Jones, Lutria Jamil

Tenure Summary

Lutria Jamil Jones began working for the Georgia Department of Corrections (GDC) in 2017 as a Behavioral Health Counselor, advancing to a supervisor role by 2020. In January 2022, Jones was appointed Deputy Warden at Ware State Prison — a facility-leadership position that carries direct operational responsibility. GPS records attribute 67 deaths to Ware State Prison during Jones’s tenure as deputy warden (January 2022 forward). The deaths include multiple homicides that drew investigative attention from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, as well as allegations of delayed welfare checks and failures to discover deceased prisoners in a timely manner. Two federal civil-rights lawsuits naming Jones as a defendant were filed in 2025 and remain pending.

What happened on their watch

Ware State Prison — Deputy Warden (January 2022–present)
The 67 deaths recorded during Jones’s time as deputy warden reflect a mix of homicides and natural-cause fatalities, though the most-recent sample provided to GPS shows homicides appearing regularly. Among the homicides confirmed by the AJC’s investigation: Kyle Anthony Strother (31) died June 5, 2022, from a stab wound to the chest; Va’Darian LaVianta Carr (26) died September 18, 2022, from stab wounds to the chest and back; on June 19, 2023, Alfonso Marquez Moore (30) died of blunt impact head injuries, while that same day Anthony Lamar Castleberry (42) died of natural causes. Thomas Jerome McCoy (38) was killed by a stab wound to the chest on October 7, 2023, with three other prisoners reportedly involved. In 2024, Leonardo Lamont Anderson (49) died April 20 from multiple stab wounds; Christopher Michael Drake Taylor (33) died May 28 from a torso stab wound; and Samuel Keith Ellis (31) died August 1 from multiple sharp-force injuries, an incident that GDC incident data classifies as a homicide with three inmates involved. The sample also lists homicides in 2025 and 2026, including Christopher Allen Barrett (46) killed by a cellmate on December 1, 2025, and several May 2026 killings — among them Justin Dean Pulley (49) and Jonathan Zimmons, both reportedly killed by cellmates.

Broader systemic patterns overlapped Jones’s tenure. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution documented that ten inmates were killed at Ware State Prison between July 2020 and August 2024, and that internal GDC records sometimes described violent events in more limited terms than officers’ incident reports reflected. According to Georgia Public Broadcasting, the mother of DonTavis Mintz alleged that no counts or welfare checks were performed, allowing Mintz’s body to lie undiscovered for days when he died at the prison in October 2024. During Jones’s watch, a riot and punitive lockdown occurred at Ware State on July 12, 2025. The GDC Office of Professional Standards also investigated a potential homicide in June 2026.

Litigation

• Brown v. Odum, case no. 5:25-cv-00062 (GASD), filed June 30, 2025 — pending; Jones named as a defendant.
• Jackson v. Odum, case no. 5:25-cv-00051 (GASD), filed June 9, 2025 — pending; Jones named as a defendant.

Sources

• GPS records — personnel history, death totals, sample deaths, lawsuit dockets
• Atlanta Journal-Constitution — “Ga. prison homicides: A list of those killed in Georgia’s prison system” (2026) and reporting on Ware State Prison homicides, internal records discrepancies
• Georgia Public Broadcasting — report on DonTavis Mintz death, allegations of absent welfare checks (2024)
• CourtListener — docket listings for Brown v. Odum and Jackson v. Odum

Synthesized by GPS Intelligence System on Jun 7, 2026 from positions, attributed deaths, lawsuits, intel reports, and news mentions in the public corpus. The supporting data tables follow below.