Gardner, Rodney

Tenure Summary

Rodney Gardner’s GDC employment records begin with a corrections officer post in 2015, followed by CSM officer and sergeant roles, then lieutenant from 2018 through 2020, and correctional unit manager from 2021 through 2023. Those earlier postings list no facility assignment in the data, so facility-level death attribution begins with his deputy warden posting at Baldwin State Prison, which the position table lists for 2024 and 2025.

GPS records attribute 29 deaths to Gardner’s Baldwin State Prison leadership tenure as deputy warden, all at Baldwin State Prison. The mortality extract supplied for that posting runs from January 2024 through July 2026. The structured records contain no lawsuits naming Gardner as a defendant.

What happened on their watch

Baldwin State Prison — deputy warden

The GPS mortality extract names 29 decedents dated from Jan. 17, 2024, to July 31, 2026. Among entries with ages listed, decedents ranged from 23 to 87 years old.

In 2024, the named decedents include Clint Shelley, 50; William Moore, 66; Anthony Wynn, 62; Lonnie Inman, 77; Tyrone Level, 50; Fred Lewis, 63; Vincent Dyer, 50; Jerry Hulsey, 75; Richard Davenport, 64; Michael Brown, 52; James Floyd, 49; and Almir Harris, 23. Many of these entries carry cause_category 6 and no stated cause in the extract. GPS event records state Dyer’s Aug. 21, 2024 death was a homicide from sharp force chest trauma.

In 2025, the named decedents include Henry Finley, Walter Brown, Mark Miller, 62; Douglas Salter, 87; Cedric Phillips, 48; and Jack Eubanks, 73. A GDC-released January 2025 mortality PDF cited in the notes lists Finley’s cause of death as homicide due to multiple puncture wounds and Brown’s as metastatic adenocarcinoma. GPS event records also describe Almir Harris as an autistic prisoner with type 1 diabetes who died from diabetic ketoacidosis after denial of essential medical care; those events are dated Jan. 5, 2025, while the death table lists a Harris death on Dec. 31, 2024.

The 2026 entries include Isaac Robinson, 41; Melvin Greene, 80; John Doe; Leroy Keye, 71; Derek Boyd, 68; Ronald McGhee, 66; Ricky Mathis, 38; James Dailey, 64; Richard Timmons, 37; Artinez Ceasar; and Edward Allen Pitt. GPS event records show the GDC Office of Professional Standards opened a standard investigation into Mathis’s April 5, 2026 death; the GDC reported no signs of altercation and the cause was pending, according to those records. A social media report attached to Robinson’s record alleges that in Baldwin’s K3 protective custody unit, CERT team members and lieutenants handcuffed and dragged people back to housing while wardens watched.

During this Baldwin posting, media and court records document other allegations at the prison. 13WMAZ reported a lawsuit by Akeim Burgest alleging that an officer threw a water bottle at him and later stabbed him while a lieutenant failed to intervene; a federal judge ordered evidence preserved, according to GPS event records. Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporting on a federal Sex Money Murder case names former Baldwin officers accused of smuggling drug-laced sheets for inmate Ryan Brandt and describes broader allegations of contraband-fueled violence in Georgia prisons. A lawsuit filed by the mother of Joshua Emanuel Williams in January 2025 alleges he was placed in a cell with an inmate who had previously stabbed others; Williams’s death occurred in 2020, before Gardner’s documented Baldwin deputy warden posting. None of these records names Gardner as a defendant.

Sources

• GPS personnel and mortality records, including the deaths-during-tenure extract and GDC-released January 2025 mortality data
• 13WMAZ — reporting on the Akeim Burgest lawsuit at Baldwin State Prison
• Atlanta Journal-Constitution — homicide list, contraband and gang investigation reporting, and conditions coverage
• GPS intel event records summarizing federal court filings and GDC Office of Professional Standards investigations at Baldwin State Prison

Synthesized by GPS Intelligence System on Aug 16, 2026 from positions, attributed deaths, lawsuits, intel reports, and news mentions in the public corpus. The supporting data tables follow below.