Hancock State Prison

Hancock State Prison, a medium-security facility in Sparta, Georgia, has emerged in reporting and federal scrutiny as one of the most lethal prisons in the state. Across a four-year span beginning in 2020, named homicide victims have accumulated at the facility while correctional officer staffing has collapsed to among the lowest levels in the Georgia Department of Corrections (GDC) system. The 2024 U.S. Department of Justice investigation into Georgia's prisons cited Hancock specifically in its findings on gang-driven violence, and the killings have continued into 2025 and 2026. The threads running through this record are consistent: catastrophic staffing vacancies, classification drift that places close-security prisoners in a facility designed for medium custody, broken physical infrastructure, and a sustained inability — or unwillingness — to act on warnings from the people housed there before they are killed.

A Documented Pattern of Homicides

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has reported on a sequence of killings at Hancock that, taken together, describe the facility's trajectory. Cesar Arnold Pastrana Morales, 33, died on March 13, 2020 from a stab wound to the chest; an incident report identified five other inmates as involved. Rashad Bolton, 29, died on January 4, 2021 from a puncture wound to the chest, and his parents subsequently filed a lawsuit alleging he was stabbed to death — a claim also reflected in court filings. About a month later, on February 12, 2021, Dwayne Zackery Jr., 22, was killed by a stab wound to the chest inflicted with a homemade knife; death data identifies his cellmate as the assailant.

The killings continued through 2022 and 2023. Terry Lee Bishop, 49, died on October 18, 2022 from blunt force trauma combined with acute methamphetamine and cannabinoid toxicity; death data describe him as beaten to death by another prisoner. Norman Samples, 59, died on December 27, 2022 from blunt force injuries to the head and torso. Roland Lamont Phillips, 33, died on June 28, 2023 from multiple sharp force injuries — eleven puncture wounds to the front torso and one to the neck — and a murder warrant was served against his cellmate. Two months later, on August 12, 2023, Francisco Zaldivar Melgar-Saldivar, 26, died from strangulation and blunt force injuries; a claim filed against the state, also reflected in court records, alleges he was not provided appropriate medical care after being attacked by another prisoner. On October 13, 2024, Travon Walthour, 29, was killed at the facility, with GDC incident report data showing four other prisoners involved.

The Killing of Charles "Tristen" McKee

The death that has received the most sustained scrutiny is the May 23, 2022 killing of Charles "Tristen" James McKee, a 24-year-old who identified as LGBTQ. According to AJC reporting, McKee was stabbed thirteen times in the back and head. The U.S. Department of Justice investigation found that McKee tried to escape gang members who were beating and stabbing him by jumping through stair railings to the floor below — but the gang members continued to stab him on the lower level, and another prisoner who attempted to intervene was seriously wounded. The AJC further reported that staff failed to act on McKee's repeated requests to be moved the day before he was murdered, and a lawsuit, also reflected in court filings, alleges he was placed in a dorm with known gang members hostile to LGBTQ inmates.

A Hancock County jury convicted prisoner Cleveland Gary in McKee's slaying. According to AJC reporting, Gary struck McKee six times in the head with a 17-inch homemade machete after a fight had already ended. The case became one of the central narratives in subsequent federal and journalistic accounts of how Georgia's prison conditions enable predictable, preventable deaths.

January 2025: Gang Violence and the Holeman/Porter Deaths

On January 30, 2025, gang-related violence at Hancock left two prisoners dead. The AJC reported that William Holeman, 34, and Prince Porter, 38, were found dead in the same dormitory, approximately 15 to 20 feet apart. Porter had a single puncture wound in his upper back; Holeman had no visible marks on his body. A third prisoner was hospitalized as a result of the same incident; no information on his condition was available the following day. Records obtained by the AJC also documented that in September 2024, seven prisoners were disciplined for a gang-related assault on another inmate at Hancock — context that frames the January deaths as part of an ongoing, organized pattern rather than isolated events.

A Lethal Year: Deaths in Early 2026

The pattern accelerated into 2026. According to 41NBC, Steven Wood — an inmate serving life with the possibility of parole for a Cherokee County murder conviction — died on January 25, 2026 following an altercation with another inmate. The AJC, citing the same circumstances, reported that Wood was beaten to death by his cellmate. His body was turned over to the county coroner for transport to the GBI crime lab, and the GDC Office of Professional Standards opened an investigation, which the agency described as standard procedure.

Less than two weeks later, on February 6, 2026, 41NBC reported that inmate Jaylin Bell died following an altercation with his roommate at Hancock. The body was again turned over to the coroner for GBI examination, and the Office of Professional Standards opened another investigation. A separate report described an incident in which at least two inmates were injured during a brawl inside the prison on a Monday night, with officials declining to detail the severity of injuries or whether the inmates were transported to a hospital. Reporting also documents a fourth inmate death at Hancock in 2026, occurring in the same period as a statewide GDC lockdown that followed gang-related violence at Smith State Prison. Earlier 41NBC reporting separately documented the death of inmate Jacorey Pearson, with the cause of death not released and the body sent to the GBI crime lab for examination by the Office of Professional Standards.

GPS has received accounts of an alleged stabbing in the visitation area at Hancock in 2026, and additional reports of a gang-related dormitory assault at the facility in the same period.

Staffing Collapse and Classification Drift

The structural conditions underlying these deaths are documented in unusually direct terms. The AJC has reported that as of October 2024, more than 70% of correctional officer positions at Hancock were vacant — specifically, 73.5% — leaving only 49 officers on staff for over 1,100 prisoners, one of the highest vacancy rates in the entire GDC system. Consultants cited in the same reporting found that staffing vacancies at 20 of Georgia's 34 prisons had reached "emergency levels," making it impossible to keep up with even basic protocols, and that cell locks at many prisons are broken — a condition that allows prisoners to roam freely and gang members to intimidate, attack, and kill other inmates.

This collapse compounds what GDC documentation describes as "classification drift" — the practice of housing close-security prisoners at facilities like Hancock that are designated as medium security and lack the staffing and infrastructure for higher-custody populations. The phenomenon is documented across multiple Georgia prisons as of October 2025, and Georgia Prisoners' Speak (GPS) has published a report titled "The Classification Crisis: How Four Medium Security Prisons Are Killing People" addressing it directly. AJC reporting has separately documented the case of John Morgan Coleman, an 82-year-old lifer transferred from medium-security to close-security custody at Hancock — an example consistent with broader reporting that lifers have been moved to the facility despite its designation. Citing consultants' findings, Governor Brian Kemp has proposed allocating an additional $600 million over 18 months to address staffing, emergency repairs, and infrastructure improvements across the state's prisons.

Federal Findings and the Statewide Picture

The 2024 U.S. Department of Justice report described stunning violence, rampant sexual assaults, and gang-run prisons in Georgia, fueled by what investigators called a culture of indifference. AJC reporting on the federal findings documented that Georgia's in-prison homicide rate is nearly eight times the national average, with 333 total deaths in GDC custody in 2024 — the deadliest year in state history. Homicides specifically rose from 8 to 9 annually in 2017 and 2018, to 37 in 2023, to 100 in 2024 — even as the GDC budget grew by approximately $700 million between fiscal years 2022 and 2026 without measurable safety improvement. The AJC has also reported that short-staffing, safety problems, and corruption have allowed prisoners to operate large criminal enterprises from inside Georgia's prisons, with 28 major drug-trafficking cases filed between 2015 and 2024. Federal prosecutors announced charges against dozens of people in one such conspiracy involving inmates at multiple GDC facilities and the privately operated Wheeler and Jenkins correctional facilities.

Hancock has its own staff-corruption record within this picture. AJC reporting documented that in January 2019, Hancock officer Jasmine Nicole Hall was caught with water bottles containing concealed compartments filled with methamphetamine, marijuana, ecstasy, and hydrocodone; phone evidence revealed an ongoing distribution scheme spanning eight prisons, with transactions exceeding $5,000.

Earlier Cases and Litigation

Court filings and AJC reporting also document earlier cases that prefigure the current pattern. In March 2019, Hancock inmate Amanuel Selassie Geberyesus, who had been placed in solitary confinement after being repeatedly attacked by gang members, told counselors he was experiencing thoughts of suicide. According to court records, prison officials placed him in a regular cell contrary to a counselor's advice, and he subsequently hung himself. The pattern — a known threat, a documented warning, and a placement decision that ignored both — reappears across the McKee case, the Melgar-Saldivar case, and others on the Hancock record. GPS has also received accounts of prolonged solitary confinement at the facility with no communication access for the incarcerated person involved.

Sources

This analysis draws on reporting from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and 41NBC; findings from the 2024 U.S. Department of Justice investigation of Georgia's prisons; civil and criminal court filings, including lawsuits filed by the families of Rashad Bolton and Charles "Tristen" James McKee and the murder warrant served in the Roland Lamont Phillips case; GDC incident report data and Office of Professional Standards investigations; the GPS report "The Classification Crisis: How Four Medium Security Prisons Are Killing People"; and inmate and family accounts collected by GPS staff.