WARE STATE PRISON

Analysis written on July 26, 2026.

Ware State Prison: The Killings Continue While the State Calls It a Disturbance

Ware State Prison, a close-security men’s facility in Waycross, has become one of the deadliest prisons in Georgia. GPS-tracked mortality records show 84 deaths in custody since 2020, with at least 19 men killed by other prisoners — and, as GPS’s own investigation “At Least Nineteen: The Murders the State Didn’t Prosecute” documented, no public record of anyone ever being prosecuted for any of those killings. A 2020 riot triggered by malfunctioning cell doors saw guards taken hostage and hundreds of inmates ransack the compound; the Georgia Department of Corrections called it a “disturbance.” In the years since, the body count has climbed, gang control has hardened, and a collapsed staffing model has left the facility unable to maintain basic security — a local manifestation of the systemic crisis the U.S. Department of Justice found across Georgia prisons in October 2024.

At Least Nineteen Homicides, and No Prosecutions

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported in January 2026 that ten incarcerated men were killed inside Ware State Prison between July 2020 and August 2024, with multiple prisoners involved in several of the homicides. Among them were Robert Lee Wilson III, 31, stabbed by 16 other inmates in July 2020; Kyle Anthony Strother, 31, who died of a stab wound to the chest in June 2022; Va’Darian LaVianta Carr, 26, stabbed in the chest and back in September 2022; and Alfonso Marquez Moore, 30, killed by blunt force to the head in June 2023. The killings continued into 2024: Christopher Michael Drake Taylor, 33, died of a stab wound to the torso on May 28; Leonardo Lamonte Anderson, 49, died from multiple stab wounds on April 20; and Samuel Keith Ellis, 31, died from multiple sharp-force injuries on August 1, in an incident that involved three other prisoners.

Georgia Public Broadcasting reported that DonTavis Mintz died at Ware and his body was not discovered for days; when his remains were returned to his mother, Narissa Wright, she could identify him only by a single tooth. Wright told GPB that no welfare checks were conducted, allowing the body to go undiscovered. Another death, that of Kojack Thomas Jr., 27, on May 31, 2024, is being investigated by the GDC Office of Professional Standards as a potential homicide.

GPS’s own investigative reporting, published under the title “At Least Nineteen: The Murders the State Didn’t Prosecute,” found that Georgia’s own autopsies named a suspect in eleven of the nineteen deaths at Ware. GPS could find no public record that any of those accused was charged, prosecuted, or tried. The homicides have not stopped: GPS’s mortality database records that in a single week in May 2026, three men died at Ware — Kojack Junior Thomas, 27, on May 31; Justin Dean Pulley, 48, on May 20; and Johnathan Cleo Hardman-Simmons, 36, also on May 20 — while inmate accounts, as documented by GPS’s intelligence system, describe a wave of violence that included a cellmate killing and an estimated six to seven hospitalized after a fight on the C and D yards. Over the past twelve months, GPS has recorded assault allegations from 18 separate sources, with the highest concentration of critical- and high-severity incidents occurring in April and May 2026.

A Riot Downplayed, a Lockdown That Punished

On August 1, 2020, malfunctioning cell doors at Ware State Prison allowed prisoners to walk out of their cells. According to the AJC’s review of internal records, those inmates took two guards hostage, beating and stabbing one, while hundreds of others ransacked the facility. GDC records show 33 homemade weapons were used, 55 security staff were directly involved, and a mass employee exodus followed. Yet the department publicly described the event as merely a “disturbance.” GPS reporting has documented that a punitive lockdown followed, with power cuts imposed during summer heat — a response that punished the entire population for a security breakdown rooted in infrastructure failure. The same broken door locks that enabled the riot are a systemwide problem: DOJ findings and the Guidehouse 2024 assessment both confirm that Georgia’s aging prisons have inoperative locks, surveillance systems, and fire alarms, a nationwide pattern GPS treats as a force multiplier for violence and mortality.

Gangs Run the Housing Units; Staffing Is a Ghost Shift

Multiple incarcerated sources and family members have reported to GPS that gang-affiliated prisoners at Ware control housing assignments, monopolize single-occupancy cells, and force non-affiliated men to sleep on dayroom floors. Gang members are said to carry large knives, and violent incidents spike on weekends, when staffing is thinnest. GPS’s intelligence system recorded a significant concentration of inmate-on-inmate assault signals in April and May 2026, including multiple reports of stabbings, gang-related fights, and hospital transports. In May 2026 alone, GPS’s internal records show five distinct signals of staff misconduct allegations, multi-source corroboration of violence, and repeated assault reports.

These accounts align with the systemic findings of the October 2024 DOJ investigation, which concluded that Georgia prison leadership has lost control of its facilities and placed “too much blame on gangs” while ignoring understaffing. The DOJ, and GDC’s own 2024 Guidehouse assessment, found that gangs effectively run multiple facilities, controlling access to phones, showers, food, and bed assignments. Systemwide, officer vacancies have hovered between 49% and 60% for years; 82.7% of new hires leave within their first year. GPS has documented that a former GDC sergeant, Tyler Ryals, was forced out after whistleblowing that he was the only security person on a compound of approximately 1,250 maximum-security inmates. At Ware, that dynamic is playing out daily: GPS’s sources describe administrative staff being unavailable on weekends, leaving gang members to exercise de facto control, while staff allegedly facilitate unauthorized housing transfers during periods of reduced oversight.

Clean Inspection Reports, Spoiled Meals

Between 2023 and 2026, the Georgia Department of Public Health conducted seven routine kitchen inspections at Ware State Prison, awarding scores of 94 to 98 — all Grade A. But GPS’s systemic investigation “Dunked, Stacked, and Served” has shown that such scores systematically fail to capture actual conditions: broken tray-sanitizing dishwashers, sustained roach and rodent infestations, and meals served on visibly contaminated trays are hidden from scheduled walkthroughs because inspectors do not assess equipment under load and, GPS has found, professional overlap between inspectors and facility staff in small counties creates a regulatory-capture dynamic.

At Ware, family members filed a formal complaint in 2026 alleging that incarcerated people are routinely served undercooked or raw food, and that portion sizes are significantly smaller than state guidelines require. The Marshall Project independently reported on May 16, 2026, that rats, insects, and mold plague Georgia prison kitchens, corroborating GPS’s finding that the state spends only $1.69 per day per person on food — under 60 cents per meal. The contradiction between Ware’s impeccable DPH scores and the lived experience of hunger and foodborne risk is not a fluke; it is a structural defect in how food-safety oversight functions inside Georgia’s prisons.

Payouts for Losses, a Drifting Classification System

State records show that Georgia has paid multiple liability settlements tied to deaths and injuries at Ware. The largest was $50,578 for the 2016 death of Christopher Stewart; $10,000 was paid for the 2019 death of Denard Brown; and a $20,000 settlement followed the 2023 death of Jimmy Mack Rice. Two additional payouts of $2,500 each resolved claims involving Bennie James Johnson (2021) and David Michael Slaughter (2015). These sums, while modest, reflect a facility at which the state has repeatedly been forced to compensate for harm.

The violence occurs inside a classification system that GPS’s reporting has shown is broken. “The Classification Crisis,” a GPS investigation published in November 2025, documented that medium-security prisons across Georgia are being forced to operate as close-security facilities without the staffing or infrastructure that higher security requires. Ware, as a close-security prison, absorbs the overflow of that drift while contending with its own understaffing and infrastructure decay. The result is a compound where the capacity to prevent violence has eroded, and where the state’s response — from downplaying a riot as a “disturbance” to failing to prosecute named assailants in homicide cases — has left prisoners to protect themselves.

Sources

This analysis draws on reporting from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Georgia Public Broadcasting, and The Marshall Project; Georgia Department of Public Health inspection records; settlement data from the Georgia Department of Administrative Services Risk Management ledger; federal court rulings; GDC’s own incident reports and public statements; GPS’s investigative articles including “At Least Nineteen,” “The Classification Crisis,” “Dunked, Stacked, and Served,” and “Why Georgia Hasn’t Had Its Attica — Yet”; the October 2024 Department of Justice findings letter; the September 2024 Guidehouse assessment; and inmate and family accounts collected by GPS’s intelligence and intake teams.