Blackshear, Janice Denise

Tenure Summary

Janice Denise Blackshear has held a series of progressively senior positions within the Georgia Department of Corrections since 2007, moving from line correctional officer to facility deputy leadership. According to GPS records, her career trajectory includes tenures at Macon State Prison, Burruss Correctional Training Center, and the McEver Probation Detention Center, but her longest and most recent service has been at Central State Prison in multiple supervisory and command roles. GPS records show nine deaths attributed to Central State Prison during her leadership-tier assignments there — all of them occurring while she held the titles of Deputy Warden and Deputy Warden of Security between January and October 2025, with one additional death documented in March 2026. No lawsuits are listed naming Blackshear as a defendant in GPS records.

What happened on their watch

Blackshear first served at Central State Prison as a Lieutenant in 2014, a unit-supervisor role during which GPS records show no attributed deaths. She returned to the facility as a Unit Manager in 2019, again with no deaths documented in GPS data for that tenure. Her accountability-tier presence at Central State Prison resumed on January 1, 2025, when she became Deputy Warden. GPS records attribute nine deaths to the facility during her 2025–2026 facility-deputy tenures.

The first death, on January 28, 2025, was Matthew Maddox. GPS records note his cause of death as cerebral herniation due to extremely high blood pressure. On March 2, Lamancha Ware died; cause category six is listed. Two deaths occurred on April 21: Travis Jamal Gaither (cause category six) and Ricky Eugene Rogers, whose GPS records list cause category five with the notation “Natural/Drug OD (C-bldg).”

Blackshear’s title shifted to Deputy Warden of Security on May 16, 2025. Subsequent deaths attributed under her facility-deputy role include Ricky D. Ring on July 16 (cause category six), James Theodore Miller on September 22 (cause category six), and Joseph Hamm on October 8. Hamm’s death is categorized as cause five; GPS records, citing a source who resided in the dorm, note it was an accidental overdose — Hamm was found with a balloon of opiates that had ruptured in his mouth after being notified at 11 p.m. to pack for a facility transfer. Ronald Goss died on October 23 (cause category six). The most recent attributed death is Miguel Angel Duran on March 1, 2026, listed as a suicide in the segregation unit, according to an AI-detected Telegram relay cited in GPS records.

During Blackshear’s 2025–2026 tenure at Central State Prison, broader allegations surfaced about conditions inside the facility and the GDC system generally. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported, per a Department of Justice investigation, that Hollis Alan Bryant was stabbed to death at Central State Prison and that three other prisoners were criminally charged in connection with his death. The same DOJ report, according to the AJC, noted that Marquis L. Johnson was stabbed in the prison barbershop and later died of cardiac arrest secondary to the stabbing. Georgia Public Broadcasting reported severe staffing shortages that allowed gang members to effectively run state prisons and drove rising violence and deaths. A 13WMAZ report documented that in March 2025, three former prison guards at Central State Prison were accused of beating an inmate and attempting a cover-up; in June 2025, three inmates were charged with stabbing another incarcerated person at the facility.

Litigation

GPS records contain no lawsuits listing Janice Denise Blackshear as a defendant.

Sources

• GPS case-management records and Telegram relay reports — documentation of nine deaths at Central State Prison during Blackshear’s facility-deputy tenures, including incident dates, causes, and decedent names
• Atlanta Journal-Constitution — DOJ investigation findings regarding stabbing deaths of Hollis Alan Bryant and Marquis L. Johnson at Central State Prison
• 13WMAZ — reporting on guard misconduct and inmate stabbing charges at Central State Prison in 2025
• Georgia Public Broadcasting — reporting on systemic understaffing and gang control in Georgia prisons during the relevant period

Synthesized by GPS Intelligence System on May 31, 2026 from positions, attributed deaths, lawsuits, intel reports, and news mentions in the public corpus. The supporting data tables follow below.