DOOLY STATE PRISON

Last updated August 29, 2026.(DS)

Dooly State Prison in Unadilla is a large medium-security facility often used for men who cannot be housed in county prisons, including many sex-offense and medically limited populations. Constructed in 1993 and opened in 1994, it consists of nine main housing units with triple-bunked and double-bunked cells, an open living unit, and an isolation/segregation block, along with a Fast Track unit. Dooly offers GED, basic education, limited vocational and religious programming. GPS's own records show the facility currently holds 1,379 men — 81% of its 1,702 rated capacity, but 276% of its original 500-person design capacity. That gap between what the facility was built to hold and what it now contains is the through-line for nearly every crisis documented on this page: the violence, the staffing collapse, the medical failures, and the food-safety contradictions.

The Death Toll: Homicides, Medical Failures, and a Pattern of Delayed Discovery

GPS's mortality database records 50 deaths at Dooly State Prison since 2020, a floor rather than a ceiling given that GDC reports deaths roughly two months late. Seven of those deaths are classified as homicides; 29 carry an unknown or pending cause; 11 are attributed to natural or medical causes; two are overdoses. The most recent recorded death is Jerry Jerome Smith, who died on August 21, 2026, with his cause still pending review.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has documented a string of homicides at the facility. Dimitri Merci Jackson, 36, died on January 3, 2023 from a stab wound to the chest. Chad Taylor Roadifer, 45, died on October 27, 2023 from delayed complications of blunt force head trauma sustained months earlier. Brian Lee Wainwright, 59, died on January 4, 2024 in a manner ruled a homicide. Raquon Ja'Veyonte Tucker, 26, died on March 22, 2024 from complications of blunt force head trauma. Carlos Omar Soldiew-Acosta, 38, died on June 22, 2024 from complications due to blunt force trauma; a coroner told a TV station he may have been dead for more than 24 hours before his body was found. Zeary Davis, 31, died on September 26, 2024 — his birthday — and a county coroner told a TV station he was stabbed to death.

The medical deaths are equally specific. James Michael Bailey, 44, died from sepsis contracted from pneumonia caused by an infected insect bite approximately four months into his sentence, according to Georgia Public Broadcasting. His son, Cody Bailey, alleges that medical staff at Dooly put his father's treatment "on the back burner," contributing to his death. The AJC reported that James Yarbrough suffered from uncontrolled diabetes for months at the facility before dying of ketoacidosis in a case alleging medical malpractice; the state later paid a $700,000 settlement tied to his 2020 death, according to the GA DOAS Risk Management settlement ledger.

The September 2024 Killing of Zeary Davis: A Warning Ignored

The killing of Zeary Davis is the most fully documented incident in GPS's Dooly file, and it illustrates how the facility's staffing collapse and gang-control dynamics intersect.

On September 23, 2024, a private citizen wrote to Commissioner Tyrone Oliver at his government email address warning that two named Bloods leaders — Dekito Champ and Marcus Taylor, identified by GDC ID number — were running an extortion ring in Dorm E1. The letter stated that a close-security Blood was living alone in room 215 at the medium-security facility after forcibly removing his roommate, and that another Bloods member was sleeping in a room he was not assigned to. The letter asked the Commissioner to move them.

Three days later, on September 26, 2024, Zeary Davis was stabbed to death in Dorm E1. No officer was in the dorm when he was stabbed. Dooly State Prison has no panic buttons; the only way to summon help from E1 was a contraband cellphone. Two incarcerated men kept pressure on Davis's wounds. The prisoners' own volunteer fire crew reached him before the shift supervisor did. When Davis was dying, no officer had the keys to the three gates between the dorm and outside medical help. The AJC reported his death; GPS's own reporting documents that Qwinterrious Dodson allegedly stabbed Davis through the heart, and that Dodson has never been charged.

The warning that preceded the killing was not the first. Tyler Ryals, a GDC Correctional Emergency Response Team (CERT) commander with nearly ten years of service across five state prisons, swore out a witness statement on August 1, 2024 warning GDC leadership that prisons were collapsing due to staffing shortages, climbing violence, and contraband. He wrote that posts once staffed by several officers were being worked alone or not at all, that an officer might not set foot in a building for five hours at a stretch, and that gangs were running housing units — telling officers "we're moving so-and-so into this cell" and getting the cell moves approved. He wrote that he knew he could face discipline for making the warning. GDC records state he resigned twelve days later, on or about August 13, 2024; he did not write a resignation letter.

In August 2024, GDC sent Ahmed Holt, Assistant Commissioner for the Facilities Division, to meet with Ryals when HR balked at firing him for raising the alarm. Ryals recorded the meeting and gave GPS the recording. On the recording, Holt disputed essentially none of what Ryals had put in his sworn statement. He did not deny that lone female officers were holding male prisons. He reframed the staffing crisis as a nationwide issue — "It's not just a GDC issue. It is a system-wide issue. It is a nationwide issue." — and asked Ryals if he was "venting." When told there are not enough officers, Holt said: "If you can figure out how to get 3,000 men into the Georgia Department of Corrections, I'm gonna go get them." He offered no plan to address the staffing crisis.

Classification Drift: A Medium-Security Prison Operating as Close Security

GPS's own investigative reporting has documented that Dooly is one of four medium-security prisons in Georgia operating as de facto close-security facilities. GPS obtained data showing Dooly, Wilcox, Calhoun, and Washington State Prisons now house 28–30% close-security populations — rates up to 10 times higher than other facilities — with homicide rates 4–5 times higher than properly classified prisons. The DOJ found all four facilities in violation of the Eighth Amendment.

The consequences of that classification drift are concrete. On November 7, 2025, 58-year-old Darrow Brown was stabbed to death at Dooly after accidentally bumping into a gang member, according to GPS reporting. He was under officer escort during restricted movement. The September 2024 warning letter to Commissioner Oliver had already flagged the same dynamic: a close-security Blood living alone in room 215 at a medium-security facility after forcibly removing his roommate.

Inmate accounts collected by GPS describe a pattern of close-security individuals being housed at Dooly in violation of classification protocols, and of gang-affiliated individuals being permitted to leave housing units following violent incidents. GPS's internal analysis indicates that approximately 22.5% of transfers out of Dooly State Prison involved incarcerated people serving life sentences — ranking second among facilities — consistent with the facility's role as a destination for men who cannot be housed elsewhere.

Gang Control and the 2026 Escalation

The gang-control dynamic at Dooly has not been static. In 2026, it escalated into a series of incidents that triggered statewide lockdowns.

On March 23, 2026, a gang-related fight in one dormitory left five inmates injured, all with non-life-threatening injuries, according to GDC. On April 1, 2026, a gang-related altercation injured six inmates, three of whom were transported via Life Flight. On May 22, 2026, a gang-related fight left nine inmates injured and prompted GDC to place all facilities on statewide lockdown "out of an abundance of caution." Visitation was cancelled at Dooly, Washington, Ware, and Hancock State Prisons for the Memorial Day weekend. On June 7, 2026, an altercation involving three inmates sent one to a local hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

GPS's own reporting frames the April 1, 2026 escalation as part of a coordinated Blood-on-Blood factional war between ROLACC and G-Shine sets that erupted across the Georgia prison system, with at least 12 prisons locked down, life flights dispatched to two facilities, and stabbings at five. GPS has documented that Dooly is one of the facilities where GDC has deployed Managed Access Systems (MAS) cell phone blocking technology — part of a $50 million statewide phone war that GPS reporting connects to a destabilization of the power structures that had previously kept violence in check.

GPS records show 27 distinct sources reporting assault-by-inmate allegations at Dooly over the past 12 months, concentrated in March through July 2026, with severity ratings running from critical to low. Eight sources reported family safety concerns; six reported named staff misconduct allegations; three reported staffing shortages at critical or moderate severity. Inmate accounts collected by GPS describe a pattern of gang-affiliated individuals orchestrating violence and extortion within the facility, and of warnings given to facility staff being ignored.

Staffing Collapse and the Contraband Economy

The staffing crisis at Dooly is not a matter of inference. GPS's systemic finding documents that officer vacancies in Georgia's prisons have run between 49.3% and 60% systemwide for multiple years, against a national standard of no more than 10%. 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 ~49,000 incarcerated population are validated members of 315 different security threat groups — more than double the national average.

The consequences at Dooly are documented in GPS's own investigation into staffing collapse at the facility, which revealed housing units with no officer supervision for hours or entire shifts. GPS's reporting documents that Dooly holds 1,593 people in a facility designed for 500, with fewer officers now serving that population than when the facility held 750.

The contraband economy flourishes in that vacuum. WGXA reported that Julius Deshawn Williams Jr., a corrections officer cadet, attempted to smuggle 640 grams of 100% pure methamphetamine into Dooly State Prison to give to an inmate. GDC officers found four packages of meth hidden in his pants during a routine search in June 2024; a subsequent vehicle search uncovered four more packages and a pistol. Williams pleaded guilty in December to one count of possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine and was sentenced to 10 years in prison followed by five years of supervised release, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Middle District of Georgia.

The AJC reported that Magnum Jelani Neely used contraband cellphones to lead a drug ring in the Augusta area from Dooly, contacting drug couriers to deliver meth inside and outside Georgia prisons; he was sentenced to 278 months in September 2024. Multiple outlets — WALB, Wesh.com, and News-journalonline.com — reported that Abraham Rivas, incarcerated at Dooly, allegedly impersonated a Flagler County Sheriff's Office deputy to defraud a Florida victim into sending $1,000 in payments to his prison commissary account. Rivas admitted to using proceeds from the fraud to purchase marijuana inside the prison, and claimed that correctional staff at Dooly were aware of inmates running fraud schemes from inside the prison.

Food Safety: Perfect Scores and a Contradiction GPS Has Documented

The Georgia Department of Public Health has inspected Dooly State Prison's kitchen three times since 2023, and each inspection returned a perfect score of 100 (Grade A): June 23, 2023 (inspector Joshua Jones), June 18, 2024 (inspector Brenna Maize), and March 14, 2025 (inspector Nicole Hays-Morrison).

GPS has separately documented a systemic pattern of food-service sanitation failure across GDC kitchens that DPH inspection scores systematically fail to capture. Inmate-maintenance worker accounts collected at Dooly State Prison describe thousands of roaches inside kitchen equipment — including tray-prep tables — visible when the equipment is opened. The pattern is hidden from DPH scores, GPS's systemic finding explains, because inspections are scheduled walkthroughs that do not assess equipment under load, and because GPS has documented professional overlap between inspectors and facility staff in small-county settings. The Marshall Project independently corroborated the broader pattern on May 16, 2026, reporting rats in kitchens, insects in food, moldy trays, and visible malnutrition across Georgia facilities.

The contradiction is the analytical center of GPS's investigation "Dunked, Stacked, and Served." GDC spends approximately $1.69 per person per day on food (2024) and has proposed $1.60 per day in FY27 — under 60 cents per meal — versus the FDA Thrifty Food Plan estimate of roughly $10 per day for an adult man's nutritionally adequate diet. The state spends approximately 14 times more on medical care for incarcerated people ($432 million) than on their food.

Settlements and the Cost of Liability

The GA DOAS Risk Management settlement ledger records seven liability payouts tied to Dooly State Prison incidents between 2016 and 2023. The largest is the $700,000 settlement tied to James R. Yarbrough's 2020 death, linked to a documented death record. The others are smaller: Shon L. Miller ($25,000, 2016), Eddie J. King ($5,000, 2017), Anthony T. Hill ($1,000, 2019), Rodney McCrary ($3,100, 2020), Thomas Andrew Whittle ($3,500, 2023), and Amos Westmoreland ($1,000, 2023). The settlement ledger does not describe the underlying incidents in detail, but the Yarbrough payout — the largest by two orders of magnitude — is tied to the medical-malpractice death the AJC reported.

Leadership

Mark Agbaosi has served as Warden of Dooly State Prison since February 16, 2025. GPS reporting documents that Agbaosi was appointed without a bachelor's degree. The deputy wardens are Nequeva Nicholson (Deputy Warden of Administration, since January 16, 2025), Mable Larose Chaney (Deputy Warden, since January 1, 2016), and Lameka A Kendrick (Deputy Warden of Security, since August 16, 2026).

Sources

This analysis draws on reporting from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Georgia Public Broadcasting, WGXA, WALB, Wesh.com, News-journalonline.com, and 13WMAZ; GPS's own investigative reporting, including "The Classification Crisis: How Four Medium Security Prisons Are Killing People," "Dunked, Stacked, and Served," and "Blood on Blood: Georgia Statewide Prison Lockdown"; the GA DOAS Risk Management settlement ledger obtained through open records; Georgia Department of Public Health inspection records; the October 2024 DOJ findings letter; the Guidehouse 2024 assessment; GDC Standard Operating Procedures; and inmate and family accounts collected by GPS staff, including the on-record testimony of former GDC CERT commander Tyler Ryals and the recording of his August 2024 meeting with Assistant Commissioner Ahmed Holt.