Andre, Dorothy

Tenure Summary

What happened on their watch

On February 9, 2026, Rodger Scales, age 40, died; the Gwinnett County Coroner’s report and a GBI Medical Examiner report, received and OCR’d by GPS on June 26, 2026, list the manner of death as natural. Two days later, Cornelius Burge, 42, died; GPS records classify his cause category as 6 (pending/unresolved). Rickie Lynn Rutherford, 41, died on April 18, 2026, and Richard L. Thatcher, 58, on May 3, 2026 — both also assigned cause category 6 in GPS records. No further details about the circumstances of Burge, Rutherford, or Thatcher’s deaths have been made public.

The four fatalities follow a period of severe violence at Phillips State Prison that gained national attention well before Andre became deputy warden. According to an Atlanta Journal‑Constitution investigation citing DOJ findings, officers allegedly arranged for 19‑year‑old Quafabian Melik McBride to be moved to the lockdown unit on September 30, 2022, where he was stabbed to death in a gang‑related attack; the homicide ignited a multi‑prison gang war that hospitalized 20 prisoners. In November 2021, Dave Stone, 61, died from closed‑head trauma after, his sister told the AJC, being assaulted with two pipes wrapped in cloth while housed in a mental health ward. Other fatal stabbings claimed the lives of Jacob Kendall Daniels (19), Sidney Sanchez Nealey (22), Jamal Cymonne Johnson (32), and Alim Rasheed Lovett (33) in 2022, while Arthur James Wimbush Jr. (46) died from blunt‑force trauma in April 2023. Andre served as a sergeant during the Stone killing and as a lieutenant through the 2022 homicide cluster, though the deaths are not attributed to her leadership tenure in the official GPS totals.

Settlements paid by the state for incidents at Phillips during these years include $700,000 for the 2017 suicide of Demitri Carter, $2,500 for a 2018 claim involving Terry Allen, and $5,000 for a 2019 incident involving Steven A. Whitt, according to the Georgia Department of Administrative Services Risk Management settlement ledger.

Sources

• Georgia Prisoners’ Speak intelligence records — personnel file for Dorothy Andre, facility death attributions, and death‑incident details.
• Gwinnett County Coroner / GBI Medical Examiner report 26G‑0252 — manner of death for Rodger Scales.
• Atlanta Journal‑Constitution — “Ga. prison homicides: A list of those killed in Georgia’s prison system,” reporting officer‑facilitation allegation in McBride killing and family account of Dave Stone’s assault.
• DOJ investigation findings — referenced in AJC article and GPS intel summary regarding McBride gang‑war aftermath.
• Georgia Department of Administrative Services Risk Management settlement ledger (Open Records) — settlements for Demitri Carter, Terry Allen, Steven A. Whitt.

Synthesized by GPS Intelligence System on Jul 19, 2026 from positions, attributed deaths, lawsuits, intel reports, and news mentions in the public corpus. The supporting data tables follow below.