Major, LEE

Tenure Summary

LEE Major's career with the Georgia Department of Corrections runs from 2010, when he served as a correctional officer at Burruss C.T.C., through tactical squad duty at Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison (2011) and a Security Management Response Team member posting (2012). He returned to Burruss as a correctional officer in 2016, then served as a sergeant (2017) and lieutenant (2018) at Metro Reentry Facility, lieutenant at Burruss C.T.C. (2019–2021), lieutenant (2022), captain (2023) and unit manager (2023–2024) at the Special Management Unit, and deputy warden at Dooly State Prison for the first half of January 2025.

GPS's registry attributes 10 deaths to his leadership tenures, all of them at Dooly State Prison, where he held the Deputy Warden role from January 1–15, 2025 and the Deputy Warden of Security role from January 16, 2025 to August 15, 2026, with a further one-day Deputy Warden entry dated August 27, 2026. Court records list him as a defendant in one lawsuit naming him, Dorsey v. Lee, which was terminated in 2024.

What happened on their watch

Special Management Unit — lieutenant (2022), captain (2023), unit manager (2023–2024). Records show these positions and dates; the registry attributes no deaths to these postings.

Deputy Warden / Unit Manager — Dooly State Prison and Special Management Unit, January 1–15, 2025. Both roles are recorded for the same window.

Deputy Warden of Security — Dooly State Prison, January 16, 2025 – August 15, 2026. GPS's registry attributes 10 deaths to Dooly State Prison during Major's leadership tenure, and each of the ten decedents is recorded with his role at the time as Deputy Warden of Security:

• Horatio Philmore died February 2, 2025, at Dooly State Prison; GPS's registry lists the cause as Homicide, age 58. A record of the death states it occurred in an open dorm and was officially classified as a suicide, while inmate reports indicated strangulation — an account attributed to inmate sources, not a finding.
• Timothy Glenn Williams died April 17, 2025, at Dooly State Prison; the registry lists Overdose, age 56.
• Orlando Perez Glass died August 17, 2025, at Dooly State Prison; the registry lists Unknown/Pending, age 49.
• Marshall Davis Crews died September 19, 2025, at Dooly State Prison; the registry lists Unknown/Pending, age 69.
• Willie Mote died October 14, 2025, at Dooly State Prison; the registry lists Unknown/Pending, age 70.
• Paul Counts died October 30, 2025, at Dooly State Prison; the registry lists Unknown/Pending, age 60.
• Darrow Brown died November 7, 2025, at Dooly State Prison; the registry lists Homicide, age 58. A separate event record states Brown was stabbed to death at the facility.
• Dexter Andres Levy died November 16, 2025, at Dooly State Prison; the registry lists Overdose, age 32.
• Samuel Jacob Blackmon died January 19, 2026, at Dooly State Prison; the registry lists Overdose, age 40.
• Martez Desmond Terry died April 29, 2026, at Dooly State Prison; the registry lists Natural/Medical, age 42.

The causes span three overdoses, two homicides (one with an inmate account of strangulation against an official suicide ruling), four unknown/pending and one natural/medical, with ages from 32 to 70. Alongside the deaths, records tied to the Deputy Warden of Security role document a facility under strain: a November 25, 2025 investigation report described housing units with no officer supervision for hours or entire shifts; January 2026 reports stated Dooly held 1,593 people against a 500-person design capacity (319 percent) with staffing vacancies averaging roughly 50 percent statewide. A February 16, 2025 report noted Warden Mark Agbaosi's appointment without a bachelor's degree, and on February 19, 2025 GDC deployed cell phone blocking technology at Dooly and other prisons.

Reported incidents in the same window include a gang-related fight injuring five inmates (March 23–24, 2026); an altercation injuring six with three airlifted (April 1, 2026); a gang-related fight injuring nine inmates that preceded a statewide lockdown of all GDC facilities and cancellation of Memorial Day visitation at Dooly, Washington, Ware and Hancock state prisons (May 22, 2026); and altercations involving three inmates in June 2026. Other records include the stabbing of Zeary "Blue" Davis, who used a contraband phone to call for emergency medical help (October 1, 2025); an allegation that an inmate requesting protection from gang threats was beaten by Lt. Fudge and a CERT team (April 7, 2025); Deputy Warden Charles Hudson being bitten by an inmate (December 8, 2025); and former cadet Julius Deshawn Williams Jr. found with 640 grams of methamphetamine, to which he pleaded guilty and faced up to life in prison (December 2025). Per WALB, WESH and News-Journal Online, inmate Abraham Rivas was charged in a phone fraud scheme and claimed other inmates ran similar scams and that correctional staff were aware of the activity — an allegation by Rivas, not a finding. Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporting records a coroner's allegation that Carlos Omar Soldiew-Acosta may have been dead more than 24 hours before his body was found, and a malpractice allegation that James Yarbrough suffered uncontrolled diabetes for months before dying of ketoacidosis.

Litigation

• Dorsey v. Lee, 5:21-cv-00435, filed December 7, 2021 in GAMD; terminated November 7, 2024. Filed while Major was recorded as a lieutenant at Burruss C.T.C.; no outcome amount is recorded.
• Mccarthian v. Melton, 1:11-cv-02654, filed August 10, 2011 in GAND; terminated September 10, 2014. Major is listed as a defendant; the case was filed while he was recorded on tactical squad at Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison. No outcome amount is recorded.

Sources

• Georgia Prisoners' Speak death registry — ten deaths attributed to Dooly State Prison during Major's Deputy Warden of Security tenure, with decedents and causes as listed
• CourtListener dockets — Dorsey v. Lee (5:21-cv-00435) and Mccarthian v. Melton (1:11-cv-02654)
• Atlanta Journal-Constitution — coroner allegation on Carlos Omar Soldiew-Acosta; medical-malpractice allegation in James Yarbrough's death
• WALB, WESH, News-Journal Online — Abraham Rivas fraud-scheme charges and his claims about staff awareness
• WGXA, 13WMAZ — gang-related fights at Dooly State Prison and the cadet meth-smuggling case
• GPS case submissions — unverified reports of stabbings, head injuries, lockdowns and a beating by officers at Dooly State Prison during Major's tenure

Synthesized by GPS Intelligence System on Sep 27, 2026 from positions, attributed deaths, lawsuits, intel reports, and news mentions in the public corpus. The supporting data tables follow below.