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Wilcox, Rickey W
Status: active
Profile written September 6, 2026
This profile reflects positional accountability — this individual held the leadership roles shown during the dates shown, during which the listed deaths or lawsuits occurred. Inclusion does not constitute a legal finding of personal culpability for any specific incident.
Tenure Summary
Rickey W. Wilcox’s GPS personnel record begins in 2015 as a corrections officer, with later classifications as CSM correctional lieutenant, unit manager, and correctional officer 2 before he appears as deputy warden at Telfair State Prison in 2023. Salary records continue the deputy warden posting through 2025, and a 2026 personnel record also lists Wilcox as deputy warden at Telfair. GPS records attribute 34 deaths to Wilcox’s Telfair State Prison leadership tenure, all 34 under that facility. No lawsuit in the GPS dataset names Wilcox as a defendant. State settlement data, however, tie Telfair incidents during the period to payouts, including $3,249,872.60 to the family/estate of Juan Carlos Ramirez Bibiano and a $500 payout for Deante Gholston.What happened on their watch
Telfair State Prison — Deputy Warden (2023–present)
In the decedent records provided, the earliest entries place Bobby Murray, 51, at Telfair on Dec. 21, 2023, with no cause stated in GPS, and Kwesi Jamal Stultz, 24, on Dec. 22, 2023, classified as homicide from multiple blunt-force injuries to the head. The records run through 2026, when decedents include Kwame Conte McCombs, 37, and Antwane Shanfiel Robinson, 46, both with cause not stated, and Eric Bernard Haynes, 51, whose listed cause was natural following acute myocardial infarction.Across that span, the individual records show repeated violent deaths. Aaron Joshua Smith, 32, was found stabbed in his cell in December 2024. Eric Leigh Whitehead, 29, died in September 2024; coroner records cited blunt-force trauma in the setting of strangulation. Zoumana Madiou Sarre, 23, died in July 2024 from multiple sharp-force injuries to the neck and torso. Joey Lebron Kilgore, 45, was killed in February 2024. Suicides and overdoses also appear: Anthony James Mulder, 40, died by hanging in July 2024; David Lane Campbell, 44, died from acute methamphetamine intoxication in July 2025; Robert Messer, 63, died from acute synthetic cannabinoid intoxication in September 2025; and Robert Baker, 45, was recorded as suicide by hanging in October 2025, though GPS notes discrepancies in that record.
GDC’s Office of Professional Standards opened investigations into at least two documented Telfair deaths: the December 2025 killing of Preston C. Phelps, 28, and the June 2026 death of Timothy Wilson, 48, after an altercation. Wider reporting during Wilcox’s tenure described systemic strain: the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Telfair missing 76% of its essential workforce, leaving 36 officers to supervise 1,400 prisoners, and separately cited 79% officer vacancies. 13WMAZ reported that in the 2023 heat-death of Juan Carlos Ramirez Bibiano, an officer allegedly responded “if he dies, he dies.” A claim against the state alleged De’ahmoz Oshmic Floyd was stabbed while no prison staff were present in the dorm, according to the AJC. GPS records also document the Telfair warden being stabbed during a contraband shakedown on March 25, 2024, and a Telfair sergeant’s sentencing in the Ghost Face Gangsters meth-smuggling case.
Sources
- GPS personnel, death, and incident records
- Telfair County Coroner records
- GBI DOFS autopsy reports
- Atlanta Journal-Constitution — Georgia Prison Homicides Investigation and prison-system columns
- 13WMAZ — Telfair heat-death settlement reporting
- GA DOAS Risk Management settlement ledger (Open Records)
Positions Held
| Title | Facility | Tenure |
|---|---|---|
| Deputy Warden | TELFAIR STATE PRISON | 2026-08-27 → present |
| CSM Correctional Lieutenant | TELFAIR STATE PRISON | 2026-08-27 → present |
| CSM CORRECTIONAL SERGEANT | 2024-01-01 → present | |
| DEPUTY WARDEN | TELFAIR STATE PRISON | 2023-01-01 → present |
| Deputy Warden | TELFAIR STATE PRISON | 2023-11-22 → 2023-11-22 |
| CSM Correctional Officer 2 | TELFAIR STATE PRISON | 2023-11-22 → 2023-11-22 |
| CSM CORRECTIONAL OFFICER 2 | 2020-01-01 → 2023-12-31 | |
| CSM CORRECTIONAL UNIT MANAGER | 2020-01-01 → 2022-12-31 | |
| CORRECTIONAL OFC 1 | 2019-01-01 → 2019-12-31 | |
| CSM CORRECTIONAL LIEUTENANT | 2016-01-01 → 2019-12-31 | |
| CORRECTIONS OFFICER (SP) | 2015-01-01 → 2015-12-31 |
Deaths attributed during tenure
34 people died at facilities under Wilcox, Rickey W's leadership.
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