Last updated October 18, 2026.(DS)

Hays State Prison: A Facility Built for 500 Holding 1,105

Hays State Prison sits in Trion, in Chattooga County, and opened in 1990 with a design capacity of 500. It is a close-security men's facility that the Department describes as housing some of the state's "most challenging offenders." Its physical plant includes several general-population dorms, a Fast Track unit, multiple Tier II special-management dorms, an outside fire station and infirmary, and large numbers of Level-II mental-health beds. Today it holds 1,105 people against a rated capacity of 1,101 — 100.4 percent — and more than twice the population it was built to hold. Gabriel Illa has served as warden since November 2023, with Jonathan D. Swinford as Deputy Warden of Administration, Alisa M. Hammock as Deputy Warden of Care and Treatment, and Christopher A. McAlister as Deputy Warden of Security.

The threads below — lethal violence, a decade of liability settlements, staff-facilitated contraband, and a food-service inspection regime that never registers failure — are not separate stories. They are the same facility operating past its design, with the consequences distributed across the people held there.

Thirty-Five Deaths, Nine of Them Homicides

GPS's mortality registry records 35 deaths at Hays State Prison since January 1, 2020 — a figure that is a floor, since GDC reports deaths roughly two months late. Nine are classified as homicides, nine as natural or medical, four as suicides, two as accidents, and eleven remain unknown or pending. The full list is maintained at GPS's facility death registry.

The most recent named dead include Corey Anwar Dubose, who died March 23, 2026, at Hays State Prison; GPS's registry lists the cause as Natural/Medical. Melvin Gay Johnson died January 27, 2026, at Hays State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Homicide. Barcel Roylee Ward died November 28, 2025, at Hays State Prison, with the cause listed as Unknown/Pending — GPS does not yet know it. James Cannon died October 25, 2025, at Hays State Prison; the registry lists Homicide. Raymont Savion Farley died June 15, 2025, at Hays State Prison (Natural/Medical), and Tommy Joe Strickland died June 4, 2025, at Hays State Prison (Natural/Medical). Ralph Carter died March 5, 2025, at Hays State Prison, cause Unknown/Pending.

The 2024 cluster was the deadliest of the period: Joey Griffin died December 26, 2024, at Hays State Prison (Unknown/Pending); Lawrence L Williams died October 24, 2024, at Hays State Prison (Homicide), the same day as Thomas Johnson, who died October 24, 2024, at Hays State Prison, with the cause listed as Unknown/Pending. Mackendy Pierrette died September 13, 2024, at Hays State Prison (Unknown/Pending); Keith Johnson died August 19, 2024, at Hays State Prison (Unknown/Pending); Timothy Darmofal died May 22, 2024, at Hays State Prison (Unknown/Pending); Freddie Lee III Talley died May 6, 2024, at Hays State Prison (Homicide); Theron Morrell Hendrix died April 19, 2024, at Hays State Prison (Unknown/Pending); and Jeremy Edward Price died March 2, 2024, at Hays State Prison (Homicide).

Earlier in the registry: Talore Stihles Blackford died October 28, 2023, at Hays State Prison (Homicide); Randoulf Gutierrez died October 19, 2023, at Hays State Prison (Unknown/Pending); Ronnie Joe Criswell died August 15, 2023, at Hays State Prison (Natural/Medical); Robert Millan Cook died July 17, 2023, at Hays State Prison (Natural/Medical); Quane Laquaus Johnson died January 15, 2023, at Hays State Prison (Accident); Robert Lee Burton died December 13, 2022, at Hays State Prison (Natural/Medical); Tony Christopher Williams died October 14, 2022, at Hays State Prison (Suicide); John Terrell Bohannon died September 20, 2022, at Hays State Prison (Unknown/Pending); and Quintez Deshon Smith died August 29, 2022, at Hays State Prison (Homicide).

The Stabbings the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Documented

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has tracked the individual cases behind those registry entries. Freddie Lee Talley, 31, was stabbed to death at Hays State Prison in May 2024; officers recovered seven weapons ranging in length from 9 to 22 inches, and three inmates received disciplinary reports but have not yet been charged, the AJC reported. A separate AJC account of the same death records that Talley died May 6, 2024, from a stab wound to the chest, with an incident report describing a murder involving four other prisoners and multiple sharpened weapons ranging from 10.5 to 22 inches.

Jeremy Price, 36, was stabbed to death at Hays State Prison in March 2024 — the AJC reported that he died March 2 from stab wounds to the neck and chest, classified as a homicide in incident reports and confirmed by his death certificate. His mother, Tammy Price, told the AJC she still does not know what happened to her child. Tammy Price separately alleges that GDC is hiding its inability to protect prisoners from harm by omitting manner-of-death information from mortality reports.

The AJC's running coverage also documents Talore Stihles Blackford, 31, who died October 28, 2023, from multiple stab wounds to the neck; Quintez Smith, 25, who died August 29, 2022, from multiple sharp force injuries; Jorge Renberto Ventura-Cabrera, 35, who died June 5, 2021, from stab wounds to neck, torso and upper extremities, with an incident report showing two other inmates involved; and Anthony L. McGhee Jr., 34, who died March 29, 2020, from complications of blunt force head trauma and sharp force trauma of torso and extremities.

GPS's own reporting describes the case of Melvin Johnson, who was beaten at Hays State Prison after a counselor returned him to a dorm despite safety concerns; he died on life support. GPS's registry records Melvin Gay Johnson's death on January 27, 2026, as a homicide. GPS has also documented a high-ranking ROLACC Blood leader stabbed multiple times in the neck during an official inspection at Hays State Prison on April 1, 2026, requiring CPR — one episode in the coordinated Blood-on-Blood violence that locked down facilities across the system that day. And GPS's historical record notes three homicides within one month at Hays in late 2012 and early 2013, alongside a correctional officer stabbed 22 times who survived, and the 2013 stabbing death of 19-year-old Pippa Hall-Jackson in what GPS describes as a gang-related mistaken-identity killing.

A Decade of Settlements in the State's Own Ledger

Georgia's DOAS Risk Management settlement ledger, obtained through open records, records at least eleven liability payouts tied to Hays State Prison between 2011 and 2022. The largest by far is $650,000 to Charles L. Broady Jr., tied to a 2017 incident. The same year produced $250 to Deborah Martin as agent for Kendrick R. Martin and $15,000 to Travarus Smith. In 2014, Estaban Mosqueda Romero received $215,000. Joshua Blash received $80,000 (2016) and Monica Rodriguez $65,000 (2016). Synita Hudgins received $35,000 (2022) and Cecelia Carson $29,000 (2020). Alexander Williams received $23,000 (2019) and Uriah Raheem $5,000 (2019). Ricky Bernard McCoy received $450 (2011).

The spread is itself the finding: a handful of six-figure payouts sitting alongside sub-$1,000 settlements in the same ledger suggests a facility generating claims across the full range of severity, year after year, without interruption.

Contraband, Staff, and the Pipeline Through the Front Door

GDC's own published contraband reports show a facility repeatedly penetrated at its entry points. In 2018, officer Voltaire Pierre received $7,000 over a four-month period for bringing in marijuana, cocaine and methamphetamine in noodle soup containers; he was sentenced to more than eight years in federal prison, the AJC reported. Lieutenant Lakeshia Thomas was recorded arranging to smuggle marijuana for Gangster Disciples member Jarico Deshun Brown — GBI uncovered the evidence in 2019, she pleaded guilty in April 2022, and she was sentenced to 15 years with two to serve in confinement. In February 2025, federal officials announced the sentencing of a former Hays guard who smuggled methamphetamine and other contraband to inmates for over a month.

The pattern did not stop with staff. GDC's reports record that on December 21, 2025, a visitor named Santen Jackson was observed switching shoes with an offender during visitation; 403 grams of methamphetamine were recovered from her shoes, and the Chattooga County Sheriff's Office separately recovered a box containing shoes and another 403 grams from the wooded area near the facility's entrance. On December 17, 2025, Okema Fuller-Graham was found to have a 9mm handgun hidden in her waistband behind her back at the front entry. On February 12, 2026, Krystal White, an instructor for Wiregrass Georgia Technical College, was arrested after a vape containing THC was found in her belongings and a small bag of marijuana in her vehicle.

Across the full GDC contraband series, Hays accounts for 57 recorded incidents, with staff-class actors appearing in roles as printed by GDC including Officer (five actors), Food Service Contractor, Nurse Practitioner, and Aramark Food Service Director.

Kitchen Scores That Never Register Failure

The Georgia Department of Public Health has inspected Hays' food service twelve times since August 2023, and the facility has never scored below 82. The scores run 97 and 84 (August 29, 2023); 87 and 83 (December 27, 2023); 96 and 91 (July 19, 2024); 91 and 87 (May 7, 2025); 92 and 87 (November 18, 2025); and 91 and 82 (June 22, 2026). The recurring violations are structural rather than incidental: food-contact surfaces cleaned and sanitized, proper cold holding temperatures, proper hot holding temperatures, food separated and protected, and physical facilities installed, maintained, and clean.

GPS has documented a systemic pattern in which DPH scores fail to capture food-service sanitation failure across GDC kitchens — broken tray-sanitizing dishwashers, sustained roach and rodent infestation, and meals served on visibly contaminated trays — because inspections are scheduled walkthroughs that do not assess equipment under load. The Marshall Project's May 16, 2026 investigation, "Rats, Insects and Mold," independently reported rats in kitchens, insects in food, moldy trays, and visible malnutrition across Georgia facilities. GPS treats the coexistence of high inspection scores and sustained contamination reports as the analytical center of its food-service investigation. At Hays, the scores are not high across the board — four of the twelve are B grades — but the same violations recur inspection after inspection without resolution.

What the Record Adds Up To

GPS records show eleven assault-by-inmate signals at Hays in the past twelve months, concentrated in April and August 2026, alongside four staffing-shortage reports and three unnamed staff-misconduct allegations. Those aggregates sit against a facility holding 1,105 people in a plant designed for 500, with nine homicides in six years, a decade of liability payouts, and a contraband pipeline that has run through officers, lieutenants, instructors, and visitors alike. GPS has received accounts of violent incidents and lockdowns at Hays in 2026, including reports of a stabbing that sent two people to an outside hospital and a disturbance involving an officer; those accounts remain uncorroborated by public records.

In 2025, Georgia announced a $24 million hardened 126-bed unit at Hays State Prison — the pilot module in a $600 million prison spending surge that includes four identical modules statewide. GPS's reporting has characterized that spending as construction in place of the staffing, food, and medical investment the DOJ's October 2024 findings identified as the underlying failure. Whether the hardened unit changes anything at Trion depends on what happens inside it, not on what it is made of.

Sources

This analysis draws on the Georgia Department of Public Health's food-safety inspection records; the Georgia Department of Administrative Services Risk Management settlement ledger obtained through open records; GDC's published contraband arrest reports; GPS's mortality registry and death records for Hays State Prison; reporting by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on individual deaths and staff prosecutions at the facility; The Marshall Project's May 2026 investigation of Georgia prison food service; GPS's own investigative reporting and systemic findings on infrastructure, staffing, food service, and gang violence; and firsthand narratives published in Georgia Prisoners' Speak — Tell My Story.