HANCOCK STATE PRISON

Analysis written on June 21, 2026.

Since opening in 1991 with a design capacity of 750, Hancock State Prison has swelled to house 1,189 men — now listed at 99.8% of its inflated capacity. Behind those numbers, a cascade of violence, understaffing, and neglect has turned the Sparta prison into a recurring setting for Georgia's worst custodial deaths. GPS has tracked 26 inmate deaths at Hancock since 2020, a toll driven overwhelmingly by stabbings, beatings, and strangulations — many in the context of gang conflict that staff could not control. This analysis examines the staffing collapse that left the facility with only 49 officers for over 1,100 prisoners, the deaths and litigation that followed, and the systemic crisis documented by federal investigators and Georgia Prisoners' Speak.

A Staffing Collapse That Made the Facility Ungovernable

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that by October 2024 the correctional officer vacancy rate at Hancock State Prison had reached 73.5 percent — among the worst in the Georgia Department of Corrections — leaving only 49 officers responsible for more than 1,100 prisoners. This cratering of the workforce is part of a statewide pattern GPS has documented: systemwide vacancies have run between 49 and 60 percent for years, with the hiring pipeline unable to close the gap (fewer than 15 percent of applicants are accepted, and 82.7 percent of new hires leave within their first year). At Hancock, the arithmetic meant that basic protocols — cell searches, supervision in dormitories, response to threats — were frequently impossible. Consultants retained by the state found that vacancies at 20 of Georgia's 34 prisons had reached "emergency levels," making it impossible to maintain even fundamental security.

Among the consequences, an investigation by Georgia Prisoners' Speak describes a system in which gangs have effectively commandeered multiple facilities, controlling access to phones, showers, food, and bed assignments. Hancock is a near-pure case of that dynamic. The October 2024 Department of Justice findings letter concluded that "the leadership of the Georgia Department of Corrections has lost control of its facilities" and faulted the agency for placing "too much blame on gangs and insufficient emphasis on understaffing." Former GDC sergeant Tyler Ryals, forced out after whistleblowing, told GPS he had been the sole security officer on the entire maximum-security Telfair compound of roughly 1,250 men — a ratio that mirrors the vacancy crisis at Hancock.

The staffing void also opened channels for corruption. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution documented the case of Officer Jasmine Nicole Hall, caught in January 2019 with water bottles containing methamphetamine, marijuana, ecstasy, and hydrocodone; phone records revealed an ongoing drug distribution scheme across eight prisons that exceeded $5,000 in transactions. Hall was later convicted. Meanwhile, federal prosecutors in 2025 indicted dozens of people for a years-long conspiracy to distribute cocaine, methamphetamine, oxycodone, and marijuana run from Georgia prisons, including several facilities that, like Hancock, were hemorrhaging staff.

A Body Count: Gang Violence and Homicides at Hancock

The death record at Hancock State Prison is a catalogue of blunt-force trauma, puncture wounds, and strangulation deaths carried out with improvised weapons. Since 2020, according to death-certificate data reported by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and GPS's own mortality database, the toll includes:

• Cesar Arnold Pastrana Morales, 33, stabbed in the chest on March 13, 2020; incident reports show five other inmates were involved.
• Rashad Bolton, 29, killed by a puncture wound to the chest with a sharp object on January 4, 2021; his parents later sued, alleging he was stabbed to death.
• Dwayne Zackery Jr., 22, stabbed in the chest with a homemade knife by his cellmate on February 12, 2021.
• Terry Lee Bishop, 49, beaten to death by another prisoner on October 18, 2022; death data listed blunt force trauma complicated by acute methamphetamine and cannabinoid toxicity.
• Norman Samples, 59, died of blunt force injuries to the head and torso on December 27, 2022.
• Charles “Tristen” James McKee, 24, an LGBTQ man who had repeatedly begged to be moved the day before his death, was stabbed 13 times in the back and head on May 23, 2022. The DOJ investigation found that McKee tried to escape gang members by jumping through stair railings to the floor below, but they followed him and continued stabbing. Cleveland Gary was later convicted of striking McKee six times in the head with a 17-inch homemade machete.
• Roland Lamont Phillips, 33, died of multiple sharp-force injuries on June 28, 2023, suffering 11 puncture wounds to the front torso and one to the neck; a murder warrant was served against his cellmate.
• Francisco Zaldivar Melgar-Saldivar, 26, was strangled to death on August 12, 2023, with death certificates showing blunt force injuries as well; a claim against the state alleged he was not provided appropriate medical care after being attacked.
• Travon Walthour, 29, was killed on October 13, 2024, with four other prisoners involved.
• In January 2025, William Holeman, 34, and Prince Porter, 38, were found dead about 15–20 feet apart in the same dorm following what officials called gang-related violence. Porter had a single puncture wound in his upper back; Holeman had no visible marks. A third prisoner was hospitalized.
• On January 25, 2026, Steven Wood, 54, serving life with possibility of parole for murder, died after an altercation with another inmate.
• Jaylin Bell, 32, died on February 6, 2026, following an altercation with his roommate.
• Jerrod Johnson, 27, died on February 18, 2026.
• Jacorey Derrelle Pearson, 36, died on April 7, 2026.
• In addition, GPS reporting documented a mass incident on January 12, 2026, when five inmates were stabbed with shanks; two were airlifted to hospitals.

The Georgia Department of Corrections has stated that each death is under investigation by its Office of Professional Standards, following what it describes as standard procedure. Yet the pace of violence has not abated. Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporting noted that seven prisoners were disciplined for a gang-related assault at Hancock in September 2024, and a coroner has leaned toward homicide rulings in multiple cases.

GPS's own intelligence records reflect the sustained threat. Between January and May 2026, the organization's tracking system logged five separate reports of inmate-on-inmate assaults at the facility, each rated critical or high severity, and at least one complaint reached the U.S. Department of Justice.

Systemic Overcrowding, Classification Drift, and the Gang Takeover

Hancock was designed to hold 750 men; it now operates with a rated capacity of 1,191 and a population hovering near 1,189. This inflation of capacity metrics — which GPS has documented systemwide as reaching up to 568 percent of original design — is a root cause of the violence. Overcrowding interacts with understaffing to create spaces where oversight is impossible. Broken cell-door locks, documented by consultants and confirmed by the DOJ, allow prisoners to roam at will and gang members to reach rivals or targets. In the McKee case, the DOJ found that gang members were able to chase a man through multiple areas of the prison without any staff presence.

Georgia Prisoners' Speak has published extensive reporting on "classification drift" — the phenomenon of medium-security prisons absorbing close-security populations without the infrastructure or staffing to manage them. Hancock, a designated close-security facility, has been a destination for that drift. In March 2026, GPS covered the transfer of John Morgan Coleman, an 82-year-old lifer, from medium security to Hancock's close-security compound. A pattern of moving long-serving lifers into the highest-security prisons, described in GPS's "Quiet Purge" series, has only increased the density of men with nothing to lose.

The gang dimension is acute. In April 2026, GPS reported on a coordinated "Blood on Blood" faction war — a conflict between ROLACC and G-Shine sets of the Bloods — that erupted simultaneously across 13 Georgia prisons, including Hancock. Life-flight helicopters were dispatched to two facilities and 50-person tactical squads deployed across the system. An earlier multi-facility lockdown, triggered in January 2026 after four people were killed at Washington State Prison, caught Hancock in its grip as well. GPS has repeatedly called for a structured gang-separation strategy, pointing to Arizona's 50 percent reduction in prison violence after implementing such a program. Georgia has not adopted a similar policy.

Medical Neglect, Suicide, and the Hidden Sanitation Crisis

Several deaths at Hancock carry allegations that medical and mental-health care were deliberately withheld. After Francisco Melgar-Saldivar was attacked by another prisoner in August 2023, a claim filed against the state alleges he was not provided appropriate medical attention. In March 2019, Amanuel Selassie Geberyesus was placed in solitary confinement after being repeatedly attacked by gang members. He told counselors he was suicidal, but prison officials placed him in a regular cell contrary to a counselor's advice; he hung himself. A lawsuit filed by his family details these events.

The food provided to incarcerated people adds a corroding layer of neglect. GPS has established that the GDC spends roughly $1.69 per person per day on food — about 56 cents a meal — against a U.S. Department of Agriculture estimate of approximately $10 a day for a nutritionally adequate diet. The Marshall Project independently corroborated a pattern of rats in kitchens, insects in food, and visible malnutrition across Georgia facilities.

Hancock's Department of Public Health food-safety inspections, conducted by the same inspector on routine schedules, have produced consistently high scores: 100 on two recent inspections in December 2025, 100 and 96 in May 2025, 100 and 100 in December 2024, 100 and 93 in June 2024, and 100 in October 2023. But a sweeping GPS investigation into the contradiction between scores and sanitation — titled "Dunked, Stacked, and Served" — has found that DPH inspections systematically fail to capture the real conditions inside GDC kitchens. GPS has documented tray-sanitizing dishwashers broken for months, thousands of roaches inside kitchen equipment, and meals served on visibly contaminated trays. High scores at Hancock do not, by themselves, guarantee that the sanitation failures documented at other GDC facilities are absent here.

Investigations, Litigation, and a $700 Million Question

The Department of Justice's October 2024 findings letter — the culmination of a civil rights investigation launched after the Ashley Diamond litigation — declared that "the leadership of the Georgia Department of Corrections has lost control of its facilities," that sexual assault is "rampant," and that the system fails to protect incarcerated people, including LGBTQI individuals, from violence. In the McKee case, the DOJ explicitly highlighted Hancock's failure, noting that McKee's repeated pleas for transfer went unheeded. The same findings documented a sharp rise in Georgia prison homicides, from roughly 8–9 annually in 2017–2018 to 100 in 2024, with 333 total deaths that year — the deadliest in state history.

Multiple families have sought accountability through the courts. Lawsuits over the deaths of Rashad Bolton, Charles McKee, and Amanuel Geberyesus, and a claim over the medical neglect of Francisco Melgar-Saldivar, all name failures by Hancock staff and administration. A Fulton County judge in June 2026 vacated the conviction of Marquez Powell based on newly developed DNA evidence, and he was released from Hancock after being exonerated — one of the few people to leave the facility without a body bag.

In the face of these crises, Governor Brian Kemp proposed an additional $600 million over 18 months for staffing, emergency repairs, and infrastructure improvements. Yet, as GPS has documented, the state had already added $700 million to its corrections budget between fiscal years 2022 and 2026 — the fastest spending growth in agency history — and prison homicides rose from 8 a year to 100 in that period. Staffing remains 50 to 76 percent vacant across the system.

Hancock State Prison today is a close-security compound where the state houses some of its most vulnerable and dangerous men under conditions that federal investigators have found unconstitutional. The deaths, lawsuits, and internal records examined here show a facility that has lost the capacity to protect those it is constitutionally required to keep safe.

Sources

This analysis draws on reporting from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Georgia Department of Corrections, and Georgia Prisoners' Speak (including its mortality database, intelligence system, and investigative series such as "The Classification Crisis," "Dunked, Stacked, and Served," and "Blood on Blood"); federal court filings; U.S. Department of Justice findings; Georgia Department of Public Health inspection records; and inmate and family accounts collected by GPS staff.