Mitchell, Rashedah Fayola

Tenure Summary

Rashedah Fayola Mitchell entered the Georgia Department of Corrections as a correctional officer at Baldwin State Prison in 2006, then moved into behavioral health: counselor from 2011, Behavioral Health Counselor 3 from 2016 through 2018, and Behavioral Health Counselor Supervisor from 2019 through 2025, with a Hancock State Prison assignment recorded in November 2023. On February 1, 2026, she became Deputy Warden of Care and Treatment at Hancock State Prison — the facility-leadership post in which every death attributed to her tenure occurred.

GPS's death registry attributes five deaths to her leadership tenure, all at Hancock State Prison: three recorded as homicides and two whose cause is still listed as unknown or pending. No lawsuit naming her as a defendant appears in the records reviewed. The deaths came during months in which case submissions and news reports logged stabbings, gang-related assaults, use-of-force accounts and a large tactical operation at the same facility.

What happened on their watch

Baldwin State Prison — Correctional Officer, 2006. Records list Mitchell as a correctional officer at Baldwin State Prison during 2006.

Behavioral health postings, 2011–2025. Mitchell held counselor and counselor-supervisor titles across these years; no facility is recorded for those years except a November 2023 Hancock State Prison assignment.

Hancock State Prison — Deputy Warden of Care and Treatment, from February 1, 2026. All five attributed deaths fall in this posting:

• Jaylin Bell died February 6, 2026, at Hancock State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Homicide and his age as 32. Per 41NBC, he died following an altercation with his roommate, and the GDC Office of Professional Standards investigation was described as ongoing.
• Jerrod Johnson died February 18, 2026, at Hancock State Prison; the registry lists Homicide, age 27.
• Jacorey Derrelle Pearson died April 7, 2026, at Hancock State Prison; the registry lists Homicide, age 36. A death report states the cause was not released and the body was turned over to the county coroner for transport to the GBI crime lab, with an Office of Professional Standards investigation ongoing.
• Albert Chapa died July 30, 2026, at Hancock State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Unknown/Pending, age 57.
• Devin Cole Edwards died October 30, 2026, at Hancock State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Unknown/Pending. A report states he was found in his cell around 7:15 a.m. with signs of a recent fight and pronounced dead at a Washington County hospital, while serving a 30-year sentence for drug trafficking.

Case submissions logged at Hancock during the same tenure describe a volatile period: a gang-related dormitory assault (March 21), an alleged stabbing in the visitation area (March 15), a third-party report of multiple people stabbed in the annex with an air ambulance dispatched (May 21), a Telegram-circulated report of a stabbing that its own account characterized as hearsay (September 10), and an October 9 report of an incarcerated person with untreated mental illness stabbing a sleeping person — that submission states the victim was hospitalized and later returned to the dorm, and that a social-media claim someone was killed was inaccurate. Other submissions describe the IRT striking a person suspected of possessing a weapon against tables and doors (August 4), a tactical operation involving roughly 100 officers targeting multiple housing units and the annex (September 15), a person accessing the roof on three consecutive nights (June 9), a family report of six or more weeks in solitary confinement with no communication access (May 5), and monitored communications indicating a violent conflict between Muslim incarcerated individuals and a gang, with staff working to contain it (logged July 17, 2026).

Also within the tenure: John Morgan Coleman, an 82-year-old lifer, was transferred from medium to close security at Hancock on March 31, 2026; Marquez Powell was released from Hancock on June 19, 2026, after a Fulton County judge vacated his conviction on a joint motion by the Georgia Innocence Project and the Fulton County District Attorney's Conviction Integrity Unit citing new DNA evidence, with charges dismissed; and 41NBC and WGXA reported that a Hancock County jury convicted Vershaun Smith of malice murder for the June 2025 fatal stabbing of Corey July, with surveillance footage described in testimony, and that Judge Alison T. Burleson sentenced him to life without parole, per the Oculmulgee District Attorney's Office.

Sources

• GPS death registry — five deaths at Hancock State Prison, February–October 2026, with cause classifications
• GPS case submissions (inmate, family and third-party reports) — Hancock incidents, February–October 2026
• 41NBC — Jaylin Bell death report; Vershaun Smith conviction coverage
• WGXA — Vershaun Smith trial and surveillance-footage coverage
• GDC Office of Professional Standards — investigation status for Bell and Pearson deaths
• Event records citing the Hancock County jury verdict, Judge Alison T. Burleson's sentencing, the Oculmulgee District Attorney's Office, and the Fulton County vacatur of Marquez Powell's conviction

Synthesized by GPS Intelligence System on Nov 1, 2026 from positions, attributed deaths, lawsuits, intel reports, and news mentions in the public corpus. The supporting data tables follow below.