Gardner, Rodney

Tenure Summary

Rodney Gardner's GDC career began in 2015 as a corrections officer, moving through sergeant (2017), lieutenant (2018–2020), and correctional unit manager (2021–2023) before he was named Deputy Warden at Baldwin State Prison on Nov. 22, 2023. Records list him in that post through salary years 2024 ($77,742.25) and 2025 ($82,857.59), with a further Deputy Warden entry dated Aug. 27, 2026, and a move to Regional Operations Coordinator at Riverbend Correctional and Rehabilitation Facility on Sept. 1, 2026. The four pre-2023 positions carry no facility assignment in the records, so no incident data is attached to those years.

Eighteen deaths are attributed to his leadership tenure, all of them at Baldwin State Prison. No lawsuit naming Gardner as a defendant appears in these records, and no news report names him directly.

What happened on their watch

Baldwin State Prison — Deputy Warden, Nov. 22, 2023 to present (records through 2026). All 18 attributed deaths fall between Jan. 17, 2024 and Oct. 24, 2025: Clint Donovan Shelley (50), William D. Moore (66), Anthony Raynard Wynn (62), Lonnie Inman (77), Tyrone Eugene Level (50), Fred Leon Lewis (63), Vincent Reshad Dyer (50), Richard Lee Davenport (64), Jerry W. Hulsey (75), Michael Jerome Brown (52), James Leon Floyd (49), Almir Harris (23), Henry Finley, Walter Brown, Mark Tyrone Miller (62), Douglas Jerome Salter (87), Cedric Phillips (48) and Jack Eubanks (73) — an age span from 23 to 87. Sixteen are coded under one cause category in the records and two, Dyer and Finley, under a separate category; the coding scheme itself is not described in the data.

Dyer's death is the most documented. Records drawn from incident-report data describe the Aug. 21, 2024 death as a homicide from sharp-force chest trauma, after he was stabbed by other incarcerated people with sharp instruments; the same data notes a fight and contraband. For Almir Harris, three separate event entries state he died of diabetic ketoacidosis after being denied essential medical care and describe him as autistic and living with type 1 diabetes. Those entries date his death Jan. 5, 2025, while the attributed-deaths table lists it as Dec. 31, 2024. A further event entry records the April 5, 2025 death of Ricky Mathis at Baldwin; GDC reported no signs of an altercation and sent the body to the GBI crime lab for cause of death.

Allegations during the same period, reported by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Jan. 21, 2025, include that Jamari McClinton's protective-custody status was removed when he was transferred out of Phillips State Prison, leaving him vulnerable to gang threats that led to his death. A lawsuit filed by the mother of Joshua Emanuel Williams alleges he was negligently placed in a cell with a person who had previously stabbed other inmates. A separate lawsuit alleges that on March 23, 2025 an officer threw a water bottle at Akeim Burgest and later returned with a shank and stabbed him while a lieutenant watched.

Riverbend Correctional and Rehabilitation Facility — Regional Operations Coordinator, from Sept. 1, 2026. No deaths or events are attributed to this role in the records.

Sources

• Atlanta Journal-Constitution — prison homicide list and Jan. 21, 2025 allegations concerning Jamari McClinton and Joshua Emanuel Williams at Baldwin State Prison
• GDC public death reports — decedent names, ages, and dates for the Baldwin deaths; no-altercation statement in the Ricky Mathis death
• Court records referenced in GPS event entries — Williams cell-placement lawsuit (filed Jan. 21, 2025) and the Akeim Burgest shanking allegation (March 23, 2025)
• GBI crime lab referral — cause-of-death determination in the Mathis case

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.