COX, Eric

Tenure Summary

Eric Cox's Georgia Department of Corrections career began in 2008 as a correctional officer at Smith State Prison, where he later served as an officer (2015), a CSM correctional lieutenant (2016–2018), captain (2019), and unit manager (2020). He was promoted to deputy warden at Smith for 2021, moved to Ware State Prison as deputy warden for 2022–2024, served as deputy warden of the Special Management Unit (SMU) from Jan. 1 to Jul. 15, 2025, and then as warden of Dodge State Prison from Jul. 16, 2025 to Jan. 15, 2026. Since Jan. 16, 2026, he has been warden of the SMU.

GPS attributes 51 deaths to Cox's leadership tenures: 43 at Ware State Prison, 7 at Smith State Prison, and 1 at the SMU. Four federal lawsuits list him as a defendant, three of them still pending. The available news-mention records contain no reporting that names him directly.

What happened on their watch

Smith State Prison — deputy warden, 2021 (7 deaths attributed). The named decedents range in age from 25 to 45. Justin Nathaniel Wilkerson, 25, died Jan. 5, 2021 of asphyxia due to neck compression; his mother later testified at a Georgia Legislature hearing about his mental-health diagnoses and prior attacks in prison. Desmond Hill, 35, died Apr. 9, 2021 by strangulation; a family member reported he had called his mother the day before saying his cellmate threatened to kill him. Hiwatha Hakeem Jr., 26, died Apr. 12, 2021 of multiple stab wounds, with an incident report showing four other prisoners involved; a lawsuit alleges the attackers had a history of violence and that prison officials failed to provide timely medical care. Christopher Reynolds, 38, died Jul. 1, 2021 of blunt and sharp-force injuries, and Christopher Redwine, 45, died Sept. 27, 2021 of asphyxia from manual strangulation. Separate records from the same year document the Glennville shooting of 88-year-old Bobby Kicklighter, which the GBI determined was a hit orchestrated from inside Smith by inmate Nathan Weekes and intended for a correctional officer; a wrongful death suit by Kicklighter's family named former warden Brian Adams and former officer Ireon Moore, not Cox.

Ware State Prison — deputy warden, 2022–2024 (43 deaths attributed). This is the deadliest posting attributed to him, spanning Jan. 2022 through Dec. 2024, with decedents aged 24 to 79. Documented sharp-force deaths include Va'Darian Carr, 26 (stab wounds, Sept. 2022), Kyle Strother, 31 (stab wound to the chest, June 2022), Thomas McCoy, 38 (stab wound to the chest, Oct. 2023, three other prisoners involved), Leonardo Anderson, 49 (multiple stab wounds, Apr. 2024), and Christopher Taylor, 33 (stab wound to the torso, May 2024). Alfonso Moore, 30, died in June 2023 of blunt-impact injuries to the head. In the death of Ted Daniel Karras, 67 (Dec. 2024), GPS classifies the death as a homicide while the GBI certified the manner as undetermined; GPS states that classification rests on an autopsy finding evidence of neck compression and a pathologist's note that "homicidal strangulation cannot be excluded." Georgia Public Broadcasting reported in October 2024 that Narissa Wright alleges no counts or welfare checks were conducted at Ware, allowing her son DonTavis Mintz's body to go undiscovered for days. A Georgia DOAS Risk Management settlement ledger records a $20,000 state liability payout tied to Ware (2023 incident, Jimmy Mack Rice).

Special Management Unit — deputy warden, Jan. 1–Jul. 15, 2025. No deaths are attributed to this posting. Atlanta Journal-Constitution investigations dated January 2025 — while he held this role — alleged that the GDC obstructed DOJ investigators, withheld records and blacked out pages of death-incident reports, presented false or misleading information to a federal judge and lawmakers, and falsified or backdated prisoner review forms. The same coverage reported that inmate Ricardo Daughtry went nearly seven hours without a check before his body was found, despite a 30-minute policy, and that a federal judge held the GDC in contempt over the 2019 SMU settlement.

Dodge State Prison — warden, Jul. 16, 2025–Jan. 15, 2026. No deaths are attributed to this posting.

Special Management Unit — warden, from Jan. 16, 2026 (1 death attributed). Antony Ramon Penick, 32, died at the SMU on May 30, 2026. A separate Jan. 28, 2026 record documents inmate Arthur Lee Cofield Jr.'s use of a contraband phone at the SMU to steal $11 million from a Charles Schwab account; that record credits then-warden Jose Morales with discovering the phone.

Litigation

• Scott v. Taylor, No. 3:25-cv-00107 (S.D. Ga.), filed Nov. 6, 2025 — pending; Cox listed as a defendant.
• Brown v. Odum, No. 5:25-cv-00062 (S.D. Ga.), filed Jun. 30, 2025 — pending.
• Jackson v. Odum, No. 5:25-cv-00051 (S.D. Ga.), filed Jun. 9, 2025 — pending.
• Daker v. Ward, No. 7:20-cv-00113 (M.D. Ga.), filed Jun. 11, 2020 — terminated Nov. 3, 2021.

Sources

• Atlanta Journal-Constitution — January 2025 investigations and editorial on GDC obstruction, falsified records, defective PREA investigations, and the SMU contempt order (Cox's SMU deputy-warden tenure)
• Georgia Public Broadcasting, Oct. 1, 2024 — Narissa Wright's account of DonTavis Mintz's death at Ware State Prison
• Court records via CourtListener — dockets for Scott v. Taylor, Brown v. Odum, Jackson v. Odum, and Daker v. Ward
• Georgia DOAS Risk Management settlement ledger (open records) — $20,000 Ware State Prison settlement (Jimmy Mack Rice, 2023)
• Georgia Bureau of Investigation — manner-of-death certification in the Ted Daniel Karras case
• U.S. Department of Justice — report on conditions in Georgia's prisons, as described in January 2025 news coverage

Synthesized by GPS Intelligence System on Sep 23, 2026 from positions, attributed deaths, lawsuits, intel reports, and news mentions in the public corpus. The supporting data tables follow below.