Turner, Dennis J

Tenure Summary

Dennis J. Turner is an active Georgia Department of Corrections employee whose personnel record runs from 2011 onward. He began as a correctional officer at Calhoun State Prison from Jan. 4, 2011 to Nov. 30, 2012, then served as sergeant there from Dec. 1, 2012 to May 31, 2015. He moved into public-safety trainer roles at Augusta State Medical Prison (2015–2016), Baldwin State Prison (2016–2017), and Pulaski State Prison (2017–2020), then at the Special Management Unit (2022–2023), where he became a correctional unit manager and later deputy warden. GPS records also place him as deputy warden at Central State Prison in the 2024 and 2025 salary records, with a Central State Deputy Warden row beginning Aug. 1, 2025. The file contains overlapping administrative entries: a Special Management Unit Deputy Warden row runs to July 31, 2025, while Central State Deputy Warden salary rows appear for 2024 and 2025.

GPS records attribute 24 deaths to Turner’s facility-leader tenures: 22 at Central State Prison and 2 at the Special Management Unit. One federal lawsuit, Gumm v. Jacobs, is associated with Turner as a defendant.

What happened on their watch

Special Management Unit

GPS records show Turner at the Special Management Unit as a public safety trainer from April 2022 to March 2023, as CSM Correctional Unit Manager from April 1, 2023 to Oct. 15, 2023, and as Deputy Warden from Oct. 16, 2023 to July 31, 2025. GPS records attribute two deaths to the SMU during his deputy warden tenure: Ricardo Castavio Daughtry, 41, on June 10, 2024, and Emilio Christopher Canales, 40, on Oct. 22, 2024. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that GDC failed to check on Daughtry for nearly seven hours before his body was discovered, despite a policy requiring checks every 30 minutes, and that prison records showed Daughtry attending “table time,” recreation, and the book cart after he had already been pronounced dead. The AJC also reported allegations that GDC falsified and backdated prisoner review forms at the SMU. GPS records do not state an official cause of death for either man.

Central State Prison

GPS records place Turner as deputy warden at Central State Prison in the 2024 and 2025 salary records, with a continuous Central State Deputy Warden row from Aug. 1, 2025. GPS records attribute 22 deaths to the Central State Prison deputy warden tenure. The listed deaths begin with Adel Eackles, 64, on Feb. 10, 2024, and extend through Steve Allen Burk, 38, on July 20, 2026.

Some entries carry source notes. According to 13WMAZ, the coroner confirmed multiple stab wounds in the Dec. 9, 2024 death of Leon Culver Kelly. A GPS note on Burk’s record reads “Beaten To Death,” attributed to a warden’s call from the prison. A Telegram relay message reported a death by suicide in the segregation unit on March 1, 2026, later tied in GPS records to Miguel Angel Duran. A dorm resident reported that Joseph Hamm was found with a burst balloon of opiates in his mouth on Oct. 8, 2025 after being told to pack for transfer, and described the likely official cause as heart attack caused by opiate overdose. Per GPS provenance notes, the GDC’s January 2025 mortality release listed Matthew Maddox’s cause as “Cerebral Herniation due to Extremely High BP.” Many Central State entries in the GPS death records carry no cause information.

Broader public allegations tied to Central State during overlapping periods include a 13WMAZ report that three former prison guards beat an inmate and tried to cover it up in March 2025, and a separate 13WMAZ report that a guard faced charges after allegedly falsely imprisoning four DFCS employees in December 2025. Georgia Public Broadcasting reported severe staff shortages have allowed gangs to effectively run Georgia prisons.

Litigation

• Gumm v. Jacobs, No. 5:15-cv-00041 (U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia), filed Feb. 12, 2015; terminated May 7, 2019. GPS records associate the case with Turner as a defendant. No outcome amount is recorded in the GPS data.

Sources

• Atlanta Journal-Constitution — multiple investigative reports covering SMU record falsification, Central State prison violence, DOJ findings, and Georgia prison conditions.
• 13WMAZ — reporting on Leon Kelly’s stabbing at Central State Prison, Central State guard misconduct allegations, and Baldwin State Prison officer lawsuits.
• Georgia Public Broadcasting — reporting on severe staff shortages and gang control in Georgia prisons.
• GDC official mortality reports — January 2025 release and CY2024 mortality data cited in GPS death-record provenance notes.
• U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia / CourtListener — Gumm v. Jacobs docket.
• GPS records — personnel postings, attributed death counts, death-record notes, and facility allegations.

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.