Banks, Mary L

Tenure Summary

Mary L Banks’s GDC record in GPS data begins in 2015 as a corrections officer. She is recorded as a correctional lieutenant in 2016 and 2017, captain in 2018, and unit manager from 2019 through 2023; a Nov. 22, 2023 unit-manager entry places her at Autry State Prison. GPS records then list her as deputy warden at Autry State Prison in 2024 and 2025, with a further 2026 deputy-warden entry dated Aug. 27, 2026. GPS records attribute seven deaths to Banks’s leadership tenures, all at Autry State Prison. No lawsuits naming her as a defendant and no news mentions appear in the provided records.

What happened on their watch

Autry State Prison — Deputy Warden

GPS records list seven deaths at Autry State Prison in which Banks is recorded as deputy warden at the time:

• Alerick Campbell, 56 — recorded incident date Dec. 22, 2024
• Harvey Jack Woodard, 69 — May 8, 2025
• Alton Anson Kelly, 61 — Aug. 23, 2025
• James Melvin Tudor, 86 — Aug. 23, 2025
• Richard Merritt, 75 — Oct. 20, 2025
• Chaudhry Abudl Rashid, 74 — Nov. 11, 2025
• Richard Cleveland Castleberry, 72 — Apr. 23, 2026

All seven death records carry cause category 6; the structured records do not provide a more specific cause. The decedents range in age from 56 to 86. GPS records contain no lawsuit filings against Banks while she held the deputy-warden role, and no news mentions or facility-level intel reports naming her.

GPS intelligence entries document a broader infrastructure history at Autry State Prison: an inmate tested positive for Legionnaires’ disease in 2021, and the facility closed in June 2023 for plumbing and HVAC upgrades. That closure predates Banks’s recorded Nov. 22, 2023 unit-manager assignment at the facility. The GA DOAS Risk Management settlement ledger lists Autry State Prison liability payouts of $500 to Patricia Ann Kierce (2016), $350 to Damon, GDC 1030956 Young (2016), $35,000 to Nicole P. Ellis (2018), $7,500 to Christopher L. Jones (2018), and $70,000 to Susan Brown (2020). Those settlements are dated before Banks’s recorded facility-level posting at Autry and do not identify her as a defendant.

Sources

• GPS personnel, death, and intel records for Mary L Banks / Autry State Prison
• Georgia Department of Administrative Services Risk Management settlement ledger (Open Records) — Autry State Prison payouts, 2016–2020

Synthesized by GPS Intelligence System on Aug 30, 2026 from positions, attributed deaths, lawsuits, intel reports, and news mentions in the public corpus. The supporting data tables follow below.