Walker, Martella L

Tenure Summary

Martella L. Walker's GDC salary records begin with a 2002 Correctional Officer post at Wilcox State Prison and resume in 2015, again at Wilcox, at $28,973.04. Walker then moved up the custody ladder — Correctional Sergeant at Wilcox (2016–2017), Correctional Lieutenant (2018–2022, facility not specified in the records), Correctional Captain (2023) and Correctional Unit Manager (2024 through 2025-09-15) — before taking the Deputy Warden of Security post at Ware State Prison on 2025-09-16. A further Deputy Warden entry at Ware is dated 2026-08-27.

GPS records attribute 14 deaths to Walker's facility-leadership tenure, all of them at Ware State Prison, the only facility with deaths attributed to Walker. No lawsuit naming Walker as a defendant appears in GPS records. The decedents in the sample range in age from 25 to 85 and span homicides, suicides, natural deaths, one accident, and three deaths the records leave uncategorized.

What happened on their watch

Wilcox State Prison / facility-unspecified postings (2015–2024). No deaths are attributed to Walker's staff-tier or unit-supervisor tenures at Wilcox or during the facility-unspecified Lieutenant, Captain and Unit Manager years. GPS records do show Walker held a Correctional Sergeant post at Wilcox in 2016 and 2017 — years overlapping GDC settlements in the DOAS Risk Management ledger tied to Wilcox: Jimmy Lucero ($550,000, 2016 incident), Ricky Johnson ($48,242.29, 2016), Jeffrey Ray ($2,000, 2016), and the James Wheeler payout ($750,000, incident 2017). The AJC reported that officials failed to recognize Wheeler's mental-health disease and placed him in solitary confinement, where he was found hanging. Nothing in the records places Walker in a supervisory role over those events.

Ware State Prison — Deputy Warden of Security (from 2025-09-16). All 14 attributed deaths occurred at Ware. Five are recorded as homicides: Kojack Thomas Jr., 27 (May 31, 2026 — Ware County coroner: blunt head trauma and ligature asphyxia); Justin Dean Pulley, 48 (May 20, 2026 — blunt force injuries and ligature strangulation); Anthony Terrell Grover, 25 (May 11, 2026 — multiple sharp-force injuries); Christopher Henry, 48 (Feb. 12, 2026 — blunt force injuries including strangulation); and Christopher Allen Barrett, 46 (Dec. 1, 2025 — multiplesharp-force injuries of the neck and torso and blunt head injuries; the coroner notes a cellmate admitted the assault and a pipe and knife were recovered).

Two are recorded as suicides: Johnathan Cleo Hardman-Simmons, 36 (May 20, 2026 — apparent ligature hanging, autopsy pending; GPS records separately identify him as the named perpetrator of Henry's Feb. 12 homicide) and Marty Shawn Wright, 49 (Nov. 13, 2025 — exsanguination from sharp-force injuries, reclassified by GPS administrators from homicide to suicide per the coroner's findings). Three are natural — Cody Humphrey, 72 (Feb. 21, 2026, acute myocardial infarction; GBI's Division of Forensic Sciences later declined to examine the death, issuing a declination stating no cause and no manner), Carlton Atkins Jones, 55 (Jan. 24, 2026) and Michael Cohen, 68 (Oct. 13, 2025). Vernon Edward Kennedy, 70, died accidentally on Dec. 12, 2025 from respiratory complications of a hip fracture sustained in a shower fall. Three further deaths carry no cause classification in the sample: David Miller Newman, 60 (July 15, 2026), Reberto Baez, 69 (July 9, 2026) and David Randolph Newcomer, 85 (June 30, 2026).

Intel items at Ware dated inside Walker's tenure include four Telegram-relayed stabbing or gang-violence case submissions to GPS (April 2026), a GDC Office of Professional Standards investigation into Thomas's death (June 2026), and a September 2026 Butts County Sheriff's seizure of contraband alleged to be bound for Ware. Earlier Ware reporting predates the posting: the AJC counted ten inmate homicides at Ware between July 2020 and August 2024, and GPB reported Narissa Wright's allegation that no counts or welfare checks were conducted at Ware, leaving her son DonTavis Mintz's body undiscovered for days after his October 2024 death.

Sources

• Ware County Coroner / GBI DOFS records (ORR conv dee3f317) — cause and manner for the Ware deaths
• Atlanta Journal-Constitution — Ware homicide count, July 2020–August 2024; Wheeler and Cole reporting at Wilcox
• Georgia Public Broadcasting — Narissa Wright allegations at Ware, Oct. 1, 2024
• GA DOAS Risk Management settlement ledger (open records) — Wilcox and Ware payouts
• GBI DOFS declination (humphrey consult.pdf)
• GPS case submissions (Telegram relay), April 2026
• GDC position and salary records, 2002–2026

Synthesized by GPS Intelligence System on Sep 13, 2026 from positions, attributed deaths, lawsuits, intel reports, and news mentions in the public corpus. The supporting data tables follow below.