Bryant, Talithia N

Tenure Summary

Talithia N Bryant entered the Georgia Department of Corrections in 2015 as a corrections officer, according to GDC salary records, and moved through custody and unit management — correctional captain in 2016 and 2017, correctional unit manager from 2018 through 2023 — before entering facility leadership at Wilcox State Prison. Position records show her as deputy warden there from Nov. 22, 2023, a role carried through 2024 and 2025; on July 16, 2026 she became deputy warden of security, a posting the records show as ongoing. A separate deputy warden record is dated Aug. 27, 2026.

Per the GPS death registry, 23 deaths are attributed to facility-leader tenures held by Bryant, all of them at Wilcox State Prison. No lawsuits naming Bryant as a defendant appear in the records. Her leadership period overlaps reporting by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on a U.S. Department of Justice finding that Georgia's gang-run prisons were riddled with regular violence and sexual assault, and on GDC's investigation of 42 deaths as possible homicides in the first six months of 2025 — nearly two-thirds of the 66 suspected prison homicides investigated in all of 2024, per that reporting.

What happened on their watch

Wilcox State Prison — Deputy Warden (Nov. 22, 2023 – 2026)

Twenty-two of the 23 attributed deaths fall in this period. The registry lists:

• Kevin Joseph Degraft died February 12, 2024, at Wilcox State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Overdose and his age as 40.
• Arthur Jerome Williams died July 19, 2024, at Wilcox State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Homicide and his age as 55.
• Jody Cris Jones died August 21, 2024, at Wilcox State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Natural/Medical and his age as 52.
• Mariol Juante Rawls died August 27, 2024, at Wilcox State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Homicide and his age as 41.
• Rodney Whatley died October 5, 2024, at Wilcox State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Homicide and his age as 54.
• Alexander S Grimes died October 9, 2024, at Wilcox State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Overdose and his age as 44.
• George Luis Morales died October 28, 2024, at Wilcox State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Natural/Medical and his age as 75.
• Rodney Hurley died November 9, 2024, at Wilcox State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Natural/Medical and his age as 56.
• James Edward Hogan died December 10, 2024, at Wilcox State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Overdose and his age as 32.
• Keith Wingo died January 16, 2025, at Wilcox State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Natural/Medical.
• Raymond Trey Moody died March 11, 2025, at Wilcox State Prison; the registry lists his age as 37 and the cause as Unknown/Pending — GPS does not yet know the cause.
• Daylyne Collins died April 20, 2025, at Wilcox State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Homicide and her age as 30.
• Darrius Jerrod Zanders died May 5, 2025, at Wilcox State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Suicide and his age as 33.
• Thomas Leonardo Schwartz died May 14, 2025, at Wilcox State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Natural/Medical and his age as 59.
• Roy Lee Gates died May 16, 2025, at Wilcox State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Natural/Medical and his age as 39.
• Terry Alan Roper died June 6, 2025, at Wilcox State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Natural/Medical and his age as 70.
• Dominique Cornelius Cole died June 8, 2025, at Wilcox State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Homicide and his age as 37.
• Ian Rashod Henry died June 22, 2025, at Wilcox State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Homicide and his age as 29.
• Harold Stanley Hester died July 10, 2025, at Wilcox State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Natural/Medical and his age as 78.
• Collis Jr Welch died November 7, 2025, at Wilcox State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Overdose and his age as 55.
• Stacy Ray Bullard died November 8, 2025, at Wilcox State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Overdose and his age as 54.
• Willie Thomas Mosley died December 1, 2025, at Wilcox State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Natural/Medical and his age as 63.

Seven of these are listed as homicides, nine as natural/medical, five as overdoses, one as a suicide and one as unknown/pending. Among them, Mariol Rawls, 41, was stabbed repeatedly with a 12-inch blade by at least eight men described as validated gang members in late August 2024, and at least eight men have been charged with murder, according to the AJC (Jan. 21, 2025). GDC incident report data cited in the records shows nine offenders and a homemade weapon in Rawls's death, and two inmates involved in Williams's. Dominique Cole was killed by another prisoner two months before his release date, per the records; the AJC reported Sept. 16, 2025 that the warden promised Cole's family a follow-up call with details of his death that never came and that the prison failed to return his belongings, including his wallet and Social Security card — an allegation naming the warden, not Bryant. The AJC also reported that Cole allegedly told his family guards at Wilcox were tied to gangs, with gang members signing off on guards' actions. In a separate allegation reported by the AJC on Jan. 21, 2025, officials failed to recognize James Wheeler's mental health disease despite his history of self-harm and placed him in solitary confinement, where he was found hanging. The AJC reported on Sept. 16, 2025 that hundreds of GDC employees had been arrested and fired for smuggling drugs and other contraband into prisons. A gang fight at Wilcox sent nine inmates to the hospital with stab wounds in early 2025, per the records, and the Georgia Legislature approved $434 million in new GDC funding that January.

Wilcox State Prison — Deputy Warden of Security (July 16, 2026 – present)

One attributed death falls in this period.

• Maurice Antonio Brown died September 3, 2026, at Wilcox State Prison; GPS's registry lists the cause as Homicide.

GDC reported the death as gang-related and sent Brown's body to the GBI Crime Lab for an official cause of death; the death is under investigation by GDC's Office of Professional Standards, and the prison was placed on lockdown Sept. 4, per the records. Seven inmates were taken to hospitals, two by airlift, while two with minor injuries were treated on site and no staff were injured, per the records. Inmate reports submitted to GPS describe a Telegram-group account of roughly 30 people stabbed or injured with up to seven airlifted, and note that initial reports a guard had been stabbed were disputed. A Sept. 18, 2026 inmate report states Wilcox was no longer on lockdown. Records also note a gang-related fight at Wilcox on Sept. 18, 2026 that killed one inmate and injured nine.

Sources

• GPS death registry — 23 deaths attributed to Bryant's Wilcox State Prison leadership tenures
• Atlanta Journal-Constitution — Sept. 16, 2025 report on Georgia prison homicides and GDC contraband arrests; Jan. 21, 2025 investigation "Prison system failures cost Georgia taxpayers millions"
• U.S. Department of Justice — report on Georgia's gang-run prisons, as described in AJC reporting
• GDC Office of Professional Standards / GBI Crime Lab — investigation into the Sept. 3, 2026 death of Maurice Brown
• Inmate reports submitted to GPS (case submissions 444, 445, 507) — Telegram-circulated accounts of the Sept. 3, 2026 Wilcox incident and the lockdown
• GDC position and salary records; GDC incident report data as cited in the records

Synthesized by GPS Intelligence System on Oct 11, 2026 from positions, attributed deaths, lawsuits, intel reports, and news mentions in the public corpus. The supporting data tables follow below.