Foulks, Rodney

Tenure Summary

Rodney Foulks has held Georgia Department of Corrections posts since 2015, beginning as a corrections officer at Valdosta State Prison, then serving as sergeant and lieutenant at Georgia State Prison, and later as unit manager at Valdosta and Smith State Prison. Per GPS records, his first facility-leadership tenure was as Deputy Warden at Smith State Prison, starting November 22, 2023, a role he held through 2025. In 2026 he moved to Valdosta State Prison as Special Assistant to the Warden, and later Deputy Warden. GPS records attribute seven deaths to facility-leader tenures held by Foulks, all at Smith State Prison. The GPS litigation index also lists two lawsuit matters associated with him.

What happened on their watch

Smith State Prison — Deputy Warden (2023–2025)

Foulks held the Deputy Warden role at Smith State Prison when seven incarcerated men died, according to GPS records. The deaths began in February 2024. Donquerius Lamonte Mahone, 37, died February 4, 2024; GPS records cite the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Georgia Prison Homicides Investigation listing the cause as homicide. Gineli Antoine Gray, 31, died February 9, 2024; GPS records do not list a cause. On June 16, 2024, Jaydrekus Cartez Hart, 34, died; public reports and GPS intel events describe Hart as the inmate who shot and killed Aramark food-service employee Aureon Shavea Grace in the Smith State Prison kitchen in June 2024 and then killed himself. Richard Jermine Williams, 43, died September 7, 2024; a GBI medical examiner production obtained by GPS listed the cause as toxic effects of MDMB-4en-PINACA and the manner as accident. Orlando Jordan, 36, died September 13, 2024, and Calvin Bernard Craft, 34, died December 14, 2024; GPS records do not list causes for either. The seventh death, John Jacobs, 77, on October 25, 2025, is documented in a Tattnall County coroner record as cardiorespiratory arrest due to sepsis and multiorgan failure, manner natural.

During the same period, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that Smith State Prison had about two-thirds of its correctional officer positions unfilled — roughly 53 officers at a facility designed for 160 — and that an inmate obtained a loaded gun inside the prison and used it to kill an Aramark employee. Facility-level allegations in GPS intelligence reports, drawn from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and The Georgia Virtue, describe contraband smuggling operations, a former warden’s alleged role in a RICO enterprise, and inmate Nathan Weekes’s alleged orchestration of murders from inside the prison. These are allegations; GPS records do not attribute them to Foulks personally. One lawsuit matter in Foulks’s litigation index, Humphrey v. Moody, was filed January 22, 2024, during his Smith State Prison posting; a second, Daker v. Oliver Filing Restriction Per 59 Order, was filed June 6, 2025, also overlapping that tenure.

Valdosta State Prison — 2026 postings

GPS records show no deaths attributed to Foulks’s 2026 Valdosta State Prison postings in the deaths-by-facility totals. Facility-level intel events logged at Valdosta during that period include GDC investigations into the deaths of Antavious Bailey and Steven Bryant in June 2026, with causes pending autopsy; a federal drug-trafficking indictment of inmate Luis Ramirez and six others in May 2026; and a July 2026 GDC statement alleging an inmate staged a flooded-cell video.

Litigation

• Daker v. Oliver Filing Restriction Per 59 Order, No. 1:25-cv-03191 (GAND), filed June 6, 2025; terminated March 30, 2026, per CourtListener.
• Humphrey v. Moody, No. 7:24-cv-00006 (GAMD), filed January 22, 2024; status pending, per CourtListener.

Sources

• GPS records — personnel history, deaths-by-facility, intel reports, litigation index
• Atlanta Journal-Constitution — Georgia Prison Homicides Investigation; Smith State Prison understaffing and firearm/contraband reporting
• GBI Medical Examiner production obtained by GPS — Richard Jermine Williams cause and manner
• Tattnall County coroner record — John Jacobs
• CourtListener — Daker v. Oliver; Humphrey v. Moody
• The Georgia Virtue, WTOC, WRDW, In These Times, The Marshall Project, Yahoo News — facility-level allegations and incident reporting

Synthesized by GPS Intelligence System on Sep 6, 2026 from positions, attributed deaths, lawsuits, intel reports, and news mentions in the public corpus. The supporting data tables follow below.