Spencer, Gwendolyn A

Tenure Summary

GPS records attribute 15 deaths to Spencer’s leadership tenure, all at Calhoun State Prison. One lawsuit is associated with Spencer in GPS records: Jacobs v. Georgia Department of Corrections, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia and still pending. GPS data also lists Calhoun-related settlements from 2018 through 2023, but their recorded incident dates fall before Spencer’s November 22, 2023 deputy warden appointment.

What happened on their watch

Calhoun State Prison — Deputy Warden (2023-11-22 onward)

Death certificates obtained by GPS list homicides for Matthew Len Nutt, Theodore Roundtree, and Gonzalo Colmenero-Ayala. The AJC’s Georgia prison homicides investigation identified Kenneth Scott Piper’s death as a murder from an inmate-to-inmate assault. For Willie Andrew Willis, GPS research and WALB reporting describe a balcony fall, a stab wound to the neck, and family allegations that he was thrown from a balcony and that nearly an hour passed before he was airlifted. The death certificates list natural causes for Jimmy McMullen and Thomas Haugabook.

Intel reports tied to Calhoun State Prison include DOJ findings reported by WALB and the AJC: that staff failed to follow housing and classification procedures, that an incarcerated person died of dehydration after staff allegedly cut off food and water, that EMS responses were delayed an average of 30 minutes due to understaffing, and that GDC underreported homicides. Some of those documented incidents — such as a 2022 homicide and a February 2023 dehydration death — predate Spencer’s recorded deputy warden appointment. AJC reporting on dismissed drug-smuggling cases and untested evidence at Calhoun State Prison also appears in the facility intel record. No news mentions specific to Spencer appear in the GPS file.

Litigation

• Jacobs v. Georgia Department of Corrections, No. 4:25-cv-00111, U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia, filed March 26, 2025; status pending, no disposition recorded.

Sources

• GPS personnel, death, and intel records
• Atlanta Journal-Constitution — Georgia Prison Homicides Investigation and Calhoun State Prison drug-smuggling investigation
• WALB — reporting on Willie Andrew Willis Jr. and DOJ investigation findings
• Calhoun County death certificates obtained via GPS open-records requests
• GDC official mortality reports
• GA DOAS Risk Management settlement ledger via open records
• CourtListener docket — Jacobs v. Georgia Department of Corrections

Synthesized by GPS Intelligence System on Aug 30, 2026 from positions, attributed deaths, lawsuits, intel reports, and news mentions in the public corpus. The supporting data tables follow below.