The Six Who Disappeared: Georgia’s Prison Death Cover-Up

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In January 2026, the Georgia Department of Corrections quietly published a statistical report acknowledging that 301 people died while serving state sentences during calendar year 2025. The number appeared on Page 39 of the Inmate Statistical Profile: Inmates Released During CY2025, produced January 2, 2026 — 289 men and 12 women, all listed under the clinical release type: “Death.”

Three hundred and one human beings. Dead under the authority of the State of Georgia.

But when Georgia Prisoners’ Speak obtained the official mortality name-and-date list from GDC — the PDF file titled MortalityReport-1.1.25-12.31.25Name_Date — something didn’t add up.

The list contained only 295 names.

Six people were missing.

Counted but Not Named

The math is not complicated. GDC’s own statistics say 301 people were released via death. GDC’s own mortality report names only 295. That leaves six human beings who the State of Georgia acknowledges died while serving sentences — but whose names the state refuses to disclose.

Who were they? How did they die? Where did they die? Were they murdered? Did they overdose? Did they die of medical neglect in a system the U.S. Department of Justice has declared unconstitutional?

Georgia isn’t saying.

The Open Records Request

On February 11, 2026, GPS filed an Open Records Request under the Georgia Open Records Act (O.C.G.A. § 50-18-70 et seq.) seeking a simple answer: Who are the six people counted in your death statistics but missing from your mortality report?

The request was straightforward. We asked for the complete list of all 301 individuals, including their names, GDC identification numbers, dates of death, facility locations, and cause of death classifications. We also asked GDC to explain the discrepancy — why one official document says 301 and another says 295.

On February 27, 2026, GDC Assistant General Counsel Timothy Duff responded. His answer deserves to be read carefully, because it is a masterclass in bureaucratic obfuscation:

“The requested information is different because they are different data sets. The mortality report provided, as noted, are for individuals in the custody of, or under the care of the Georgia Department of Corrections (GDC). The data posted on-line are for the number of the individuals who were released from a sentence because of death in the calendar year, and not in the custody of or under the care of the GDC.”

Read that again. GDC is claiming that the 301 figure includes people who died while “released from a sentence because of death” but who were somehow “not in the custody of or under the care of the GDC.”

This is absolute nonsensical.

Deconstructing the Doublespeak

GDC’s response attempts to create a distinction that doesn’t exist. Let’s break down what they’re actually saying.

They claim the 301 count includes people who died while on GDC’s books — serving GDC sentences — but who were not “in the custody of or under the care” of GDC at the time of death. Are they implying that these six people may have died at county correctional institutions, private prisons, or while on some form of community supervision, or something else?

But here’s the problem: every one of those facilities and supervision programs operates under GDC authority. County prisons house state inmates under contract with GDC. Private prisons like Coffee Correctional Facility and Wheeler Correctional Facility are operated by CoreCivic under GDC contracts. Transitional centers, reentry facilities, and community supervision programs all fall under GDC’s jurisdiction.

If a person is serving a GDC sentence and dies — regardless of whether they are at a state prison, a private prison, a county facility, or an outside hospital — they died under the authority of the State of Georgia. Their name should be on the mortality report.

GDC apparently disagrees. They count these deaths when it inflates their statistical totals, but they exclude the names when the public asks who died.

Pay to Know Who Died

GDC’s response didn’t stop at doublespeak. They also informed GPS that if we want them to “specifically research and reconcile the data sets,” we would need to pay for it.

The rates:

  • $43.40 per hour for data management staff to search and retrieve records
  • $53.00 per hour for electronic database searches
  • $37.50 per hour for legal review of any results

Let that sink in. The State of Georgia publishes two contradictory official documents about how many people died in its prison system. When a journalist points out the contradiction and asks for the six missing names, the state’s response is: pay us, and maybe we’ll tell you.

This isn’t a complex records request requiring weeks of research. Both documents cover the exact same time period — calendar year 2025, January 1 through December 31. Both are produced by GDC. One is a statistical summary. The other is a name-and-date list. The difference is six names. A single database query could resolve this discrepancy in minutes.

But GDC would rather charge journalists by the hour than explain why six people who died under state authority have been erased from the public record. Or maybe it’s that they believe the likelihood of a non-profit organization paying some untold sum of money, they didn’t give an estimate, would stop them from learning who they are hiding.

A Pattern of Hiding the Dead

This is not the first time GDC has been caught manipulating death data. GPS’s independent mortality tracking — built from open records requests, family reports, and verified source information — has repeatedly exposed gaps between what GDC reports and what actually happens inside Georgia’s prisons.

In at least 13 documented cases, GDC reported deaths as “natural causes” when medical examiners later determined they were accidental drug overdoses. In 31 additional cases, GDC classified deaths as “undetermined” when autopsies revealed overdose as the cause. In the first five months of 2024 alone, GDC reported 6 homicides in its mortality data while incident reports documented at least 18 homicide-categorized deaths — a three-to-one undercount. 1

The Department of Justice’s October 2024 investigation confirmed what GPS had been documenting for years: Georgia’s prison system operates with approximately 50% staffing vacancies statewide and greater than 70% vacancy rates at the ten largest facilities. People are dying in conditions the DOJ found to violate the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. 2

And now we learn that GDC doesn’t even count all the dead in its public mortality reports.

Of course, we hear from the prisoners all the time about how the officers can’t count, so maybe we shouldn’t be surprised that the administration can’t count either.

What Federal Law Requires

The Death in Custody Reporting Act (DCRA), updated in 2013 as Public Law 113-242, requires states receiving Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant (JAG) funding to report the death of any person “detained, under arrest, in the process of being arrested, en route to incarceration, or incarcerated at any municipal or county jail, state prison, boot camp prison, or any state or local contract facility.” 3

The law requires 10 specific data elements for each death, reported within one quarter: the decedent’s name, date of birth, gender, race, ethnicity, date and time of death, location of death, the agency involved, and a description including cause of death.

Every one of those 301 deaths — not 295, but 301 — should be fully documented and reported. GDC’s decision to name only 295 while counting 301 doesn’t just raise transparency concerns. It raises questions about federal compliance.

301 People Died. Georgia Won’t Name Them All.

GPS has tracked 1,730 deaths in Georgia’s prison system since January 2, 2020, through our independent mortality database. We track every name. Every date. Every facility. We do this because the state won’t. 4

Among the 295 names GDC did provide for 2025, the stories are devastating enough. Jevion Benham, 21 years old, strangled to death at Valdosta State Prison on December 24, 2025 — his body undiscovered for two days. Christopher Barrett, 46, killed by his cellmate in solitary confinement at Ware State Prison. Dustin Parham, 35, allegedly killed by officers while handcuffed at Wheeler Correctional Facility. Preston Phelps, 28, killed at Telfair State Prison during a gang conflict. Charles Coppeak, 26, who reportedly had a seizure at Georgia Diagnostic Prison that went unnoticed by staff.

These are the deaths GDC was willing to name.

Now imagine what they’re hiding about the six they weren’t.

The Question That Demands an Answer

Georgia Prisoners’ Speak is not asking the GDC to perform complex research. We are not asking them to reconcile incompatible data sets. We are asking them to answer a simple question that any functioning government agency should be able to answer without hesitation:

Who are the six people who died while serving Georgia sentences in 2025 whose names do not appear on your mortality report?

Their names. Their dates of death. Where they died. How they died.

These are not statistics. They are not line items in a data set. They were human beings — someone’s child, someone’s parent, someone’s friend. They died under the authority of the State of Georgia. And Georgia has decided that the public doesn’t have a right to know who they were.

That is a cover-up. And it ends now.

GPS will continue to pursue the identities of these six individuals through every legal avenue available. If you have information about deaths in Georgia’s prison system that may not have been publicly reported, contact GPS through our secure tip line at gps.press. Submit an incident report, or Submit a Death Report.

The GDC open records correspondence referenced in this article is available in full on request.

Call to Action: What You Can Do

Contact GPS at media@gps.press for access to underlying datasets used in this analysis.

Awareness without action changes nothing. Here’s how you can help push for accountability and real reform:

Use Impact Justice AI — Our free tool at https://impactjustice.ai lets you instantly draft and send personalized emails to lawmakers, journalists, and agencies. No expertise required.

Tell My Story — Are you or a loved one affected by Georgia’s prison system? GPS publishes first-person accounts from incarcerated people and their families. Submit your story at https://gps.press/category/tellmystory/ and help the world understand what’s really happening behind the walls.

Contact Your Representatives — Your state legislators control GDC’s budget, oversight, and the laws that created these failures. Find your Georgia legislators at https://open.pluralpolicy.com/ga/ or call Governor Kemp at (404) 656-1776 or the GDC Commissioner at (478) 992-5246.

Demand Media Coverage — Contact newsrooms at the AJC, local TV stations, and national criminal justice outlets. More coverage means more pressure.

Amplify on Social Media — Share this article and tag @GovKemp, @GDC_Georgia, and your local representatives. Use #GAPrisons, #PrisonReform, #GeorgiaPrisonerSpeak.

File Public Records Requests — Georgia’s Open Records Act gives every citizen the right to request incident reports, death records, staffing data, medical logs, and financial documents at https://georgiadcor.govqa.us/WEBAPP/_rs/SupportHome.aspx.

Attend Public Meetings — The Georgia Board of Corrections and legislative committees hold public meetings. Your presence is noticed.

Contact the Department of Justice — File civil rights complaints at https://civilrights.justice.gov. Federal oversight has forced abusive systems to change before.

Support Organizations Doing This Work — Donate to or volunteer with Georgia-based prison reform groups fighting for change on the ground.

Vote — Research candidates’ positions on criminal justice. Primary elections often determine outcomes in Georgia.

Contact GPS — If you have information about conditions inside Georgia’s prisons, reach us securely at GPS.press.

Explore the Data

GPS makes GDC statistics accessible to the public through several resources:

Further Reading

Death by Neglect: The Hidden Deaths Inside Georgia Prisons

At Georgia’s main prison, men are dying from neglect — the sick go untreated, suicides are ignored, and bodies vanish from the record.

Lethal Negligence: The Hidden Death Toll in Georgia’s Prisons

GPS documents how GDC manipulates death data, misclassifies homicides, and covers up the true scale of mortality in state custody.

Above the Law: GDC Defies Courts, DOJ, and Legislators

Two federal judges, the DOJ, state legislators, and the press — GDC has stonewalled every institution meant to hold it accountable.

They Knew: Empty Posts, Broken Locks, and Georgia’s Deadliest Prison Week

Open records expose what Georgia tried to hide about the January 2026 Washington State Prison riot — four dead, five officers for 69 posts.

Three Weeks Under a Bunk: Torture at Macon State Prison

Christian Krauch was tortured for three weeks while GDC submitted 168 phantom inmate counts — another case of fabricated records hiding the truth.

$700 Million More — And Nothing to Show for It

Georgia added $700 million to corrections spending while homicides rose from 8 annually to 100 — the money bought nothing.

About Georgia Prisoners’ Speak (GPS)

Georgia Prisoners’ Speak (GPS) is a nonprofit investigative newsroom built in partnership with incarcerated reporters, families, advocates, and data analysts. Operating independently from the Georgia Department of Corrections, GPS documents the truth the state refuses to acknowledge: extreme violence, fatal medical neglect, gang-controlled dorms, collapsed staffing, fraudulent reporting practices, and unconstitutional conditions across Georgia’s prisons.

Through confidential reporting channels, secure communication, evidence verification, public-records requests, legislative research, and professional investigative standards, GPS provides the transparency the system lacks. Our mission is to expose abuses, protect incarcerated people, support families, and push Georgia toward meaningful reform based on human rights, evidence, and public accountability.

Every article is part of a larger fight — to end the silence, reveal the truth, and demand justice.

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Footnotes
  1. GPS Mortality Database https://gps.press/gdc-mortality-statistics/ [↩]
  2. DOJ Investigation of Georgia’s State Prisons Oct 2024 https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-finds-georgia-fails-protect-people-its-prisons-harm [↩]
  3. Death in Custody Reporting Act of 2013 https://www.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/house-bill/1447/text [↩]
  4. GPS Mortality Statistics Portal https://gps.press/gdc-mortality-statistics/ [↩]

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