Scott-Gist, Laura C

Tenure Summary

Laura C. Scott-Gist spent 2017–2021 in staff-level Georgia Department of Corrections roles with no facility assigned in the records — training and development specialist (2017), education program specialist (2018–2019, salary rising from $53,337.50 to $56,100), and behavioral health counselor (2020–2021, $57,222 to $58,222). In 2022 she moved into facility leadership, recorded as Correctional Assistant Superintendent at Helms Facility, a post she held through 2025 with salary rising from $67,013.70 to $79,318.50. A separate Helms record dated Aug. 27, 2026 carries the title "Asst Supt, Correctional."

GPS attributes six deaths to her leadership tenure, all six at Helms Facility. No lawsuit naming her as a defendant appears in the records, no intelligence report or intelligence event at Helms is dated inside her leadership tenure, and no news coverage naming her is on file.

What happened on their watch

Helms Facility — Correctional Assistant Superintendent, 2022–2025 (records also show a single-day entry dated Nov. 22, 2023, and a Helms entry dated Aug. 27, 2026)

Six deaths are attributed to Helms Facility while Scott-Gist held the Assistant Superintendent role, per GPS's count of GDC death records. The decedents named in those records are:

• Mitchell Lebron Dunn, 60 — Jan. 26, 2022
• Kenneth Clyde, 65 — Feb. 25, 2022
• Walton Jerome Thomas, 56 — June 26, 2022
• Frank Eugene Huffman, 66 — April 23, 2023
• Robert Lee Hines, 63 — May 17, 2023
• James Michael Stafford, 59 — July 20, 2023

Three of the six occurred during her first six months in the post, and all six fell in 2022 and 2023. Every decedent was between 56 and 66 years old. The records group the six under two cause classifications — three deaths in each — but carry no public narrative for any of them, so no circumstances beyond date, age, and cause classification are documented in the source material. GPS's records do not state a manner or mechanism of death for any of the six.

Nothing in the records attributes an allegation, audit finding, or systemic report to her tenure at Helms. Her earlier 2017–2021 positions were staff-tier and are not tied to any facility in the records, so no facility-level death data is associated with those years; this narrative states the roles and dates only and makes no claim about incidents during them beyond the absence of any death attributed to her leadership.

Sources

• Georgia Prisoners' Speak personnel compilation — position titles, start/end dates and annual salary figures for Scott-Gist, 2017–2026, drawn from GDC personnel records
• GPS death records for Helms Facility — decedent names, incident dates, ages at death, and cause classifications for the six deaths attributed to her tenure (2022–2023)
• GPS accountability-tier records — classification of the Correctional Assistant Superintendent position as a facility-deputy role

Synthesized by GPS Intelligence System on Sep 23, 2026 from positions, attributed deaths, lawsuits, intel reports, and news mentions in the public corpus. The supporting data tables follow below.