Last updated November 8, 2026.(DS)

Ware State Prison: Bolted Exits, a Body Count, and a Staffing Collapse

Ware State Prison sits outside Waycross in Ware County, a close-security men's facility opened around 1990 with a rated capacity of 1,546 beds and an original design capacity of 500. It runs a mix of dormitory housing and high-security cellblocks, including Tier II special-management units, and maintains a CERT team and other tactical resources. GPS's own records put the current population at 1,436 — roughly 93 percent of rated capacity, and nearly three times what the plant was built to hold.

Three analytical threads run through this page. The first is fire safety: Georgia's own state fire marshal inspectors walked the housing buildings three times in 2026 and found the same thing each time — barrel bolts and sliding bolts on the fire exits, control rooms that were not continuously staffed, and escorting officers who did not carry the keys to the doors. The second is mortality: GPS has recorded 90 deaths at Ware since January 1, 2020, 21 of them homicides, and the coroner and GBI records behind those deaths describe stabbings, strangulations, and a set of cases in which the state's forensic agency declined to examine at all. The third is staffing, described on the record by former officers who worked the dorms and by the state's own inspection findings.

The Fire Exits That Would Not Open

The record on Ware's exits begins with an anonymous complaint. According to the Georgia Safety Fire Marshal's Office (GASFMO) inspection reports, a June 23, 2026 complaint investigation was conducted "in reference to an anonymous complaint concerning steel rods barring exit doors closed." Inspectors found barrel bolts installed on all fire exit doors of the housing buildings — all except Building I. The facility was marked non-compliant on means of egress.

Two months later, on August 24, 2026, inspectors returned for a follow-up and complaint investigation prompted in part by another anonymous complaint about steel rods barring exit doors. The bolts were still there. GASFMO staff observed barrel bolts on all fire exit doors on the housing buildings, and something new: additional sliding barrel bolts on the main entrance and exit doors of the dorm buildings. Photographs from the inspections, catalogued as physical evidence, show a damaged faceplate for a key cylinder, a key cylinder damaged by inmate tampering on interior fire exit doors, a slide bolt with a plastic tag on an exterior door, and a large slide bolt operated from inside the control room on main entrance and exit doors.

A third inspection followed on September 24, 2026 — Follow-Up #2, under File No. 26-009306 and Permit No. INS26-003833, conducted by Building Code Inspector James Holbrook, who met with Warden James C. Spann and Fire Chief Reynold Spradley. The findings had not changed. Warden Spann and Chief Spradley stated to Inspector Holbrook that nothing had been changed on the doors, nor had the barrel bolts been removed. The report records a single current violation and marks "Means of egress of approved type" as Non-Compliant, citing 2024 NFPA 101 Chapter 23 Section 23.2.11.1.7 — the provision requiring that keys to locked refuge-to-exterior doors be maintained and available and that locks be operable from the outside. The report also notes that some support staff accompanying the inspectors did not have the proper keys to unlock the gates leading from the areas of refuge on one dorm building, or a main entrance door on another.

The state's own account of why the bolts are there comes from GDC staff. Prison staff explained to inspectors that the barrel bolts are in use because inmates pop the locks from inside the building. Chief Spradley told inspectors he had written up the barrel bolts and that the key-operated locks had been repaired, but that inmates tamper with the locks and pop them soon after repairs are made. Staff also stated on the previous inspection that inmates are not supposed to have access to these doors from inside the building — a statement the inspectors' own observations contradict, since they found the fire exit and main doors readily accessible to the incarcerated population.

Control Rooms Without Officers, Officers Without Keys

The fire-exit findings sit alongside a second set of observations about who is watching the doors. The OCI Follow-Up #2 report states that staff interviews revealed there are times when prison guards are not continuously posted in the control room of each dorm building, and that staff response can vary based on the guards' assignment outside their normal duties for the dorms. Inspectors also noted damaged occupant notification devices for the fire alarm system inside the dorm buildings, cited under 2024 NFPA 101 Chapter 23 Section 23.3.4.3.1, along with an open junction box under the 2023 National Electric Code and sprinklers showing signs of leakage, corrosion, physical damage, or loss of fluid in the bulb.

The reports also record a documentation gap. GASFMO staff were told a regional inspection had been conducted by GDC Fire Services Inspections Staff on either March 13 or August 14, 2026 — the accounts varied — but a copy of the regional inspection report could not be produced during the August 24 inspection, leaving it unclear whether the items noted had been documented by GDC's own fire services staff.

Georgia law is explicit on the underlying question. O.C.G.A. § 25-2-37 makes it "unlawful for any person to lock an exit door whether or not it is a required exit unless such provisions are allowed by this chapter or by any rule, regulation, or order issued by the Commissioner under this chapter." The September report states that the facility must correct deficiencies and return the report to the Safety Fire Division Office within 30 days. Warden Spann told Inspector Holbrook that a facilities department inspection had been completed on September 18, 2026, and that any plan of correction would be produced by GDC's facilities department. Warden Spann also informed the inspector of a news article citing the August 24 complaint inspection report, along with photographs.

Ninety Deaths, Twenty-One Homicides

GPS's mortality registry records 90 deaths at Ware State Prison since January 1, 2020 — a floor, since GDC reports deaths roughly two months late. By year: 8 in 2020, 11 in 2021, 12 in 2022, 16 in 2023, 15 in 2024, 15 in 2025, and 13 so far in 2026. By cause, the registry shows 37 natural or medical deaths, 21 homicides, 13 suicides, 8 overdoses, 8 unknown or pending, 2 accidents, and 1 other. The full list is maintained at https://gps.press/georgia-prison-deaths/facility/ware-state-prison/.

The most recent deaths GPS has recorded at Ware include:

• David Wayne Williams died September 13, 2026, at Ware State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Suicide, age 57.
• David Allan Dowling died August 9, 2026, at Ware State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Unknown/Pending, age 69.
• Percy Lee Burdine died August 6, 2026, at Ware State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Unknown/Pending, age 44.
• David Miller Newman died July 15, 2026, at Ware State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Unknown/Pending, age 60.
• Reberto Baez died July 9, 2026, at Ware State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Unknown/Pending, age 69.
• David Randolph Newcomer died June 30, 2026, at Ware State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Unknown/Pending, age 85.
• Kojack Junior Thomas died May 31, 2026, at Ware State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Homicide, age 27.
• Justin Dean Pulley died May 20, 2026, at Ware State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Homicide, age 48.
• Johnathan Cleo Hardman-Simmons died May 20, 2026, at Ware State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Suicide, age 36.
• Anthony Terrell Grover died May 11, 2026, at Ware State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Homicide, age 25.
• Cody Humphrey died February 21, 2026, at Ware State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Natural/Medical, age 72.
• Christopher Henry died February 12, 2026, at Ware State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Homicide, age 48.
• Carlton Atkins Jones died January 24, 2026, at Ware State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Natural/Medical, age 55.
• Vernon Edward Kennedy died December 12, 2025, at Ware State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Accident, age 70.
• Christopher Allen Barrett died December 1, 2025, at Ware State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Homicide, age 46.
• Marty Shawn Wright died November 13, 2025, at Ware State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Suicide, age 49.
• Michael Cohen died October 13, 2025, at Ware State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Natural/Medical, age 68.
• Jose Hervert Vazquez died September 9, 2025, at Ware State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Unknown/Pending, age 53.
• Matias Elijaone Evans died August 15, 2025, at Ware State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Unknown/Pending, age 28.
• Dakota Lee Duffin died July 19, 2025, at Ware State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Suicide, age 29.
• David Michael Dixon died July 14, 2025, at Ware State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Natural/Medical, age 76.
• Barry Lynn Rutherford died May 25, 2025, at Ware State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Overdose, age 36.
• Henry A Hamilton died May 9, 2025, at Ware State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Natural/Medical, age 79.
• Charles Johnny Rice died April 27, 2025, at Ware State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Homicide, age 62.
• Lon Taylor Willbanks died April 19, 2025, at Ware State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Overdose, age 31.

What the Coroner Found

The Ware County Coroner's records, produced to GPS under open records and catalogued as court-verified and medically verified, describe a facility in which men are killed with edged weapons at close range. Squaier Lamar Jiles died of exsanguination due to multiple sharp force wounds; the coroner classified the death a homicide (case ME-24-60521). David Renfro died of multiple blunt and sharp force injuries with ligature strangulation as a contributing factor, classified a homicide (ME-24-60594). Samuel Kieth Ellis died of multiple sharp-force injuries, a homicide (ME-24-60390). Christopher Michael Taylor died of a stab wound of the torso, a homicide (ME-24-60194). Leonardo Lamont Anderson died of multiple stab wounds, a homicide (ME-24-60775). Scott Lee Hullander died of multiple sharp force injuries, a homicide (ME-25-60001). Kyle Anthony Strother died of a stab wound of the chest, with the coroner documenting two stab wounds to the right upper chest, one to the right upper arm, and two to the upper back (DOFS 2022-6003233). Robert Lee Wilson III was stabbed numerous times in the back and the right posterior leg down to the knee, a homicide (DOFS 2020-6004206).

The records also show how thin the investigative response can be. In Cody Humphrey's case, the GBI Division of Forensic Sciences declined to examine the death, issuing a declination under case number ME-26-60146 stating that "this case has been reviewed by the medical examiner. Based on the information provided at this time, an examination by this office is not necessary." The same language appears in the declination for Demarcus McClarin, reported January 23, 2025, and in the declination for Michael Lee Parker. In the Parker declination, the document states no cause and no manner of death and does not reproduce the information on which the decision was based.

Some deaths carry a classification that does not settle the question. Charles Johnny Rice, 62, died April 27, 2025; GBI certified the cause as Asphyxia and the manner as UNDETERMINED. The medical examiner's report in that case found hemorrhages of the base of the tongue, strap muscles, perilaryngeal soft tissue, and posterior neck musculature, petechiae of the face, eyes, and mouth, and stated that homicidal strangulation cannot be excluded — while also noting the neck compression could have been caused by hanging. The report states the circumstances surrounding the neck-compression injury are unclear.

Others are simply natural, and the records say so plainly. Carlton Atkins Jones died of hypoxic respiratory failure due to pulmonary edema and volume overload due to congestive heart failure, with chronic liver disease as a significant condition. Michael Cohen died of congestive heart failure due to hypertensive cardiovascular disease. Vernon Edward Kennedy died of acute respiratory hypoxia due to complications of a right hip fracture suffered in a fall in the shower; the coroner classified the death accidental. David Michael Dixon died of cardiac arrest due to hypoglycemia, with Type 2 diabetes and hypothyroidism in the chain. Lon Taylor Willbanks died of global anoxic brain injury from the toxic effects of MDMB-4en-PINACA, a synthetic cannabinoid; the coroner classified it accidental.

The August 2020 Riot and What It Revealed

On August 1, 2020, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported, malfunctioning doors at Ware State Prison allowed incarcerated people to walk out of their rooms. According to the AJC's account, prisoners took two guards hostage, beating and stabbing one, and hundreds of inmates ransacked the prison. GDC records cited in that reporting show 33 homemade weapons were used, 55 security staff were directly involved, and a mass employee exodus followed. The AJC reported that GDC publicly described the incident as merely a "disturbance," while internal records describe hostage-taking, escape attempts, assaults, and use of force.

Internal staff records and recorded interviews fill in the staffing picture behind that night. A recording from 2020 captured a statement that three supervisors were essentially running the entire prison on a given night. A staff record indicates that multiple supervisors were attacked and had their keys taken, and that incarcerated people obtained keys from supervising staff and thereby gained access to multiple buildings, including the lockdown units. A staff recording indicates that bringing keys into the building was the main factor in the riot — and that doing so violates policy and is not permitted at all. Staff had raised questions to management about how officers would perform their duties if control rooms were shut down; management responded that inmates would not be locked down and that officers would be given keys to dorms and control rooms.

Christopher Hickox, a former Ware correctional officer who began working at the facility around 2017, described the arc of that decline in a June 2026 YouTube interview with Tyler Ryals. Hickox said that when he started, every control room had a control room officer, and each floor was supposed to have two officers but staffing shortfalls meant it had one. By the end, he said, he ran four buildings alone on some nights — roughly 400 incarcerated people by himself — with no officer in the control room and, he said, no pepper spray or baton, because those items had been withdrawn after being wasted or used improperly. He also said officers did not have handcuffs because correctional officers were stealing them.

Tyler Ryals, a former GDC CERT commander, described the same collapse from the tactical side in a June 2026 interview. Ryals said that because of the staffing shortage a man who stabs someone may not even be locked up, because no officer was there to see who did it; that he was sometimes the only officer available to take a stabbed inmate to medical and could not leave him there with the nurses because no security was present; and that in his last years, roughly 2020 to 2024, he would usually only learn of a stabbing when the injured inmate walked up to him asking for medical care.

Staffing, Turnover, and the Officers Who Left

Officer Mondragon, a former Ware correctional officer who worked at the facility about three years, described the working conditions in an April 2026 YouTube interview. She said post checks were done only to make it look good for the cameras because there were not enough staff. She said she was assaulted inside the prison when two inmates grabbed her on the top tier and tried to throw her over the railing of the dorm, after she spotted a cell phone in cell 25 on the A side; two other female officers in the dorm "completely froze," and the control room only noticed because she hot-miked her radio. She said cell 25 cannot be seen from the control room where they were stationed. She said she quit after the assault, which she described as one of the final straws, and that she left not quite a year before the August riot.

Mondragon also described a facility where complaints went nowhere. She said she reported a floor officer to the warden for smuggling; that officer, she said, was caught with roughly three cell phones, two to three ounces of marijuana, and cigarettes. She said complaints about colleagues "don't really do anything." She said she was passed over for sergeant after acing the sergeant board, and that women advance at Ware through sexual favors to supervisors while men advance by joining the "boy gang" of higher-ups — an allegation she insinuates, in her account, involved a sexual relationship between the woman who got the slot and the deputy warden. She said her captain sent her to the "thunder dorms" as punishment after she made him angry. She tells would-be officers not to take the job because pay is low and staff are "treated like trash."

A separate staff record describes the physical plant failing alongside the staffing. A staff member said in a recorded interview that staffing had gotten really bad in the year before the interview, and that the facility was lucky to have 10 people show up for morning briefing; a GPS staff record indicates the minimum staffing level believed necessary to run a shift is 30 to 37 officers. Another recorded interview states that over roughly an 18-month period, upper management was bending and breaking policy to meet daily operating procedures. A staff member said multiple people currently employed at Ware reach out to outside parties but are afraid to speak publicly because of fear of retaliation and being fired.

Mondragon said she and others warned Ware administration for months and years that the prison would riot unless problems such as sewage-flooded dorms were fixed, and were brushed off. She described sewage-flooded dorms among the problems she says were not fixed.

Lockdown Conditions, Contraband, and the View From Inside

Public posts collected from the Ga. Prisons Exposed Facebook group describe conditions during lockdowns. Justin Martin wrote on October 16, 2026 that "the living conditions your LO's at Ware State Prison in Waycross Georgia are forced to endure on lockdown with temperatures rising to 108°F and they refuse you showers at this facility." On October 9, 2026, Martin wrote: "I'm still talking about Ware State Prison denying me my shower for over a month." Melissa Pass wrote on October 21, 2026: "Ware state prison lockdown cells. No power, infested with roaches." These are the posters' own accounts, not GPS findings.

Hickox described the contraband economy in his June 2026 interview. He said that once drones started flying contraband into the prison he lost count of how many times it happened; that while working the perimeter he could hear drones fly over but could not see them because their lights were covered; and that inmates in the dorms he worked had cut the bars off the windows and set them back so they looked secure, letting them get out and retrieve whatever a drone dropped. He said the most drugs he ever found at one time came through the laundry: five gloves filled with meth and two more filled with marijuana, which he estimated at several thousand dollars on the street. He said that in 2018 or 2019 officers were told to stop cell searches and random searches because there was not the manpower if something popped off — a marked change from his first year, when cell searches and building searches were done almost every day.

Hickox also said that when GDC commissioners and board members visited the facility, that was the only time the LOPs and SOPs were put in the control rooms where they belong, and no officers or inmates were supposed to talk to them.

The state's own inspection record adds a data point on the food side. Georgia Department of Public Health routine inspections of the Ware kitchen scored 95 on April 25, 2023; 95 on November 1, 2023; 94 on May 14, 2024; 94 on November 6, 2024; 98 on March 17, 2025; 97 on August 18, 2025; 98 on March 23, 2026; 90 on July 1, 2026; and 86 on July 6, 2026 — the two most recent inspections the lowest in the series.

A Facility Under Contracted Medical Staffing

Centurion Amendment 1, the correctional medical contract document, lists 40 estimated weekly primary care physician hours for Ware SP at a weekly rate of $144 per hour, and 40 estimated weekly medical director hours at $150 per hour. Mondragon said inmates at Ware were charged $5 for medical care, and that they received dental work and knee surgeries for that charge.

What GPS's Records Show at Scale

GPS's intelligence system records 33 distinct sources reporting alleged assault by another incarcerated person at Ware over the past twelve months, concentrated heavily in May 2026, when 17 sources reported such assaults in a single month. GPS records 15 family-safety-concern signals across five months, 8 reports of alleged staff misconduct by unnamed staff, 7 reports of a death in custody, 6 reports of staffing shortage, 5 reports of alleged sanitation failure, and 4 reports of grievance obstruction. Seven external complaints were filed to oversight bodies in the period — to the Fire Marshal, GASFMO, GBI, GDC Ombudsman, and State Fire Marshal.

GPS has also received recurring reports of violence at Ware, including accounts of stabbings and of assaults that sources say were not formally recorded as incidents. These are accounts GPS holds; they are not independently confirmed.

The Federal Findings

The U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division and the U.S. Attorney's Offices for the Northern, Middle and Southern Districts of Georgia, in their October 1, 2024 findings report on Georgia prisons, documented that at Ware State Prison a stabbing victim waited half an hour while other prisoners banged on a window for help. The same findings documented prisoners dressing wounds themselves and relatives calling facilities to report emergencies inside. The DOJ's broader October 2024 conclusion — that GDC leadership had "lost control of its facilities" and placed too much blame on gangs and insufficient emphasis on understaffing — is the frame GPS applies systemwide, and Ware is one of the facilities where the pattern is most documented.

Sources

This analysis draws on Georgia Safety Fire Marshal's Office inspection reports for Ware State Prison dated June 23, August 24, and September 24, 2026, including OCI Follow-Up #2 under File No. 26-009306 and Permit No. INS26-003833, and the photographs catalogued with those inspections; Ware County Coroner and GBI Division of Forensic Sciences records produced under open records, including autopsy and declination documents; GDC mortality data and GPS's own mortality registry; Georgia Department of Public Health routine food-service inspections; the text of O.C.G.A. § 25-2-37 and related fire and building code provisions; the U.S. Department of Justice's October 1, 2024 findings report on Georgia prisons; reporting by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Georgia Public Broadcasting; recorded interviews with former Ware correctional officer Christopher Hickox, former Ware correctional officer Officer Mondragon, and former GDC CERT commander Tyler Ryals; public Facebook posts from the Ga. Prisons Exposed group; Centurion Amendment 1; and accounts collected by GPS staff and published in Tell My Story.