WARE STATE PRISON

Ware State Prison, a close-security facility in Waycross with a reported bed capacity of roughly 1,546, has emerged over the past five years as one of the deadliest prisons in Georgia's state system. Reporting by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Georgia Public Broadcasting, and other outlets has documented at least ten in-custody homicides between July 2020 and August 2024, a mass disturbance that the Georgia Department of Corrections (GDC) publicly minimized, and a deteriorating internal control environment that GPS sources describe as functionally ceded to gang-affiliated incarcerated populations during periods of reduced staffing. This page analyzes the homicide record at Ware, the August 2020 disturbance and its aftermath, persistent allegations of retaliatory segregation and obstructed legal access, and a related federal ruling on Georgia's parole system that has implications for Ware's lifer population.

A Concentrated Homicide Record, July 2020 to August 2024

Reporting based on GDC incident records, principally by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, identifies ten people killed inside Ware State Prison across a four-year span — a count notable both for its absolute size and for how often the records show multiple incarcerated participants in the same homicide.

The killings began on July 17, 2020, when Robert Lee Wilson III, 31, died from multiple stab wounds; an incident report referenced in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's reporting indicates 16 other inmates were involved, seven of whom were injured. Less than two months later, on September 5, 2020, Christopher Arnett Rawls, 32, was killed by strangulation. The pattern continued through 2021 with the September 30 stabbing death of Christopher Eli Gresham, 39, who suffered stab wounds to his back and lower extremities in a homicide that incident records indicate involved three other inmates.

Two homicides followed in 2022: Kyle Anthony Strother, 31, died June 5 from a stab wound to the chest, and Va'Darian LaVianta Carr, 26, died September 18 from stab wounds to the chest and back. In 2023, Alfonso Marquez Moore, 30, was killed June 19 by blunt impact injuries to the head, and Thomas Jerome McCoy, 38, died October 7 from a stab wound to the chest, with three other prisoners involved according to GDC data. The toll accelerated again in 2024: Leonardo Lamonte Anderson, 49, died April 20 from multiple stab wounds in what GDC classified as assault by another with a sharp object; Christopher Michael Drake Taylor, 33, died May 28 from a stab wound to the torso; and Samuel Keith Ellis, 31, died August 1 from multiple sharp force injuries, with three inmates involved.

The recurring presence of multiple participants in these homicides — 16 involved in one case, three in others — points away from isolated altercations and toward a facility in which group violence has become routine.

The August 1, 2020 Disturbance and the Gap Between Public and Internal Records

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's reporting on Ware draws a sharp contrast between how GDC publicly characterized the August 1, 2020 incident at the facility and what internal records show. Publicly, GDC described the event as merely a "disturbance." Internal records reviewed in that reporting describe something substantially more serious: malfunctioning doors that allowed inmates to walk out of their rooms, two correctional officers taken hostage — one beaten and stabbed — and ultimately hundreds of inmates ransacking the prison. GDC records cited in the reporting tally 33 homemade weapons used, 55 security staff directly involved, and a mass employee exodus in the aftermath.

Subsequent reporting documented that the institutional response included a punitive lockdown extending into the summer heat, with power cuts compounding conditions on locked-down units. The disconnect between the "disturbance" framing and the operational reality — hostage-taking, escape attempts, dozens of weapons in play, and a staffing collapse afterward — has become one of the more concrete documented examples of GDC's tendency to publicly minimize incidents whose internal records describe near-loss-of-facility events.

Death Discovery Failures and the DonTavis Mintz Case

Among the most disturbing accounts to emerge from Ware concerns the death of DonTavis Mintz. Georgia Public Broadcasting reported that Mintz died inside the facility and his body was not discovered for days. When his remains were eventually returned to his mother, Narissa Wright, she could only identify him by a single tooth. Wright alleges that no counts or welfare checks were conducted at the facility during the period her son's body lay undiscovered — an allegation that, if accurate, points to a complete breakdown of the basic custodial supervision practices on which any safe confinement depends.

The Mintz case stands as a discrete public-record marker of the broader supervision failure that frames the Ware homicide record: a facility in which deaths can go unnoticed long enough that visual identification is no longer possible.

Custody Breakdown, Gang Dynamics, and Weekend Patterns

GPS has received recurring reports describing a pattern in which gang-affiliated incarcerated populations exercise control over housing assignments at Ware, particularly during weekends and other periods of reduced staffing, with non-affiliated people displaced into overcrowded cells or onto dayroom floors. Multiple sources have reported widespread weapons possession among the incarcerated population. GPS has also received reports that violent incidents at the facility cluster on weekends and during reduced-staffing periods, and reports of multiple stabbing incidents at Ware in early 2026 that resulted in outside hospital transports and facility lockdowns.

These aggregate accounts align with what the publicly reported homicide record already shows on its face: a facility where the multiplicity of participants in fatal assaults is itself evidence that custodial supervision is not interrupting group violence in progress. The August 2020 internal records — 33 weapons, hundreds of inmates ransacking the facility — establish that contraband saturation and loss of unit control at Ware are not new conditions.

Allegations of Retaliatory Segregation and Obstructed Legal Access

GPS has received accounts from family members alleging that incarcerated people at Ware have been placed in extended segregation, with release allegedly conditioned on family members ceasing contact with facility staff or oversight authorities. GPS has also received reports of staff at Ware allegedly threatening incarcerated people with continued segregation if they attempted to obtain legal counsel, and reports alleging that transfers into Ware and placements in segregation have been used to disrupt communication with the U.S. Department of Justice. These reports, which GPS is registering as received, describe a pattern of segregation being deployed not for documented disciplinary cause but as a tool against external advocacy and legal access.

Federal Court Ruling on Juvenile Lifer Parole

A separate but related development bearing on Ware's population concerns Georgia's parole process for juvenile lifers. U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg denied the State Board of Pardons and Paroles' motion to dismiss the Buttrum lawsuit, finding that the parole process may operate as a sham and ruling that Georgia's parole process for juvenile lifers may violate the Eighth Amendment. The ruling does not name Ware specifically, but Ware houses incarcerated people serving life sentences, and any structural finding about the constitutional adequacy of Georgia's parole review for that class has direct implications for the facility's long-term population.

Broader Accountability Context

Reporting referenced in coverage of Georgia's prison system describes an ongoing investigation into alleged obstruction by the Georgia Attorney General's Office, including allegations of evidence withholding and the shielding of corrupt GDC personnel. While that investigation is broader than Ware, it forms part of the institutional context against which Ware's homicide record, the August 2020 incident's public framing, and the segregation-and-obstruction accounts from family members must be read.

Sources

This analysis draws on reporting from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Georgia Public Broadcasting; GDC incident records as referenced in that reporting; a federal ruling by U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg in the Buttrum litigation; and inmate, family, and anonymous-tip accounts collected by GPS staff.