TELFAIR STATE PRISON

Last updated August 29, 2026.(DS)

Telfair State Prison

Telfair State Prison in McRae-Helena is a close-security prison for adult male felons that opened in 1992. It combines open-dorm housing with multiple double-bunked cell units and segregation/isolation cells for high-risk or hard-to-manage prisoners. The facility holds roughly 1,185 people against a current rated capacity of 1,400 — itself nearly triple the original design capacity of 480. Telfair has been the subject of national scrutiny for extreme violence, including multiple inmate and staff homicides, and for the documented death of a prisoner from heat exposure after being left in an outdoor cage — incidents that figured prominently in the U.S. Department of Justice's findings on Georgia prisons. GPS has independently tracked 59 deaths at Telfair since 2020, 19 of them classified as homicides.

A Body Count Without Parallel

The mortality record at Telfair is the analytical center of any account of the facility. GPS's mortality database records 59 deaths at Telfair State Prison since 2020: 11 in 2020, 3 in 2021, 5 in 2022, 8 in 2023, 11 in 2024, 14 in 2025, and 7 in the first seven months of 2026. Nineteen of those deaths are classified as homicides — the largest single cause category — with another 16 listed as unknown or pending as of this writing. Nine are attributed to natural or medical causes, six to overdose, four to suicide, two to accident, two to other causes, and one to medical neglect.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has documented the names behind those numbers. Zoumana Madiou Sarre, 23, died on July 5, 2024 from multiple sharp force injuries to the neck and torso. Henry Crump died on September 2, 2024; incident report data shows a homicide. Eric Whitehead died on September 18, 2024 after a fight with another inmate. Lamar Wilson, 32, died on June 1, 2024 of injuries suffered during a fight. Joey Lebron Kilgore, 46, died on February 29, 2024 in a homicide. Kwesi Jamal Stultz, 24, died on December 22, 2023 from multiple injuries to the head. De'ahmoz Oshmic Floyd, 29, died on April 18, 2023 from exsanguination caused by a stab wound to the side of the neck; a claim filed against the state alleged he was stabbed by several prisoners when no prison staff were in the dorm, and that he had renounced his gang affiliation while in prison, which made him a target of previous attacks. Xavier LaMar Warren, 32, died on December 28, 2022 from a stab wound to the torso; incident reports show four other inmates were involved. Juan Carlos Arguelles-Reveles, 37, died on May 7, 2021 from a stabbing; 11 other inmates were involved. Luis Garcia Palacio, 41, died on July 28, 2020 from blunt impact injuries to the head. Marcus Derrelle Pearson Jr., 28, died on May 29, 2020 from multiple stab wounds. Aldrich Norval Cain, 26, died on April 23, 2020 from multiple stab wounds. Cedric La'Troy Johnson Sr., 35, died on March 13, 2020 by strangulation.

The pace has not slowed. GDC confirmed that Preston Cato Phelps, 28, died on December 13, 2025 after an altercation with multiple inmates; the GDC Office of Professional Standards is investigating his death as a homicide. Timothy Wilson, 48, died on June 11, 2026 after an altercation with another inmate; his body was sent to the GBI Crime Lab for autopsy. GPS records show seven deaths at Telfair in 2026 through late July, including Kwame Conte McCombs, 37, on July 25 and Antwane Shanfiel Robinson, 46, on July 13, both with causes still pending.

The Heat Death That Reached the DOJ

The death that brought Telfair to national attention was not a stabbing. Juan Carlos Ramirez Bibiano, 27, died July 20, 2023 after officers placed him in a roughly 12-by-8.5-foot fenced-in outdoor cage with no shade while the heat index reached about 105°F. He was left roughly five hours and reached the hospital with an internal body temperature of 107°F. 13WMAZ reported the case. The State of Georgia subsequently paid $3,249,873 to the family and estate of Ramirez Bibiano, according to the GA DOAS Risk Management settlement ledger obtained through open records — by far the largest of nine Telfair-related liability payouts GPS has identified, which together total more than $3.28 million.

The Ramirez Bibiano settlement dwarfs the others: $14,000 to Trevio Head (2018), $8,311 to Shawn Wayne Whatley (2012), $5,361 to Darryl Thomas (2021), $2,600 to Derrell Ruth (2021), $2,500 to Ricardo Jamal Strozier (2016), $1,850 to David Morris (2021), $1,750 to Ryan Frank DeMon (2023), and $500 to Deante Gholston (2024). The pattern of small payouts alongside one catastrophic one mirrors the broader mortality record: a steady drip of low-dollar claims against a backdrop of extreme violence.

The heat death also surfaced a specific allegation that has recurred in GPS's reporting. 13WMAZ reported that an officer allegedly responded "if he dies, he dies" when the inmate pleaded for help while suffering in extreme heat. GPS's own investigative coverage includes a firsthand account from a former staff member who described working in Telfair's tier unit during a sweltering July and witnessing a unit manager intentionally turn on the heat in cells already baking from metal-plated windows, telling staff the men were "supposed to be punished." GPS's reporting describes that account as not yet independently verified. Solitary Watch reported in December 2010 that prison administration allegedly shut off heat at Telfair when daytime temperatures were in the 30s, and that tactical officers allegedly rampaged through the facility, destroying inmate personal property and severely beating at least six prisoners.

Staffing Collapse and Gang Control

The violence at Telfair does not occur in a staffing vacuum. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported in March 2024 that Telfair was missing 76% of its essential workforce, leaving only 36 correctional officers to supervise 1,400 prisoners. By May 2025, the AJC reported the figure had worsened: 79% of correctional officer positions unfilled, leaving only 32 officers for a facility requiring at least 153.

Tyler Ryals, a former GDC sergeant forced out in 2024 after whistleblowing, told GPS he had personally been the only security person on the entire Telfair compound of roughly 1,250 maximum-security inmates. Ryals is one of two former GDC commanders who went on the record for GPS's reporting "Two Commanders Say Georgia Hides Its Prison Staffing Crisis," in which they independently said Georgia hides its prison staffing collapse by manipulating the numbers it reports to the public. The other, a CERT commander pushed out after a sworn warning, corroborates the same pattern. GPS's fact-check on that article is marked not yet checked.

The October 2024 DOJ findings letter explicitly concluded that "the leadership of the Georgia Department of Corrections has lost control of its facilities" and faulted GDC for placing "too much blame on gangs and insufficient emphasis on understaffing." Approximately 31% of the system's roughly 49,000 incarcerated population are validated members of 315 different security threat groups — more than double the national average. DOJ and the Guidehouse 2024 consultant assessment independently concluded that gangs effectively run multiple facilities, controlling access to phones, showers, food, and bed assignments.

At Telfair, that dynamic has a specific face. Sergeant Desiree Briley pleaded guilty to her role in a massive drug trafficking network and was sentenced to 18 months in prison after helping prisoner James Dylon NeSmith smuggle meth into Telfair State Prison and distribute it for at least two years, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The prosecution was part of Operation Ghost Busted, a federal case targeting a drug operation controlled by the Ghost Face Gangsters white supremacist gang, extending to at least 10 South Georgia counties both inside and outside prisons. The AJC reported that guards caught smuggling contraband are often young job jumpers with financial problems — a profile that fits a hiring pipeline GPS has documented as accepting under 15% of applicants and losing 82.7% of new hires in their first year.

A former Telfair officer told GPS that from roughly 2014 to 2017, approximately 30 members of one gang were held in long-term lockdown segregation for years alongside others segregated after stabbings and contraband introduction, and that many officers did not perform required hands-on lockdown escorts, with those who complied being pressured by colleagues to stop.

Food Safety Scores and the Limits of Inspection

The Georgia Department of Public Health's food-safety inspection record at Telfair shows a facility that has oscillated between passing and failing grades. On May 13, 2025, one inspection scored 74 (Grade C) with four violations including proper eating, tasting, drinking, or tobacco use; food separated and protected; and proper cold holding temperatures. A separate inspection the same day scored 90 (Grade A). On September 19, 2023, one inspection scored 78 (Grade C) with five violations; another the same day scored 91 (Grade A). The most recent inspections, on March 26, 2026, scored 91 and 93 (both Grade A).

The pattern of multiple inspections on the same day with divergent scores reflects the facility's multiple food-service operations. But GPS's systemic finding is that DPH scores systematically fail to capture the full picture of food-service sanitation failure across GDC kitchens: tray-sanitizing dishwashers broken for sustained periods, sustained roach and rodent infestation in kitchen and serving areas, and meals served on visibly contaminated trays. The Marshall Project independently reported rats in kitchens, insects in food, moldy trays, and visible malnutrition across Georgia facilities in May 2026, quoting GPS connecting chronic underfeeding to the violence pattern the DOJ documented. GDC spends approximately $1.69 per person per day on food, versus the FDA Thrifty Food Plan estimate of roughly $10 per day for an adult man's nutritionally adequate diet.

The Wider System

Telfair's violence does not exist in isolation. In January 2026, a gang-war riot at Washington State Prison killed four people — Teddy Jackson, 27; Ahmod Hatcher, 23; Jimmy Trammell, 42, who was days from release; and Silas Westbrook, 42, who died of his injuries on January 17 after hospital release. A fifth man, Dajhmere Hall, 30, was found dead two days before the riot. Twelve inmates were charged with felony murder, aggravated assault, and gang participation. GPS open-records production showed six officers were on duty at Washington State Prison when the riot began. The facility was placed on continuous lockdown and never reopened more than five months later.

The DOJ's October 2024 CRIPA findings concluded that sexual assault is "rampant" in Georgia prisons and that GDC does not reasonably protect incarcerated people from sexual harm. Of 456 sexual-abuse allegations recorded in 2022, only 35 were substantiated. GDC's own consultants reviewed 388 PREA investigation files in May 2022 and found that not one met the law's standards. Georgia has never submitted a PREA certification of full compliance to the U.S. Department of Justice in the law's two-decade history.

GPS records show that over the past 12 months at Telfair, nine distinct sources contributed to assault-by-inmate allegations across five months, four sources reported deaths in custody across two months, and four sources named staff misconduct allegations across three months. Inmate accounts collected by GPS describe a pattern of serious inmate-on-inmate violence, including incidents in segregation housing, with recurring reports that response teams arrived slowly or that incidents went unreported.

Sources

This analysis draws on reporting from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 13WMAZ, Solitary Watch, and The Marshall Project; Georgia Department of Public Health food-safety inspection records; the GA DOAS Risk Management settlement ledger obtained through open records; GDC official statements; GPS's own mortality database and investigative reporting, including the on-record testimony of former GDC commanders Tyler Ryals and a former CERT commander in "Two Commanders Say Georgia Hides Its Prison Staffing Crisis"; and inmate and family accounts collected by GPS staff.