense that produced his federal case — he had gone six months without a psychiatric evaluation or the psychotherapy sessions he had been participating in prior to segregation placement.

Cassady also alleges that GDC determined his 2018 sexual assault claims were "unfounded," released the alleged assailant from segregation back to Cassady's cell block, and that a subsequent physical assault resulted in Cassady's partner being stabbed nine times. Separately, the reporting states that Cassady claims he was beaten, stabbed, and brutally raped by another inmate at Georgia State Prison in 1996 and had to be transported to the hospital for care due to his injuries. These are Cassady's allegations as reported; they have not been independently corroborated in the record before GPS.

What the Record Adds Up To

Georgia State Prison closed on 19 February 2022, and the AJC reported that the closure came amid a federal investigation into the conditions of GDC facilities generally. The prison's own history — a 1972 class action, a 1978 riot, a reform era GPS describes as later dismantled — sits alongside a final two years in which 46 people died and the state paid out millions in settlements. GPS records show three due-process-violation signals tied to this facility in the past year, spanning February through October 2026, at critical, high, and moderate severity. For a prison that no longer holds anyone, the file remains open.

Sources

This analysis draws on the Georgia Department of Administrative Services Risk Management settlement ledger obtained through open records request; homicide and conditions reporting by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution; reporting by The Georgia Virtue; GPS's mortality registry and its facility death records; GPS's historical data series drawn from Georgia Department of Corrections annual reports; and GPS's own investigative and analytical reporting on the facility's litigation history.