Jones, Lutria Jamil

Tenure Summary

Lutria Jamil Jones held Georgia Department of Corrections behavioral-health counselor roles from 2017 through 2021, then became deputy warden at Ware State Prison beginning in 2022. Salary records cover that Ware posting through 2025, while structured death records list the deputy-warden role at Ware into 2026. GPS records attribute 66 deaths at Ware State Prison to Jones’s facility-deputy tenure, all at that facility. Two federal civil suits filed in the Southern District of Georgia in 2025 — Brown v. Odum and Jackson v. Odum — are associated with that Ware tenure and remain pending, per GPS court records.

What happened on their watch

Ware State Prison is the only facility in Jones’s leadership-tier accountability record, with 66 deaths attributed during the deputy-warden tenure. The sampled deaths catalogue spans 2022 into 2026 and shows a mix of natural deaths, suicides by hanging, accidental drug toxicities, and homicides.

Ware County Coroner records document multiple homicides during the period. Kojack Thomas Jr., 27, died May 31, 2026, with blunt head trauma and ligature asphyxia; the GDC Office of Professional Standards is investigating his death as a potential homicide, per GPS records. Christopher Henry, 48, died Feb. 12, 2026, with blunt force injuries including strangulation. David Renfro, 43, died Oct. 16, 2024, with multiple blunt and sharp force injuries and ligature strangulation. Samuel Keith Ellis, 31, died Aug. 1, 2024, from multiple sharp force injuries. Thomas Jerome McCoy, 38, died Oct. 7, 2023, from a stab wound to the chest. Suicides in the sample include Dakota Lee Duffin, 29, on July 19, 2025, and Antonio Leon Moses, 46, on March 22, 2025, both by hanging.

Several deaths were classified as accidental drug toxicity, including Lon Taylor Willbanks, 31, on April 19, 2025, from synthetic cannabinoid toxicity, and Barry Lynn Rutherford, 36, on May 25, 2025, from methamphetamine intoxication. Two deaths in the sample were certified by the GBI as undetermined: Ted Daniel Karras, 67, on Dec. 20, 2024, died of neck compression of uncertain cause, and Charles Johnny Rice, 62, on April 27, 2025, died of asphyxia. In both reports, the GBI stated it could not rule out homicide; GPS records classify the deaths as homicides, a GPS assessment rather than a medical-examiner finding.

Outside scrutiny overlapped the Ware posting. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that ten inmates were killed at Ware State Prison between July 2020 and August 2024, several involving multiple inmates, per GDC incident reports. Georgia Public Broadcasting reported Narissa Wright’s allegation that no counts or welfare checks were conducted at Ware, allowing her son DonTavis Mintz’s body to go undiscovered for days after an October 2024 death. GPS case-intelligence logs also captured 2026 reports of stabbings and gang-related violence at the facility. A $20,000 State of Georgia liability payout tied to a 2023 Ware State Prison incident was recorded in the GA DOAS risk-management ledger, per GPS records.

Litigation

• Brown v. Odum, No. 5:25-cv-00062 (S.D. Ga., filed June 30, 2025) — pending; no disposition recorded.
• Jackson v. Odum, No. 5:25-cv-00051 (S.D. Ga., filed June 9, 2025) — pending; no disposition recorded.

Sources

• GPS structured personnel, death, litigation, and intelligence records.
• Ware County Coroner / GBI Division of Forensic Sciences records, including autopsy, death certificate, and declination documents.
• Atlanta Journal-Constitution — prison homicide list and prisons-transparency reporting.
• Georgia Public Broadcasting — reporting on the DOJ investigation and deliberate indifference, Oct. 1, 2024.
• CourtListener dockets for Brown v. Odum and Jackson v. Odum.
• Georgia DOAS Risk Management settlement ledger via open records.

Synthesized by GPS Intelligence System on Aug 23, 2026 from positions, attributed deaths, lawsuits, intel reports, and news mentions in the public corpus. The supporting data tables follow below.