Harden, Vera ANN

Tenure Summary

Vera Ann Harden’s record begins with a 2015 posting as Business Operations Generalist (AL), followed by Financial Ops Generalist 3 roles from 2016 through 2018. From 2019 through 2024, GPS records list her as Deputy Warden, with salary rising from $51,359.72 in 2019 to $67,674.32 in 2023 and $65,684.05 in 2024. The annual Deputy Warden entries do not name a facility; the only facility-specific leadership posting in her record is a one-day Deputy Warden assignment at Augusta State Medical Prison on November 22, 2023.

GPS records attribute one death to Harden’s facility-leader tenure: Joshua Cain Phillips died on November 22, 2023, the same date as that Augusta State Medical Prison posting. No lawsuits naming Harden as a defendant appear in the structured records.

What happened on their watch

Augusta State Medical Prison — facility-specific posting, November 22, 2023

GPS records link one death to Harden’s Deputy Warden posting at Augusta State Medical Prison. Joshua Cain Phillips, 43, died on November 22, 2023. According to a Richmond County Coroner’s Office summary, the death was natural: acute myeloblastic leukemia (AML) cancer, case number 23-AC00934. No other deaths are attributed to a specific facility tenure in Harden’s record.

The GPS intelligence file for Augusta State Medical Prison contains broader allegations concerning the facility, but those are not connected in the structured records to Harden’s one-day facility-specific posting. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, guards moved a prisoner with a violent history of strangulation into Eddie Gosier’s cell, leading to Gosier’s murder hours later; Thomas Henry Giles was left in a smoke-filled cell for hours before dying of smoke inhalation, a death the GBI ruled a homicide; and a correctional officer is accused of aiding the attack that led to the stabbing death of Rodarick Lee Hayes. The DOJ investigation, as cited by the AJC, found Hayes had been attacked multiple times before his death. GPS records also note a $5 million state settlement over Giles’s death and a $550,000 payout tied to Jimmy Lucero’s death at Augusta State Medical Prison. Because Harden’s 2019–2024 Deputy Warden entries lack facility names, GPS records do not tie these earlier and later Augusta events to her posted facility tenure.

Sources

• GPS personnel and death-attribution records — positions, salaries, total deaths attributed, and facility posting data.
• Richmond County Coroner’s Office summary — Joshua Cain Phillips death, ORR case 23-AC00934.
• Atlanta Journal-Constitution — “GA prison homicides: a list of those killed in Georgia’s prison system” for allegations at Augusta State Medical Prison.
• Atlanta Journal-Constitution — “Prison system failures cost Georgia taxpayers millions” for Giles and Lucero allegations.
• U.S. Department of Justice investigation findings, as cited in GPS intelligence records, regarding Rodarick Lee Hayes at Augusta State Medical Prison.

Synthesized by GPS Intelligence System on Aug 30, 2026 from positions, attributed deaths, lawsuits, intel reports, and news mentions in the public corpus. The supporting data tables follow below.