Steedley, William J

Tenure Summary

William J. Steedley entered Georgia Department of Corrections service as a corrections officer in 2015, moving up through custody and unit-management ranks — correctional lieutenant in 2016, correctional unit manager from 2017 through 2019, deputy warden in 2020 — before taking the Warden post at Calhoun State Prison on October 1, 2020. Salary records place him in a WARDEN 1 position in 2021 and 2022, and he held the Calhoun Warden role through December 31, 2022. His current status is listed as active.

Six deaths are attributed to his facility-leadership tenure, all of them at Calhoun State Prison, according to GPS's death registry. The registry shows a mix of causes: two Natural/Medical deaths, one suicide, one homicide, and two deaths whose cause is recorded as Unknown/Pending. Court records also list him as a defendant in a federal suit filed in January 2021 and terminated in February 2022 while he held the Calhoun Warden role.

What happened on their watch

Calhoun State Prison — Warden, October 1, 2020 to December 31, 2022

GPS's death registry attributes six deaths at Calhoun to this tenure. In chronological order:

• Christopher Iles died March 10, 2021, at Calhoun State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Natural/Medical, age 48.
• James Stanley Powell died April 2, 2022, at Calhoun State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Unknown/Pending, age 63.
• Christopher Edward Oliva died April 9, 2022, at Calhoun State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Suicide, age 43.
• DaQuavious Lackey died May 16, 2022, at Calhoun State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Homicide, age 21.
• James Thomas Ennis died September 30, 2022, at Calhoun State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Unknown/Pending, age 63.
• Timothy Edwin Bryant died October 11, 2022, at Calhoun State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Natural/Medical, age 64.

GPS intel events recorded during the tenure bear on the Lackey homicide. An event dated May 16, 2022 states that Lackey, 21, died from a stab wound of the neck and multiple blunt force injuries, and that the DOJ report found he was killed after staff failed to follow procedures when moving his assailant, resulting in Lackey being beaten by his cellmate with a fan motor in a net bag. A separate intel event dated January 1, 2022 describes a homicide at Calhoun occurring after staff moved an assailant through segregation and general population without following classification procedures; the victim died from blunt force trauma and a stab wound to the neck. That event does not name a decedent. Steedley held the Warden role on the dates of both events, per the records' `role_at_time`.

Litigation

• Clayton v. Ward, No. 1:21-cv-00025, GAMD. Filed January 29, 2021; closed/terminated February 11, 2022. No outcome amount is recorded. Court records list Steedley as a defendant in the case; the records do not state the claims or the disposition beyond termination. Source: CourtListener docket.

Sources

• GPS death registry — cause categories and dates for the six deaths attributed to Steedley's Calhoun tenure: Iles, Powell, Oliva, Lackey, Ennis, Bryant
• U.S. Department of Justice report — finding that staff failed to follow procedures when moving Lackey's assailant, cited in GPS intel event for the May 16, 2022 Calhoun homicide
• GPS intel events — the January 1, 2022 Calhoun homicide description citing housing-classification failures
• U.S. District Court (GAMD) via CourtListener — docket for Clayton v. Ward, No. 1:21-cv-00025
• Georgia Department of Corrections salary and position records — 2015–2022 positions and salary years

Synthesized by GPS Intelligence System on Oct 11, 2026 from positions, attributed deaths, lawsuits, intel reports, and news mentions in the public corpus. The supporting data tables follow below.