Williams, Khalilah J

Tenure Summary

Khalilah J. Williams enters Georgia Department of Corrections personnel records in 2015 as a behavioral health counselor and served in 2016 as a behavioral health counselor supervisor — both staff-tier posts with no facility listed. In 2017 she moved into facility leadership at Dodge State Prison as Deputy Warden, a role she holds across the annual records from 2017 through 2025, with salary rising from $49,323.01 to $72,089.62 over that span. Records also show a Deputy Warden of Care and Treatment assignment at Dodge beginning July 16, 2026, and single-day Deputy Warden entries dated November 22, 2023 and August 27, 2026.

GPS attributes 15 deaths to her leadership tenures, every one of them at Dodge State Prison. Of the registry entries during that tenure, eight list Natural/Medical causes, three list Suicide, two list Homicide, one lists Other, and one is Unknown/Pending. No lawsuits naming Williams as a defendant appear in these records, no intel reports are logged at her facilities, and no news reports naming her directly are recorded.

What happened on their watch

Dodge State Prison — Deputy Warden (2017–2025); Deputy Warden of Care and Treatment (from July 16, 2026)

Fifteen deaths are attributed to Williams's leadership tenure at Dodge State Prison. The earliest recorded during that tenure is Cantrell Lavar Edge, 41, and the most recent is Joseph Chatfield, 62, in June 2025. The cluster of Natural/Medical deaths in late 2020 — five between August 17 and October 9, 2020 — falls while Williams held the Deputy Warden role. Two deaths in 2022 are recorded as homicides: Hezekiah Cuyler, 21, on September 14, 2022, and Douglas Anthony Forts, 57, on June 2, 2022. Three deaths in 2023–2024 are recorded as suicides, including two men in their thirties and forties in 2023.

Cause categories from GPS's registry during her tenure at Dodge:

• Joseph Chatfield died June 13, 2025, at Dodge State Prison; GPS's registry lists the cause as Unknown/Pending. He was 62.
• Sotero Uriquiza-Hernandez died May 20, 2025, at Dodge State Prison; GPS's registry lists the cause as Natural/Medical. He was 51.
• Kenneth Brown died January 31, 2024, at Dodge State Prison; GPS's registry lists the cause as Suicide. He was 58.
• John August Comer died September 9, 2023, at Dodge State Prison; GPS's registry lists the cause as Suicide. He was 33.
• Charles Dennis Casey died May 6, 2023, at Dodge State Prison; GPS's registry lists the cause as Suicide. He was 41.
• Arnold Merle Mcdonald died December 22, 2022, at Dodge State Prison; GPS's registry lists the cause as Natural/Medical. He was 63.
• Hezekiah Cuyler died September 14, 2022, at Dodge State Prison; GPS's registry lists the cause as Homicide. He was 21.
• Douglas Anthony Forts died June 2, 2022, at Dodge State Prison; GPS's registry lists the cause as Homicide. He was 57.
• Stewart Myles Mitchell died December 7, 2021, at Dodge State Prison; GPS's registry lists the cause as Other. He was 36.
• Hoke Smith Tarpley died August 7, 2021, at Dodge State Prison; GPS's registry lists the cause as Natural/Medical. He was 57.
• Kenneth Lockett died October 9, 2020, at Dodge State Prison; GPS's registry lists the cause as Natural/Medical. He was 57.
• William D Hughes died October 8, 2020, at Dodge State Prison; GPS's registry lists the cause as Natural/Medical. He was 61.
• Tadrick Terrian Osborne died September 29, 2020, at Dodge State Prison; GPS's registry lists the cause as Natural/Medical. He was 40.
• Caesar Dupree died September 12, 2020, at Dodge State Prison; GPS's registry lists the cause as Natural/Medical. He was 64.
• Cantrell Lavar Edge died August 17, 2020, at Dodge State Prison; GPS's registry lists the cause as Natural/Medical. He was 41.

Two of those deaths carry circumstance detail in GPS's event records. The Cuyler entry states he died September 14, 2022 from blunt force trauma to the head. The Forts entry states he died June 2, 2022 from acute traumatic amputation of a finger sustained during a fight.

A state liability payout of $16,000 tied to Dodge State Prison, incident year 2025, was recorded May 26, 2025 in the Georgia Department of Administrative Services Risk Management settlement ledger, obtained through open records. That event record names Kimyania Smith and logs Williams's role at the facility on that date as Deputy Warden. The records do not state the underlying facts of that incident.

Sources

• Georgia Prisoners' Speak death registry — 15 deaths attributed to Williams's Dodge State Prison leadership tenure, 2020–2025, including cause categories and the Cuyler and Forts circumstance entries.
• Georgia Department of Administrative Services (DOAS) Risk Management settlement ledger, obtained via open records — $16,000 Dodge State Prison liability payout recorded May 26, 2025 (Kimyania Smith).

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.