Major, LEE

Tenure Summary

Lee Major's GDC career began in 2010 as a correctional officer at Burruss Correctional Training Center and moved through tactical and security-response assignments — tactical squad at Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison (2011) and Security Management Response Team member (2012) — before returning to Burruss in 2016. He was a sergeant (2017) and lieutenant (2018) at Metro Reentry Facility, a lieutenant at Burruss (2019–2021), then a lieutenant, captain and unit manager at Special Management Unit (2022–2024). In January 2025 the records show him holding the Deputy Warden title at Dooly State Prison for a two-week window (January 1–15) alongside a Unit Manager post at Special Management Unit; on January 16, 2025 he became Deputy Warden of Security at Dooly, the position he held on every date in the death registry below.

The headline accountability fact is the count: GPS's death registry attributes 12 deaths to Major's leadership tenure, and all 12 are attributed to Dooly State Prison. Six of the twelve carry a cause listed as Unknown/Pending, three as Overdose, two as Homicide and one as Natural/Medical; the decedents ranged in age from 32 to 70. Both lawsuits in which the court index lists him as a defendant terminated without a recorded monetary outcome.

What happened on their watch

Dooly State Prison — Deputy Warden (January 1–15, 2025); Deputy Warden of Security (January 16, 2025–present). All 12 deaths attributed to Major's leadership are recorded here, each with the role of Deputy Warden of Security on the date of death:

• Horatio Philmore died February 2, 2025, at Dooly State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Homicide, age 58. Event records describe the death as classified a suicide, with inmate reports indicating strangulation.
• Timothy Glenn Williams died April 17, 2025, at Dooly State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Overdose, age 56.
• Orlando Perez Glass died August 17, 2025, at Dooly State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Unknown/Pending, age 49.
• Marshall Davis Crews died September 19, 2025, at Dooly State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Unknown/Pending, age 69.
• Willie Mote died October 14, 2025, at Dooly State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Unknown/Pending, age 70.
• Paul Counts died October 30, 2025, at Dooly State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Unknown/Pending, age 60.
• Darrow Brown died November 7, 2025, at Dooly State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Homicide, age 58. An event record describes Brown as stabbed to death.
• Dexter Andres Levy died November 16, 2025, at Dooly State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Overdose, age 32.
• Samuel Jacob Blackmon died January 19, 2026, at Dooly State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Overdose, age 40.
• Martez Desmond Terry died April 29, 2026, at Dooly State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Natural/Medical, age 42.
• Jerry Mccaster died August 11, 2026, at Dooly State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Unknown/Pending, age 60.
• Jerry Jerome Smith died August 21, 2026, at Dooly State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Unknown/Pending, age 61.

Around those deaths, the facility file for Major's tenure is dense with violence and staffing allegations. A November 25, 2025 report describes an investigation into staffing collapse at Dooly finding housing units with no officer supervision for hours or entire shifts; a January 31, 2026 report states the prison held 1,593 people in a facility designed for 500, with a 50% statewide correctional officer vacancy rate, and a January 1, 2026 report cites inadequate medical, food-service and staffing infrastructure. News accounts relayed in the file document a March 23, 2026 fight injuring five inmates (described by GDC as gang-related), an April 1, 2026 altercation injuring six with three airlifted, a May 22, 2026 gang-related fight injuring nine that was followed by a statewide GDC lockdown, and a June 7, 2026 altercation involving three inmates. GPS submissions allege additional stabbings, lockdowns, a mass stabbing, two rival groups not being separated, and an April 7, 2025 beating of an inmate who had requested protection by a lieutenant and CERT team. A May 20, 2026 submission describes a missed count and a sergeant covering one side of the facility alone; an October 10, 2026 inside report alleges a roughly 17-hour gap between the evening meal and breakfast against the 14-hour limit in food-service policy SOP 409.04.02. Other items allege that incarcerated people ran fraud schemes from the facility and that staff were aware (corrections officer cadet Julius Deshawn Williams Jr. was found with 640 grams of methamphetamine and later sentenced; Abraham Rivas was charged in a phone-fraud scheme). Two Atlanta Journal-Constitution items in the file allege that a coroner believed Carlos Omar Soldiew-Acosta had been dead more than 24 hours before his body was found, and that James Yarbrough suffered uncontrolled diabetes for months before dying of ketoacidosis in a medical-malpractice case. The file also records the February 16, 2025 appointment of Mark Agbaosi as warden and the February 19, 2025 deployment of cell-phone blocking technology at Dooly.

Earlier postings — Burruss (2010, 2016, 2019–2021), Georgia Diagnostic and Classification (2011), Security Management Response Team (2012), Metro Reentry Facility (2017–2018), Special Management Unit (2022–2024 and January 2025) — are documented by role and dates in the Positions table.

Litigation

• Dorsey v. Lee, No. 5:21-cv-00435 (court docketed as GAMD), filed December 7, 2021, terminated November 7, 2024; no outcome amount recorded. Filed while Major held the rank of Correctional Lieutenant at Burruss Correctional Training Center.
• Mccarthian v. Melton, No. 1:11-cv-02654 (court docketed as GAND), filed August 10, 2011, terminated September 10, 2014; no outcome amount recorded. Filed during Major's 2011 tactical squad assignment at Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison.

Sources

• GPS death registry — 12 deaths attributed to Major's leadership tenure, all at Dooly State Prison
• Atlanta Journal-Constitution — reporting on the Soldiew-Acosta and Yarbrough deaths at Dooly
• WGXA — gang-related fight coverage and the Julius Deshawn Williams Jr. methamphetamine smuggling case
• WALB and Wesh.com — Abraham Rivas phone-fraud charges and his claim that staff knew of inmate scams
• 13WMAZ — five-inmate fight at Dooly
• News-journalonline.com — inmate fraud-scheme reporting
• Inside report to GPS and GPS case submissions — staffing, meal-gap, stabbing, lockdown and disturbance allegations at Dooly
• CourtListener dockets — Dorsey v. Lee (5:21-cv-00435); Mccarthian v. Melton (1:11-cv-02654)

Synthesized by GPS Intelligence System on Oct 18, 2026 from positions, attributed deaths, lawsuits, intel reports, and news mentions in the public corpus. The supporting data tables follow below.