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Owens, Robert
Status: active
Profile written June 7, 2026
This profile reflects positional accountability — this individual held the leadership roles shown during the dates shown, during which the listed deaths or lawsuits occurred. Inclusion does not constitute a legal finding of personal culpability for any specific incident.
Tenure Summary
Robert Owens began his career with the Georgia Department of Corrections in 2015 as a correctional officer and rose steadily through the ranks, serving as a sergeant, lieutenant, captain, and unit manager before assuming the role of deputy warden at the Metro Reentry Facility in 2024. GPS records attribute a total of eighteen deaths to his leadership tenure—all of them occurring at Metro Reentry after he became deputy warden there. During that period, an investigation by the GDC’s Office of Professional Standards into the death of Silas Westbrook, a man transferred from Washington State Prison following a riot, drew scrutiny to the facility; Westbrook died shortly after arrival at Metro Reentry.What happened on their watch
Owens became deputy warden of the Metro Reentry Facility on January 1, 2024. Between that date and April 13, 2026, GPS records document eighteen in-custody deaths at the facility. Each case is logged under cause category 6; the available data provide no further detail on the specific medical cause or manner. The decedents ranged in age from 36 (Joshua Jean Hanks, December 3, 2024) to 85 (Benjamin August Harter, September 14, 2024). Several deaths clustered in the fall of 2025: five men—Wilson Beavers, John Whitfield, Stephen Mott, Rodney Corbin, and Sammy Bernard Palmer—died within a span of about three weeks, between April 25 and October 23, 2025.In January 2026, an incident outside the facility intersected with Owens’s tenure. Silas Westbrook, who had been hospitalized with minor injuries sustained during a riot at Washington State Prison, was transferred to Metro Reentry on January 17. According to GDC Office of Professional Standards intel, Westbrook “suffered a medical emergency upon arrival” and was pronounced dead the same day. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation crime lab was tasked with determining the official cause of death, and the Office of Professional Standards opened an investigation. Westbrook’s death is not counted among the eighteen facility-attributed deaths in GPS records—those eighteen are the individuals listed by name in the `deaths_during_tenure` data—suggesting he may have been treated as a separate incident or that his death was not formally attributed to the facility through the same tracking mechanism. No further investigative findings have been made public as of the records’ extraction date.
Litigation
GPS records list nine lawsuits in which Owens is named as a defendant, though most were filed before his GDC employment began in 2015 or appear unrelated to his corrections role. The two cases filed during his tenure—United States v. Lockett (GAMD, No. 5:21-cr-00003, filed January 12, 2021) and United States v. Beckham (GASD, No. 2:26-cr-00001, filed January 6, 2026)—are criminal dockets, not civil-rights complaints, and their connection to Owens’s position is not discernible from the available data. The remaining lawsuits, including Smith v. Owens and Seibert v. Owens, pre-date his GDC service and likely involve a different individual with the same surname. No civil suit alleging wrongdoing specifically tied to Owens’s deputy warden tenure at Metro Reentry appears in the records.Sources
- GPS personnel and death-tracking records — metadata for Robert Owens, including all eighteen attributed deaths at Metro Reentry Facility from 2024 through 2026
- GDC Office of Professional Standards intel events — investigation into the death of Silas Westbrook, January 2026
- CourtListener dockets — list of lawsuits naming “Owens” as a defendant, from 2012 to 2026, accessed via the provided URLs
Positions Held
| Title | Facility | Tenure |
|---|---|---|
| DEPUTY WARDEN | METRO REENTRY FACILITY | 2024-01-01 → present |
| CSM CORRECTIONAL UNIT MANAGER | 2021-01-01 → 2023-12-31 | |
| CSM CORRECTIONAL CAPTAIN | 2019-01-01 → 2020-12-31 | |
| CSM CORRECTIONAL LIEUTENANT | 2017-01-01 → 2018-12-31 | |
| CSM CORRECTIONAL SERGEANT | 2016-01-01 → 2016-12-31 | |
| CORRECTIONS OFFICER (SP) | 2015-01-01 → 2015-12-31 |
Lawsuits as defendant
| Case # | Court | Filed | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2:26-cr-00001 | GASD | 2026-01-06 | pending |
| 1:24-cv-00019 | GASD | 2024-02-16 | pending |
| 1:23-cv-01109 | GAND | 2023-03-14 | pending |
| 2:22-cv-00086 | GASD | 2022-09-06 | terminated |
| 5:21-cr-00003 | GAMD | 2021-01-12 | pending |
| 1:16-cv-00709 | GAND | 2016-03-04 | terminated |
| 6:14-cv-00047 | GASD | 2014-05-19 | terminated |
| 6:13-cv-00115 | GASD | 2013-12-30 | terminated |
| 1:12-cv-00327 | GAND | 2012-01-31 | terminated |
Deaths attributed during tenure
18 people died at facilities under Owens, Robert's leadership.
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