Caldwell, Antoine Galen

Tenure Summary

Antoine Galen Caldwell's Georgia Department of Corrections record begins with a 2000 Sergeant posting at Dooly State Prison and runs through security and command roles into senior regional and central-office positions. Records show him as Lieutenant at Dooly in 2001, Chief of Security there in 2004, Deputy Warden of Security in 2005, Deputy Director of the Audits and Compliance Unit in 2012, and in Correction Administration in 2015. His facility-lead postings were Warden at Wilcox State Prison in 2013, WARDEN 1 at Wilcox in 2016, WARDEN 1 at Johnson State Prison from 2017 through 2021, and WARDEN 3 at Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison from January 2022 through June 30, 2023. On July 1, 2023, he moved to Assistant Regional Director for the North Region; the records list him as REGION DIRECTOR (2024 and 2025), North Regional Director, Deputy Director for Field Operations from June 2026, and Deputy Director on August 27, 2026. He is listed as active.

Sixty-one deaths are attributed to Caldwell's leadership tenures: 34 at Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison and 27 at Johnson State Prison. These records attribute no leadership-tenure deaths to his Wilcox postings, though state settlement-ledger entries tied to Wilcox fall inside his 2013 and 2016 tenures there.

What happened on their watch

Wilcox State Prison — Warden (2013) and WARDEN 1 (2016). No deaths are attributed to these postings in the records. Settlement-ledger entries from the Georgia Department of Administrative Services Risk Management office, obtained through Open Records, tie four payouts to Wilcox inside these tenures: $50,000 for a 2013 incident (Toddrick Hunter), and — during the 2016 posting — $550,000 (Jimmy Lucero), $48,242.29 (Ricky Johnson) and $2,000 (Jeffrey Ray).

Johnson State Prison — WARDEN 1, 2017 through 2021. Twenty-seven deaths are attributed to this tenure. Among them, David Lamar Henegar, 44, died October 16, 2021, from manual strangulation and blunt force trauma to the head; a lawsuit alleges he was choked over hours by his cellmate while officers failed to respond, and another record states he was beaten over roughly five hours by cellmate Antone Hinton-Leonard and found with a broken neck and ribs. Jerry Lee Brown, 61, died November 12, 2020, from stab wounds to the head and blunt force injury to the face. The DOAS settlement ledger shows $4,000,000 paid to Betty Wade for the Estate of David Lamar Henegar (2021 incident, Johnson) and $1,449,640 tied to Johnson for a 2020 incident (Jerry Brown), plus $40,000 for a 2018 Johnson incident (Cleveland D Dunn) and a $1,500 entry for a 2020 Johnson incident recorded under the name "Antione Caldwell."

Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison — WARDEN 3, January 2022 through June 30, 2023. Thirty-four deaths are attributed to this tenure, spanning ages 27 to 78 and including homicides, suicides, medical and overdose deaths, and causes still listed as Unknown/Pending. Records name killings including Carrell D Johnson, 32, who died June 6, 2023, from chopping injuries to the head and sharp force injuries to the torso; Elmer W. Pless, 65, who died May 15, 2023, by strangulation; and Boyd Williams, 64, who died October 3, 2022, from manual strangulation and blunt force trauma to the head. Daniel Charriez, 46, died February 23, 2022, from delayed complications of traumatic brain injury with a four-month interval. A separate record describes an inmate strangled to death at the prison in 2022 by a man who had assaulted someone at Coastal State Prison in March 2020 with no investigation conducted. Registry entries on Desmond Layne Hattaway's April 16, 2023 suicide describe placement in segregation without adequate mental-health monitoring.

Deaths recorded during this tenure include:

• William Welland died June 22, 2023, at Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Suicide, age 40.
• Carrell D Johnson died June 6, 2023, at Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Homicide, age 32.
• Robert Carlton Savage died May 26, 2023, at Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Overdose, age 43.
• Elden Lamb died May 17, 2023, at Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Medical Neglect, age 43.
• Russell Lamar Nelson died May 15, 2023, at Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Unknown/Pending, age 58.
• Elmer W Pless died May 15, 2023, at Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Homicide, age 65.
• Desmond Layne Hattaway died April 16, 2023, at Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Suicide, age 27.
• Jereuis Markyse Hawkins died March 27, 2023, at Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Unknown/Pending, age 29.
• Matthew Michael Gragg died March 26, 2023, at Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Suicide, age 36.
• Billy Joe Farmer died March 25, 2023, at Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Suicide, age 42.
• James Thomas Seim died February 8, 2023, at Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Unknown/Pending, age 44.
• Jeremiah Ebenzee Spence died January 17, 2023, at Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Unknown/Pending, age 42.
• Charles Raimondi died January 15, 2023, at Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Suicide, age 51.
• Eric Michael Taylor died January 10, 2023, at Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Natural/Medical, age 48.
• Ronald Lee Stansell died December 30, 2022, at Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Unknown/Pending, age 74.
• David Clair Kuntz died December 24, 2022, at Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Unknown/Pending, age 75.
• Curtis Vincent Garner died December 11, 2022, at Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Unknown/Pending, age 60.
• Timothy Bernard Revis died November 5, 2022, at Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Natural/Medical, age 56.
• Boyd Williams died October 3, 2022, at Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Homicide, age 64.
• James Dustin Barnette died September 30, 2022, at Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Unknown/Pending, age 51.
• Amos Jr Hubbard died August 20, 2022, at Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Unknown/Pending, age 55.
• Ricky Eugene Morgan died July 26, 2022, at Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Unknown/Pending, age 64.
• Aloysius Ignatius Hogues died July 26, 2022, at Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Natural/Medical, age 49.
• Ricky Dubose died June 26, 2022, at Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Suicide, age 29.
• Gary Michael Freedman died June 24, 2022, at Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Natural/Medical, age 78.

Regional and central-office roles — July 2023 onward. From July 1, 2023, Caldwell held the Assistant Regional Director for the North Region post, then REGION DIRECTOR and North Regional Director, Deputy Director for Field Operations from June 2026, and Deputy Director on August 27, 2026. These records attribute no facility-tenure deaths to those posts.

Litigation

• Thrift v. Caldwell, 5:24-cv-00002, court docket designated GAMD, filed January 2, 2024, pending — the only listed case naming Caldwell in its title.
• Mckenzie v. Oliver, 4:26-cv-00108, GAND, filed April 28, 2026, pending.
• Daker v. Oliver Filing Restriction Per 59 Order, 1:25-cv-03191, GAND, filed June 6, 2025, terminated March 30, 2026.
• Carey v. The Georgia Department of Corrections, 1:20-cv-02235, GAND, filed May 26, 2020, terminated March 31, 2023.
• Nance v. Oliver, 1:20-cv-00107, GAND, filed January 8, 2020, terminated February 13, 2025.

Sources

• Georgia Department of Administrative Services Risk Management settlement ledger (Open Records) — Wilcox, Johnson and related facility payouts.
• CourtListener dockets — Thrift v. Caldwell; Mckenzie v. Oliver; Daker v. Oliver; Carey v. GDC; Nance v. Oliver.
• Georgia Department of Corrections mortality records cited in registry entries for Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison and Johnson State Prison.
• GPS death registry and intel event records for Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison and Johnson State Prison.

Synthesized by GPS Intelligence System on Oct 4, 2026 from positions, attributed deaths, lawsuits, intel reports, and news mentions in the public corpus. The supporting data tables follow below.