Sales, Timothy Deshaun

Tenure Summary

Timothy Deshaun Sales has held multiple posts in the Georgia Department of Corrections since 2003, including Sergeant at Dooly State Prison, Lieutenant at Rutledge State Prison, Chief of Security and unit-manager roles at Macon State Prison, and a unit-manager posting at Autry State Prison. Sales later served as Deputy Warden at Macon State Prison (2018–2021), Deputy Warden at Dooly State Prison (2022), Warden at Dooly State Prison from March through June 2023, and Warden at Macon State Prison from July 2023 through January 2025.

GPS records attribute 54 deaths to Sales’s tenures at Macon State Prison and Dooly State Prison: 46 at Macon and 8 at Dooly. GPS records list no lawsuits naming Sales as a defendant.

What happened on their watch

Dooly State Prison — Deputy Warden (2022) and Warden (March–June 2023)

GPS records attribute 8 deaths to Dooly State Prison during Sales’s deputy-warden and warden tenures there. The provided records list five deaths while he was Deputy Warden — Richard Lavon Garland, Inocente Taboada, John Murray, Deroski Harris, and Ralph Scott Clemons — and three while he was Warden — Jeremy John Wells, James Michael Bailey, and Jared Alexander Hall. Most of these Dooly records are classified in the data as cause-category 6, meaning undetermined or awaiting autopsy. The record for Jared Alexander Hall was later reclassified through a GBI DOFS autopsy after initially being listed as unknown/pending, according to GPS provenance notes.

Macon State Prison — Deputy Warden (2018–2021)

Sales served as Deputy Warden at Macon State Prison from 2018 through 2021. The Macon death records provided run from January 2020 into January 2025. During his deputy-warden years, the records include numerous homicide-related deaths documented by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Georgia Prison Homicides Investigation, including Raul Villegas, Robbie Lee Brower, Carlos Maurice Fisher, Cody Dustin Silvers, David Travis Dennis, Johnny Young, Rafael Becerra Blass, and Bobby Edward Lee Jr. The AJC reported causes such as stab wounds, blunt and sharp force injuries, asphyxia, and ligature strangulation. A federal lawsuit described by the AJC alleges that Bobby Edward Lee Jr. was strangled by his cellmate because of understaffing and indifference by prison officials. The AJC also reported that Carrington Jwon Frye’s mother alleged her son bled for more than half an hour after being stabbed before help arrived.

Macon State Prison — Warden (July 2023–January 2025)

Sales became Warden at Macon State Prison on July 1, 2023, and held the role through January 31, 2025. The Macon death records during this period include Taurean Dante Hardy, Kevin Deshawn Lamar, Reginald Lamar Ginn, Kenneth Keith Malcom, Keith Antwone Green, Shannon Wayne Pickett, Jarod Quayshawn Williams, Mathis Lee Ward, Devontae Marquez Young, Johnathan Douglas Vann, and Jonathan Mitchell. The AJC documented several of these deaths as homicides involving sharp-force trauma, blunt-force head trauma, or inmate-to-inmate assault.

In January 2025, GDC’s published mortality data listed Jonathan Mitchell’s death as “Homicide due to Head Trauma.” The same GDC release listed David Gill’s death as “Suicide due to a Drug Overdose,” but a later GBI medical examiner report certified the cause as “Sudden cardiac death” and the manner as “Natural,” according to GPS records. James McDougal’s January 2025 death was listed as “Undetermined/Awaiting Autopsy Report.”

The AJC reported that Macon State Prison was critically understaffed during this period, with only five to eight officers staffing the entire facility when responding to deaths, and about two-thirds of correctional officer jobs unfilled as of October 2024. GPS incident records also note that four Macon State Prison correctional officers were arrested in September 2024 on charges of violating their oath and providing false statements. According to the AJC’s summary of a DOJ report, four gang members ran past an officer to the kitchen area and fatally stabbed a prisoner at Macon State Prison, a finding the report framed as a failure to prevent the assault.

Sources

• Atlanta Journal-Constitution — Georgia Prison Homicides Investigation; Macon State Prison cause-of-death records, staffing allegations, and the DOJ report summary
• GDC January 2025 mortality report PDF — official cause listings for Jonathan Mitchell, David Gill, and James McDougal
• GBI Medical Examiner’s Office — DOFS autopsy report for David Gill, citing cause and manner
• UCLA Law Behind Bars Data Project — GDC custodial mortality coding covering 2015–2021
• WGXA, WALB, 13WMAZ, 41NBC, and Georgia Public Broadcasting — facility incident and death coverage
• GPS incident and intel records — arrest events, staffing reports, and facility-specific allegations

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