Agbaosi, Mark

Tenure Summary

Mark Agbaosi began his Georgia Department of Corrections career as a correctional officer at Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison in 2010, then returned in 2015 and advanced through sergeant, lieutenant, captain, and unit manager postings. He served as deputy warden at Georgia Diagnostic from January 2023 through December 2024, and in January 2025 became warden at Dooly State Prison, a posting GPS records list as continuing.

GPS’s authoritative count attributes 55 deaths to Agbaosi’s facility-leader tenures: 46 at Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison and 9 at Dooly State Prison. Two federal lawsuits are catalogued with Agbaosi as a defendant; both remain pending with no disposition or payout recorded.

What happened on their watch

Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison — Deputy Warden, 2023–2024

GPS attributes 46 deaths to this tenure; the listed decedents range in age from 25 to 76. Atlanta Journal-Constitution investigation records cited in GPS files list Carrell D. Johnson’s cause of death as chopping injuries of the head and sharp-force injuries of the torso, and Elmer W. Pless’s as strangulation. Another decedent, Brandon Trace Burrell, was reported by the AJC to have been assaulted by another inmate while under the effects of methamphetamine, with numerous stab wounds. For Joshua Mark Holliday, GPS records state that a GBI autopsy certified manner suicide by hanging and toxicology positive for methamphetamine, while the file also flags that a family/witness dispute over the suicide ruling remains open.

GPS intelligence files for the same prison also contain AJC-reported security allegations, including an officer admitting she accepted thousands of dollars to provide a death row prisoner with information, a newly convicted man found with a shank and contraband cellphone within days, and a prisoner who sought gang protection and was later attacked.

Dooly State Prison — Warden, 2025–present

GPS attributes 9 deaths to this tenure; listed ages range from 32 to 70. A GPS user report alleges Darrow Brown was attacked by a member of the Crips gang while being escorted back to his building by an officer, and that Brown was a civilian, not gang-affiliated.

GPS event records during this period document a series of gang-related fights: five inmates injured on March 23, 2026; six injured, three airlifted, on April 1, 2026; and nine injured on May 22, 2026 — the last triggering a statewide GDC lockdown and cancellation of visitation at Dooly and three other prisons. Reporting collected by GPS also says Abraham Rivas told investigators that correctional staff at Dooly were aware of phone-fraud schemes and that he used proceeds to purchase marijuana inside the prison. In November 2025, GPS recorded an investigation into staffing collapse at Dooly, citing housing units with no officer supervision for hours or entire shifts. An anonymous Facebook comment from May 2026 alleged the commissary was severely understocked for about three weeks and stated that the warden said he had no prior knowledge of the shortage.

Litigation

• Miller v. Holt, No. 5:25-cv-00356, U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia, filed Aug. 25, 2025; pending.
• Thrift v. Caldwell, No. 5:24-cv-00002, U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia, filed Jan. 2, 2024; pending.

GPS records list no closing date or payout for either case.

Sources

• Atlanta Journal-Constitution — prison homicide, security, and conditions reporting cited in GPS intelligence files
• 13WMAZ and WGXA — Dooly State Prison gang-related fight reporting
• WALB and Wesh.com — Abraham Rivas fraud allegations at Dooly State Prison
• GBI Medical Examiner records obtained via GPS open records requests — Holliday autopsy note
• CourtListener dockets — Miller v. Holt and Thrift v. Caldwell
• GPS death registry, event records, and intelligence reports

Synthesized by GPS Intelligence System on Aug 23, 2026 from positions, attributed deaths, lawsuits, intel reports, and news mentions in the public corpus. The supporting data tables follow below.