WARE STATE PRISON

Analysis written on July 7, 2026.

Ware State Prison, a close‑security men’s facility outside Waycross, houses roughly 1,447 people in a compound originally designed for 500. Warden James Spann leads a facility that has become one of the deadliest in the Georgia prison system. GPS-tracked mortality records document 84 deaths at Ware since 2020—8 in the first year rising to 16 in 2023, 15 in 2024, and 15 in 2025—while a Georgia Prisoners’ Speak (GPS) investigation found at least nineteen prisoners killed by other prisoners between 2020 and mid‑2026, with no public record that anyone was ever prosecuted. The violence unfolds inside a prison where gangs control housing, weapons are ubiquitous, and staffing has collapsed.

The Unprosecuted Dead: At Least Nineteen Homicides

GPS’s July 2026 investigation, “At Least Nineteen: The Murders the State Didn’t Prosecute,” examined every inmate‑on‑inmate homicide at Ware from 2020 onward. The state’s own coroner and crime‑lab records, obtained through an open‑records request, name a suspected attacker in eleven of those deaths. GPS found no public record that a single accused was charged, indicted, or tried. The Atlanta Journal‑Constitution independently reported that ten prisoners were killed at Ware between July 2020 and August 2024, with multiple prisoners involved in several of the homicides.

Among those killed were Samuel Keith Ellis, 31, who died of multiple sharp‑force injuries in August 2024; Christopher Michael Drake Taylor, 33, stabbed in the torso in May 2024; Leonardo Lamonte Anderson, 49, killed by multiple stab wounds in April 2024; Thomas Jerome McCoy, 38, stabbed in the chest in October 2023; Alfonso Marquez Moore, 30, who died of blunt head trauma in June 2023; Va’Darian LaVianta Carr, 26, stabbed in the chest and back in September 2022; Kyle Anthony Strother, 31, stabbed in the chest in June 2022; Christopher Eli Gresham, 39, stabbed in the back and lower extremities in September 2021; Christopher Arnett Rawls, 32, strangled in September 2020; and Robert Lee Wilson III, 31, killed by multiple stab wounds in July 2020—an incident in which sixteen other prisoners were reportedly involved. In May 2026, Kojack Thomas Jr., 27, was found dead; the GDC’s Office of Professional Standards launched an investigation into what it termed a potential homicide. The accumulating toll has not led to a single prosecution.

The 2020 Hostage Crisis and the Doors That Opened

On August 1, 2020, malfunctioning cell doors allowed prisoners to walk out of their housing units at Ware. They took two correctional officers hostage, beating and stabbing one, and hundreds of prisoners ransacked the compound. GDC records show 33 homemade weapons were used, 55 security staff were directly involved, and a mass employee exodus followed. The Atlanta Journal‑Constitution later reported that the GDC publicly described the incident merely as a “disturbance,” while internal records describe hostage‑taking, escape attempts, assaults, and force. GPS’s own reporting documented the riot and the retaliatory lockdown that followed, including power cuts during summer heat.

That cascade of failures did not come from nowhere. GPS has established that deferred maintenance across Georgia’s aging prisons has produced systemic infrastructure collapses: broken cell‑door locks (a 2012 audit found roughly 42% non‑functional at Hays, confirmed again in a 2024 Guidehouse assessment), inoperative surveillance and fire‑alarm systems, and mold and water failures. The Department of Justice’s October 2024 findings and Commissioner Oliver’s public statements about facilities at their “end of life” confirm the pattern. At Ware, the 2020 riot was the most visible eruption of that crumbling physical plant.

Gang Dominance and the Displacement of the Unaffiliated

Multiple inmate witnesses report that gang‑affiliated prisoners control housing assignments at Ware. Gang members monopolize single‑occupancy cells and refuse assigned cellmates, forcing non‑affiliated prisoners into severely overcrowded small cells or to sleep on dayroom floors. Weapons, including large knives, are widely carried. Violence concentrates on weekends, when staffing is at its thinnest and administrative oversight is reduced. GPS’s internal analysis of incident timing found that a disproportionate share of recorded incidents occur on weekends, consistent with a staffing‑driven supervision gap.

These accounts align with systemic findings GPS has documented statewide. Officer vacancies across Georgia’s prisons have run between 49 and 60 percent for years; at some facilities the rate topped 80 percent. The October 2024 DOJ findings letter concluded that “the leadership of the Georgia Department of Corrections has lost control of its facilities,” faulting GDC for placing “too much blame on gangs and insufficient emphasis on understaffing.” Approximately 31 percent of the system’s roughly 49,000 incarcerated people are validated members of security threat groups—more than double the national average—and DOJ and the Guidehouse assessment both found that gangs effectively run multiple facilities, controlling access to phones, showers, food, and bed assignments. An Atlanta Journal‑Constitution investigation documented more than 425 GDC employee arrests since 2018 for on‑the‑job crimes, primarily contraband smuggling, a count that reinforces the breakdown of institutional control.

Medical Neglect and Deaths That Went Unnoticed

DonTavis Mintz died inside Ware State Prison and his body was not discovered for days. When the remains were returned to his mother, Narissa Wright, she could identify him only by a single tooth. Georgia Public Broadcasting reported her allegation that no counts or welfare checks were conducted at the facility, allowing her son’s body to go undiscovered. The case echoes a broader pattern: GPS has received multiple reports of medical indifference and delayed care, including accounts that Ware refused to accept a prisoner due to a critical medical condition and that staff told an incarcerated person he needed hospital care rather than incarceration.

Despite the violence and medical crises, Ware’s kitchen received consistently high scores from the Georgia Department of Public Health: 94 to 98, all Grade A, with minor violations such as physical-facilities maintenance. Yet GPS has documented system‑wide that DPH scores often fail to capture real kitchen conditions—broken tray‑sanitizing dishwashers, roach and rodent infestations, and meals served on contaminated trays exist behind the passing grades. The state spends roughly $1.69 per person per day on food, under 60 cents per meal, compared to the FDA Thrifty Food Plan estimate of about $10 per day. The Marshall Project’s May 2026 investigation of Georgia prison food independently confirmed rats in kitchens, insects in food, and visible malnutrition.

Staffing Collapse and Its Consequences

Ware’s current leadership—Warden James Spann (since October 2024), Deputy Warden of Security Martella Walker, and Deputy Warden of Administration Aiyesha Johnson—inherited a facility hollowed out by attrition. The 2020 exodus never reversed. GPS has documented that system‑wide new‑hire acceptance rates are under 15 percent, and 82.7 percent of new officers leave within their first year. Georgia ranks last in the nation for correctional‑officer pay. The DOJ October 2024 findings explicitly described a department that had “lost control,” noting that gangs filled the vacuum of absent staff.

Amid this vacuum, the AJC reported ten homicides in four years, and GPS’s intelligence system tracked a surge of inmate‑assault reports in 2026, particularly in May, when multiple sources described fatal and non‑fatal violence. Former GDC Warden Brian Adams was arrested in 2023 on charges related to misconduct, according to GPS reporting, highlighting a pattern of staff misconduct that extends from line officers to facility leadership.

The systemic sexual‑violence crisis documented by the DOJ—which found sexual assault “rampant” and concluded that GDC does not reasonably protect incarcerated people—casts a long shadow over every violent facility, Ware included. The pervasiveness of uncontrolled assaults between prisoners, in an environment where no accountability follows homicide, makes sexual predation an inevitable component of institutional life.

Retaliation and the Suppression of Oversight

GPS has received multiple accounts from family members alleging that Ware State Prison staff retaliate against incarcerated people whose families advocate for them. The pattern includes conditioning release from segregation on a family member ceasing contact with the facility, threatening return to segregation for the duration of a sentence if legal representation is mentioned, and transferring prisoners to block communication with oversight authorities such as the Department of Justice. GPS’s own reporting has detailed an ongoing investigation into obstruction by the Georgia Attorney General’s Office and the shielding of corrupt GDC personnel, a barrier to accountability that compounds the closed‑door violence at Ware.

The federal judiciary has begun to take note of Georgia’s systemic failures. In March 2026, U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg denied a state motion to dismiss a lawsuit alleging that Georgia’s parole process for juvenile lifers is a sham, ruling that the process may violate the Eighth Amendment. While not specific to Ware, the ruling underscores the broader constitutional crisis enveloping Georgia’s prisons.

Sources

This analysis draws on reporting from the Atlanta Journal‑Constitution, Georgia Public Broadcasting, and The Marshall Project; GPS’s own investigative articles, including “At Least Nineteen: The Murders the State Didn’t Prosecute”; Georgia Department of Public Health inspection records; GPS‑tracked mortality data; federal court records; and inmate and family accounts collected by GPS staff.