Kelley, Tina

Tenure Summary

Tina Kelley's GDC career spans more than two decades, most of it in non-supervisory clinical and custody roles. Her earliest listed job was as a Correctional Officer at Smith State Prison in 2003, with a second correctional-officer year at Smith in 2015 ($31,096.58). From 2016 through 2021 she was classified as Behavioral Health Counselor 2, posted at Georgia State Prison in 2018 and 2021, then promoted to Behavioral Health Counselor 3 at Montgomery State Prison (2022) and Emanuel Women's Facility (2023). She reached supervisory clinical rank in late 2023 and moved into facility leadership on 2024-09-16, when she was appointed Deputy Warden of Care and Treatment at Rogers State Prison. Her 2025 deputy warden salary is listed at $62,976.37.

GPS records attribute 5 deaths to facilities during her leadership tenure, all of them at Rogers State Prison. She is also listed as a defendant in one federal lawsuit from her earlier counselor years.

What happened on their watch

Rogers State Prison — Deputy Warden of Care and Treatment (2024-09-16) and Deputy Warden (2025). GPS records attribute five deaths at Rogers during this tenure, a mix of natural-cause and suicide classifications according to the coroner and medical-examiner file.

Taylor Anthony Hunt, 29, died 2024-09-28 (the date corrected from 2024-09-27 per the GBI report). A complete autopsy was performed; the GBI Medical Examiner's report — DOFS case 2024-6006054, MDI log ME-24-60559, Regional ME Robin Moiseff, M.D., peer-reviewed 2/21/2025 — lists the cause as hanging and manner as suicide, per the coroner record. GPS intel entries logged at the same facility describe Hunt's death differently, as occurring "under suspicious circumstances" and refer to claimed evidence of trauma; those entries conflict with the peer-reviewed ME finding and are not corroborated in the death record.

David Edward Wood, cause category 1, died 2025-02-04 (Tattnall County coroner case 2025-010). The death certificate lists coronary atherosclerotic and hypertensive heart disease complicated by Influenza A, due to Parainfluenza Virus 1 infection; manner natural. He was pronounced at Memorial Health Meadows Hospital in Vidalia after developing chest pain at Rogers. The database flags a name discrepancy — "Wood" on the death certificate versus "Woods" in GPS records — not auto-corrected.

Justin Waymon Hollingsworth, 43, died 2025-06-26 (coroner case 2025-043). The death certificate and GBI ME list hanging, manner suicide; he was found in a one-man cell in cell block A, and the coroner narrative records that a guard said he was originally found hanging from a vent with a belt. A limited autopsy was performed 2025-06-27 at the Coastal Crime Lab; the record notes the ligature did not accompany the body and a GDC offender summary in the coroner packet listed mental-health issues and hypertensive cardiovascular disease.

Randy Eugene Stewart, 60, died 2025-07-17 (coroner case 2025-054). The death certificate lists E. coli peritonitis from a perforated duodenum, with diabetes, hypertension, cirrhosis and chronic hepatitis-C as contributing conditions; manner natural. He was admitted via the ER on 2025-07-15 and died two days later at Memorial University Medical Center in Savannah. The coroner file records family notification via "Warden Sandi West, Rogers SP," with no family contact recorded, and burial at the Georgia State Prison Cemetery.

John Meeks, 49, died 2026-02-19; the GPS record lists cause category 6 with no further cause detail.

Also logged at Rogers during this period are several allegations from a public Facebook comment by a formerly incarcerated man in a Georgia prison family group — including a claim that an H-2 fan motor fire was attributed to a prisoner, an account of a GCI dairy-detail supervisor who allegedly supplied vapes and office-computer access and then blamed the workers, and an undated account that a counselor known as "Cowboy" was arrested for bringing in drugs and phones. A separate "guard stabbing incident" allegation is logged at Rogers with no source publication. None of these are established findings.

Litigation

• Daker v. Bryson, No. 5:16-cv-00538 (N.D. Ga.), filed 2016-12-07, terminated 2017-06-09; no outcome amount recorded. Kelley is listed in GPS records as a defendant; the record does not state her role in the case. The filing date falls during the period she is listed as Behavioral Health Counselor 2.

Sources

• Tattnall County coroner records (2025 cases 2025-010, 2025-043, 2025-054) and GBI Medical Examiner reports (DOFS 2024-6006054 / ME-24-60559; ME-25-60490) — cause and manner findings for Hunt, Wood, Hollingsworth, Stewart
• GPS personnel and death records — positions, salaries, `total_deaths_attributed` (5), deaths by facility (Rogers State Prison, 5)
• CourtListener — docket for Daker v. Bryson, 5:16-cv-00538 (GAMD)
• Facebook, public comment in a Georgia prison family group — Rogers State Prison witness claim and allegations (fan fire, GCI dairy detail, counselor contraband arrest)
• Atlanta Journal-Constitution — Georgia prison homicide and contraband coverage, including Smith State Prison
• The Georgia Virtue, The Marshall Project, In These Times, WTOC — facility-level reporting referenced in GPS intel reports

Synthesized by GPS Intelligence System on Sep 13, 2026 from positions, attributed deaths, lawsuits, intel reports, and news mentions in the public corpus. The supporting data tables follow below.