Jackson, Wendy A

Tenure Summary

Wendy A. Jackson’s career with the Georgia Department of Corrections spans more than a decade, beginning as a correctional officer in 2008 at the Bleckley Probation Substance Abuse Treatment Center and progressing through sergeant, lieutenant, unit manager, and assistant superintendent roles. In May 2023 she was appointed Superintendent of Metro Transitional Center, and in January 2025 she became Warden of Pulaski State Prison—the facility-lead post she holds at this writing. GPS records show five deaths attributed to Jackson’s leadership tenure, all occurring during her time as warden of Pulaski State Prison between March 2025 and March 2026. One lawsuit naming Jackson as a defendant—Beamon v. Jackson—was filed in 2025 and remains pending in federal court.

What happened on their watch

Pulaski State Prison, Warden (January 2025–present)

Jackson’s tenure as warden at the women’s prison in Hawkinsville overlapped with five deaths over a thirteen‑month period. Per handwritten reports from Pulaski County Coroner Fred J. Clark III, three of the deaths in 2025 were attributed to natural causes: Stephanie Sabrina Gary, 55, died March 5; Esmeralda Carillo Hernandez, 50, died May 22; and Candace Lajon Morgan, 41, died June 11. The coroner listed cancer as the cause in each case. On December 12, Ronika Lashawn Carswell, 50, died; the coroner sent her body to the GBI Crime Lab for autopsy, and the cause remains pending—GPS records note the case is classified as unknown/pending under its cause‑category system. On March 30, 2026, Denecia Nichelle Randall, 28, reportedly died by suicide while in lockdown; her death is recorded in a user‑submitted report that GPS verified as the sole fatality at Pulaski on that date.

During this same period, several allegations and reported incidents surfaced. A February 2026 Georgia Prisoners’ Speak report documented a pattern of retaliation, intimidation, unsafe conditions, and a non‑functional grievance process under Jackson. According to an Atlanta Journal‑Constitution investigation, staff at Pulaski failed to notice a prisoner being stabbed until an outside caller reported it, and the victim said she had been assaulted hours earlier by ten people. These facility‑level allegations sit within a broader history of scrutiny at Pulaski: a U.S. Department of Justice civil rights investigation, publicly reported in 2024, found constitutional violations at the prison during 2022–2023, before Jackson’s arrival. The AJC also separately reported that the state paid $1.5 million in 2025 to settle claims that Mollianne Fischer was left in a vegetative state due to inadequate medical care at Pulaski in 2014, and $925,000 for the 2015 death of Bonnie Rocheleau there from pneumonia—events that predate Jackson’s wardenship but remain part of the facility’s litigation record.

Litigation

• Beamon v. Jackson (4:25-cv-00253, S.D. Ga., filed 2025-10-24) — pending. No further details available.
• Willis v. Government Employees Insurance Company (5:23-cv-00430, M.D. Ga., filed 2023-10-26, terminated 2026-01-23) — unrelated personal litigation.
• In Re Equifax Inc Customer Data Security Breach Litigation (1:17-md-02800, N.D. Ga., filed 2017-12-06, terminated 2022-04-13) — multidistrict data-breach case; Jackson’s role is not apparent from the record.
• Gilbert v. Daniels (1:14-cv-01623, N.D. Ga., filed 2014-05-29, terminated 2016-12-14) — earlier civil suit with no known connection to her corrections duties.

Sources

• Pulaski County Coroner Fred J. Clark III — death investigation reports for four 2025 decedents (Gary, Hernandez, Morgan, Carswell)
• GPS user report (case submission #124) and reconciliation notes for Randall (2026)
• Georgia Prisoners’ Speak — internal report documenting retaliation and grievance failures at Pulaski (February 2026)
• Atlanta Journal-Constitution — investigation of failure to detect stabbing at Pulaski; reporting on settlements for Fischer and Rocheleau
• U.S. Department of Justice — findings of constitutional violations at Pulaski State Prison (2022–2023)
• CourtListener — docket records for all four lawsuits listed

Synthesized by GPS Intelligence System on May 31, 2026 from positions, attributed deaths, lawsuits, intel reports, and news mentions in the public corpus. The supporting data tables follow below.