McDay, Courtney

Tenure Summary

Courtney McDay spent seven years as a Behavioral Health Counselor within GDC before transitioning to facility leadership, joining Phillips State Prison as Deputy Warden in 2022 — a role GPS records show McDay has held continuously through at least 2025. During that deputy-warden tenure, GPS records attribute 52 deaths at Phillips State Prison to McDay's period of accountability-tier leadership. Those deaths include at least nine classified as homicides (cause category 3), with the remainder falling into other cause categories. One federal civil rights lawsuit names McDay as a defendant and remains pending. The facility also figures prominently in a DOJ-documented gang-war incident and an AJC investigation into prison homicides.

---

What Happened on Their Watch

Phillips State Prison — Deputy Warden, 2022–present

McDay assumed the Deputy Warden role at Phillips State Prison no later than January 2022, per GPS salary records. Within the first months of that posting, a wave of stabbing deaths occurred. According to the AJC's Georgia Prison Homicides investigation, Jamal Cymonne Johnson, 32, died June 11, 2022 from stab wounds to the head injuring the brain; Sidney Sanchez Nealey, 22, died July 18, 2022 from stab wounds to the torso; Jacob Daniels, 18, died August 13, 2022 from a stab wound to the neck, shoulder, and arm; and Quafabian Melik McBride, 19, died September 30, 2022 from a stab wound to the chest injuring the heart. The AJC investigation further reports an allegation that officers arranged for McBride to be brought to the lockdown unit on the day he was killed in what is described as a gang-related stabbing. Per a DOJ-documented event, McBride's killing triggered a gang war across multiple GDC prisons in which Bloods attacked Crips over several days and 20 prisoners were hospitalized. Alim Rasheed Lovett, 33, died December 8, 2022 from stab wounds to the back injuring the right lung; the incident report, per GPS records, lists four other prisoners as involved.

The homicides continued into 2023. Arthur James Wimbush Jr., 46, died April 2, 2023 from blunt force trauma with fracture of the thyroid cartilage, according to the AJC investigation. The AJC also reports an allegation that Dave Stone — who died November 20, 2021, before McDay's deputy-warden tenure but at the same facility — was assaulted in a mental health ward, apparently with two pipes wrapped in cloth, resulting in brain death; that allegation is noted here as facility context, not as a death during McDay's tenure.

In 2024, GPS records attribute 14 additional deaths at Phillips to McDay's tenure. Among them, David E. Fambro, 69, died July 24, 2024 from complications of facial fractures with an interval of 26 days, classified as a homicide per the AJC investigation. Corey Madison Cochran, 29, died December 18, 2024; GPS research notes his death at Phillips and describes the facility as high-violence, with cause unknown to the family per a Facebook memorial post. Brandon Lashaun Mincey, 37, died October 11, 2024 after being stabbed by other inmates, according to WTOC and FOX 5 Atlanta, with FOX 5 reporting his death in the context of two inmates dying weeks after a DOJ report on the facility. Thomas Lane Dean, 18, and Timothy Hurley, 19, also died at Phillips during 2024, GPS records show.

Into 2025 and early 2026, GPS records attribute an additional 22 deaths at Phillips during McDay's continued deputy-warden posting. Among those, Jody Stokes died January 13, 2025; the death certificate lists homicide due to strangulation, per GPS records. The deaths span a wide age range — from 30-year-old Joseph Ulrich to 86-year-old John Carlysle Neale — and include individuals whose notes reference HIV complications and end-stage dementia, as well as multiple deaths with no documented cause notes.

---

Litigation

• Wright v. McDay, No. 1:23-cv-04358 (N.D. Ga.), filed September 25, 2023 — pending; no settlement amount recorded. Per court records via CourtListener.

---

Sources

• Atlanta Journal-Constitution — Georgia Prison Homicides investigation; source for homicide cause-of-death findings for Jamal Johnson, Sidney Nealey, Jacob Daniels, Quafabian McBride, Alim Lovett, Arthur Wimbush Jr., and David Fambro; allegation regarding officer arrangement of McBride's movement to lockdown; allegation regarding Dave Stone assault in mental health ward
• DOJ report (referenced in GPS intel events) — documented gang-war outbreak across multiple GDC prisons following McBride homicide; 20 prisoners hospitalized
• WTOC / FOX 5 Atlanta — reporting on Brandon Lashaun Mincey stabbing death; FOX 5 contextualized deaths as occurring weeks after a DOJ report on Phillips
• GPS records — salary and position data establishing McDay's deputy-warden tenure at Phillips State Prison 2022–present; death incident dates, ages, and cause categories; death certificate notation for Jody Stokes (homicide/strangulation); GPS research notation for Corey Cochran
• CourtListener / federal court records — Wright v. McDay, 1:23-cv-04358 (N.D. Ga.), filed 2023, pending

Synthesized by GPS Intelligence System on May 6, 2026 from positions, attributed deaths, lawsuits, intel reports, and news mentions in the public corpus. The supporting data tables follow below.