PULASKI STATE PRISON

Analysis written on August 9, 2026.

Pulaski State Prison, a medium-security women’s facility in Hawkinsville, Georgia, opened in 1994 with an original design capacity of 500. It now holds approximately 1,200 adult female felons, putting it at 96.8% of its expanded 1,223 capacity. Over the past decade, the facility has become a focal point for catastrophic medical neglect, pervasive violence, sexual misconduct by senior staff, and a federal civil rights investigation. GPS’s own investigative reporting, corroborated by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and federal court records, has traced a chain of lethal failures that stretches from a contract physician with a known history of malpractice in New York to the recent deaths of multiple women under a warden described by families as retaliatory and out of control.

Lethal Medical Neglect and the Doctor with a Prior History

GPS’s published investigation identified at least 22 women who died under the care of Dr. Yvon Nazaire at Pulaski State Prison and the Emanuel Women’s Facility between 2005 and 2015. Nazaire, according to GPS reporting, arrived with a documented record of malpractice deaths in New York, yet the State of Georgia hired him — and later gave him a raise — because he was praised for cutting costs by denying women medical care. The investigation concluded that those denials directly resulted in deaths.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that among those fatalities was Bonnie Rocheleau, who failed to receive adequate care when she developed pneumonia at Pulaski and died. Mollianne Fischer was left in a vegetative state after similar medical failures at the same facility, the AJC documented. The state’s own settlement records, obtained through open records requests, show a $925,000 liability payout tied to Rocheleau’s 2015 death and a $300,000 payout linked to Kimery Finger the same year — both at Pulaski. More recent settlements include $85,000 for Makayah Howard in 2024 and $15,900 for Dante Coleman in 2018, signaling that the medical-care crisis persisted well past Nazaire’s tenure.

Violence, Staffing Crisis, and Federal Intervention

The federal civil rights investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice, which opened in 2022, documented that sexual assault inside Georgia facilities — including at-knifepoint assaults at Pulaski — is “rampant,” and that GDC does not reasonably protect incarcerated people from sexual harm. The DOJ’s October 2024 findings letter also concluded that “the leadership of the Georgia Department of Corrections has lost control of its facilities,” faulting the agency for placing “too much blame on gangs and insufficient emphasis on understaffing.” GPS’s systemic analysis, supported by a Guidehouse 2024 assessment, has found that officer vacancies statewide have run between 49% and 60% for years, allowing gangs to operate with near-impunity inside multiple prisons.

At Pulaski, that reality has played out in a series of violent incidents. In July 2023, 11 incarcerated women used weapons including broomsticks, a crowbar, and shanks to destroy building property; nine security staff responded with chemical spray. The AJC reported an earlier incident in which officers and staff failed to notice a prisoner being stabbed until an outside caller notified them; the victim reported being assaulted hours earlier by ten people who stomped, hit, and kicked her. GPS has received multiple accounts of gang extortion at the facility — including one family that paid over $10,000 in Cash App demands after gang members threatened to disfigure their loved one’s face. The DOJ’s specific documentation of at-knifepoint sexual assaults at Pulaski underscores the depth of the lawlessness.

Sexual Misconduct by Senior Staff

The AJC reported that on May 2, 2024, Deputy Warden Alonzo L. McMillian was arrested at the Hawkinsville prison and booked into the Pulaski County jail on charges of having a sexual relationship with a prisoner — including improper sexual contact on February 24 and 25. GDC spokesperson Joan Heath confirmed that McMillian and another supervisor, Clark, were both terminated the same day. The arrests, the AJC noted, came as the prison system faced the DOJ’s civil rights investigation, and the outlet observed that the alleged misconduct could signal a larger systemic problem within GDC. The incident at Pulaski fits into a broader pattern GPS has documented of staff sexual violence: Georgia has never submitted a PREA certification of full compliance to the DOJ in the law’s two-decade history, and GDC’s own consultants found that of 388 PREA investigation files reviewed in 2022, not one met legal standards.

Food Safety Failures Behind High Scores

A January 29, 2026 routine inspection by the Georgia Department of Public Health gave the Pulaski kitchen a score of 67 — a failing Grade F — citing violations for lack of handwashing, inadequate handwashing facilities, and a person-in-charge failing to demonstrate knowledge or perform duties. A follow-up inspection the next week rebounded to a 96, but the swing reflects a pattern GPS has documented: high inspection scores can mask chronic contamination. The GPS investigation “Dunked, Stacked, and Served” found that broken tray-sanitizing dishwashers, chemical-barrel washing, and roach infestations inside kitchen equipment persist at facilities even when DPH scores are clean. At Pulaski, inspection narratives between 2024 and 2026 repeatedly cited improper cold- and hot-holding temperatures, contaminated food-contact surfaces, sewage backups, and food waste exposed to pests. The state spends approximately $1.69 per person per day on food — far below the FDA Thrifty Food Plan estimate of roughly $10 per day for an adult — and The Marshall Project independently reported in May 2026 that contaminated trays and visible malnutrition are widespread across Georgia prisons.

A New Warden, A New Wave of Deaths and Retaliation

Wendy A. Jackson became warden of Pulaski State Prison on April 16, 2025. Within months, families began sounding an alarm about retaliation, extended lockdowns, and unsafe conditions under the “untested warden,” according to GPS’s published investigation. Multiple inmate and family accounts describe water shutoffs lasting days, denial of showers for extended periods, weeks without clean clothing, confiscation of personal locks and property, and near-total isolation with only a single phone call permitted during protracted lockdowns. GPS records show that these reports intensified alongside a cluster of new deaths.

GPS’s mortality database lists 30 deaths at Pulaski since 2020, with 20 categorized as unknown or pending cause. In the 13 months between December 2025 and July 2026, the facility recorded six deaths: Ronika Lashewn Carswell (50, December 2025), Denecia Nichelle Randall (28, March 2026, suicide), Karen Michelle Lindsey (59, May 2026, cause pending), Tulia Eustache (66, June 2026, cause pending), Monika Yvette Bradley (July 2026, cause pending), and Kristi Perkins (July 2026, natural/medical). GDC stated that both Perkins’ and Bradley’s deaths were under investigation by its Office of Professional Standards and, for Perkins, by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. A mechanical air-conditioning issue on July 9, 2025 was resolved the same day; GDC said there was no indication it was related to any deaths. Yet the clustering of fatalities under a new administration, combined with the facility’s history of lethal medical neglect and GPS’s documentation of grievance system failures, has left families reporting deep fears for their loved ones’ safety — GPS’s intelligence system records multiple high-severity family-fear-for-life signals from Pulaski over the past 12 months.

Sources

This analysis draws on GPS’s own investigative reporting, including the investigations into Dr. Yvon Nazaire’s tenure and conditions under Warden Jackson; reporting from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and The Marshall Project; state Department of Public Health inspection records; Georgia Department of Administrative Services settlement ledgers; federal DOJ findings; and inmate and family accounts collected by GPS staff.