As he waited outside Terry Anthony’s battery in the mental health system at Augusta State Medical Prison, Donte Wyatt reached for his hands. The plug eventually broke, and Wyatt entered.
He had a 6-inch tip. Anthony, without a weapon himself, was rapidly confused, stabbed seven days before Wyatt fled.
Violent and bloody assaults  , have become regular episodes inside the prison run by the Georgia Department of Corrections. But what happened between Wyatt and Anthony was n’t the usual inmate-on-inmate violence, according to prosecutors in Columbia County.
It was, they contend, an act of violence set in motion by the officer in charge.
At least 80 GDC custodial officials have been detained or fired since 2017 as a result of allegations of using excessive force against captives, according to records.
Some officials have used force against inmates by allowing them to carry out aggressive problems or even planning them. According to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution investigation, the officers are actually using prisoners as weapons to live scores, exert power, or keep others in line in the state’s greatly understaffed jail system.
Some high-profile cases have led to legal fees. One involved two powerful officers who were caught on camera beating a slave who was trying to move alongside them. Another incident that occurred just days earlier resulted in the arrest of an officer for allegedly starting a fight that resulted in the death of an inmate.
In Augusta State Medical Prison’s System, which houses some of the most deserving men in the organization’s custody, two attacks where officers allegedly assisted prisoners took place. That, captives are locked in single-man cell as they go through treatment for severe mental illness. Even that level of security could n’t possibly safeguard them.
In Anthony’s situation, lawyers assert that he was stabbed in his body in Building E on Oct. 12, 2022, when the wayward officer on duty, Daniel Farmer, electronically opened the cell door so Wyatt could get in.
Despite having a particularly aggressive past, including a conviction for raping and murdering an Transgender activist and an unsettled situation in which he is accused of killing his flatmate in the DeKalb County prison and gouging out the boy’s eyes, Anthony’s attacker was strangely permitted to work as an peaceful in that building.
Anthony’s position “really illustrates that the program was broken at just about every level”, said former state Sen. Jen Jordan, one of two lawyers suing the Department of Corrections on Anthony’s representative.
” All knows there’s a personnel trouble, there’s a coaching problem”, she said. They lack the staff, and the staff they do possess is actually not qualified to hold these jobs in the first place. The kindest gloss you can put on it is that they do n’t have enough people and do n’t have the right ones.
Anthony, 38, also bears the marks of the invasion. After serving five years in prison for breaking his parole on a robbery conviction, he was released from prison in April 2023. Anthony felt dissatisfied throughout his time in prison, believing that his parole should never have been terminated in the first place. He went home to the little village of Luthersville, where he stopped by the company of former state Rep. Bob Trammell, a local solicitor.
After Anthony described his time in jail, Trammell reached out to Jordan, and the two filed claims alleging Anthony was a victim of scoundrel players in a brutal, out-of-control program.
” It’s one thing to read these reports in the news and believe,` Gosh, that’s horrible,'” Trammell said. However, it’s different when an 800-person member of your business knocks on your door and says,” This happened to me.” That definitely brings it home in a whole new way.
A knife and a popular movie
Lloyd Hopkins was the only correctional officer at Augusta State Medical Prison working the day change on May 25. Despite the fact that the personnel plate has slots for a second officer in the system as well as one in the control area, according to the change project roster that the AJC obtained through the Georgia Open Records Act,
At some point, arrest permits allege,  , Hopkins allowed three prisoners , — Roderick Hayes, Brendon Moore and Andy Ulysse — into the tower, where they entered Robert Robish’s battery with a “machete like tool”. They were present to get a stolen iphone from Robish. But the schedule backfired when Robish, defending himself, stabbed Hayes to suicide.
Robish’s parents, Joseph Robish, said when he heard from another slave what happened, he realized a staff member must have been involved. When his brother was locked up alone in a body, how else could he be attacked?
” They sent the three men in it, I guess, to shoot him — I mean, one of them had a machete”, the elder Robish said.
After serving the past 12 years as a security guard, Hopkins, 51, was hired as a custodial commander four years ago. He remains in the Columbia County prison, where he is being , held without bond on charges of aggravated assault, criminal murder , and violating his oath of office.
At Wilcox State Prison last month, a , secret video , captured a disturbing picture: a tall, stout criminal, evidently an orderly, helping a feminine correctional officer move another inmate on a cart. As the man struggles, a female officer can be seen pulling the woman’s clothing as she watches while another female officer watches. Then, as the man tries to sit up, the inmate working with the officers punches him in the face, causing him to fly backward.
A man apparently a cell phone user who is an inmate on the video says, and those around him gasp and yell at the sound of the punch.
The Human and Civil Rights Coalition of Georgia’s Facebook page soon featured the video, which quickly received thousands of views.
The officers in the video were Melissa Lawson, a unit manager, and Tanja O’Neal, a lieutenant, both longtime GDC employees.
Both were quickly fired, and they were eventually charged with battery, rioting in a penal institution, and breaking their oaths as officers. According to arrest warrants, they “utilized” the 6-2, 260-pound inmate working with them, Erlando” Big E” Horne, to strike the inmate on the cart, Jammie Davis, in the face, head and torso as his bare feet dragged on the ground.
Two other officers also have been criminally charged, and one, Steven Turner, is alleged to have tried to cover up the incident. According to the arrest warrant, Turner, a sergeant, threatened to suffocate him unless he gave a witness statement stating that nothing had happened. He also told Davis that he would sling a plastic bag over his head.
The AJC’s findings, according to the Department of Corrections, do not accurately reflect the vast majority of GDC officers who swear their terms of office. Those who do n’t follow their oaths risk being fired and arrested, the agency said.
” On the cases you noted, all staff have been terminated, charged and are pending court prosecution”, said Lori Benoit, a GDC spokesperson.
A Georgia prison inmate gave the AJC a lengthy written statement that detailed how he, too, was attacked at Wilcox in Lawson’s presence. Such conduct by officers is n’t unusual, he wrote
The prisoner wrote that prisoners who have been disowned by gangs or who have been labeled as snitches become de facto weapons for officers because they had a fear of being retaliated. In return for doing the officers ‘ bidding, they are rewarded with certain work details, more freedom to move around and even contraband, he wrote.
” These rejects are the prison administration’s own personal henchmen”, the inmate alleged.
” Killer orderly”
The GDC classifies the residents of Building E at Augusta State Medical Prison as Level IV mental health patients: those who are determined to be so severely impaired that they are unable to safely reside in a community of equal size. Anthony was given a Level IV classification for PTSD, a condition he claimed was the result of a stabbing incident at the Valdosta State Prison.
Wyatt was also classified as a person with significant mental health issues, but at a slightly lower level, making it possible for him to work in Building E as an orderly and live in a general population dorm.
” The killer orderly” is how Jordan and Trammell described Wyatt in one of their lawsuits, citing a multitude of factors, including his criminal history.
Wyatt, 42, is serving life without parole for the , 2015 rape and murder of Cathy Han Montoya, a woman he apparently did n’t know, in her east Atlanta home. After a Henry County police officer disabled his own vehicle in front of her home using the OnStar system, he killed Montoya and took her car. After learning that Wyatt had stabbed his estranged wife earlier in the day, Henry County authorities were looking for him.
Montoya’s body was found on the floor in her house. Her neck was covered in a black ligature that was fastened to a doorknob. The cause of her death was strangulation, but she also had stab wounds and blunt force injuries.
After killing Montoya, Wyatt fled to a different home in the area where he had a lengthy standoff with SWAT officers before being forced to use tear gas to extricate him.
Three months later, Wyatt was charged with another gruesome murder: the killing of Jah’Corey Tyson, his cellmate in the DeKalb jail. The weapon, according to court documents, was a sharpened toothbrush, which Wyatt allegedly used to gouge out Tyson’s eyes. One eyeball was discovered in Wyatt’s possession. He ate the other one, he told officers.
According to one of the DeKalb jail officers who was present,” Inmate Wyatt kept saying the voices told him to do it, and he yelled out,” Tell her I do n’t want to eat them,” he continued.
That case is presently on DeKalb’s “dead docket”, meaning it’s temporarily inactive, while Wyatt’s conviction in the Montoya case remains under appeal.
Even after Wyatt was imprisoned for Montoya’s murder, the GDC had reason to know he was a threat. According to incident reports, he was twice caught with sharpened metal weapons during shakedowns at Augusta State Medical Prison and physically assaulted three different inmates at Baldwin State Prison, including a sleeping bunkmate.
In 2020, a GDC investigation obtained a statement from an inmate about a role Wyatt, by then an orderly, may have played in the , death of prisoner Thomas Henry Giles. After setting his mattress on fire in his cell in Building E, the inmate claimed Wyatt shoved mop heads under Giles ‘ door to prevent him from getting fresh air, and pleaded with him to” Please let this son of a b—- die.”
Yet that statement, included in the case file, did n’t stop Wyatt from working as an orderly.
The officer responsible for keeping Wyatt orderly is Clifford Brown, a 29-year veteran of the GDC who currently manages the mental health dorms. In a deposition, he was n’t asked to directly address his decision, but he testified that he believes past crimes should n’t automatically disqualify anyone from holding the job.
” You might have made a mistake, this and that or whatever”, he testified. ” That do n’t mean we’re not going to let you cut grass or make you an orderly or whatever, because everybody’s in there for some type of ( crime )”.
Butting heads
Within a week of the GDC’s hiring, Farmer, the correctional officer who opened the cell door for Wyatt, started working in Building E. After unsuccessfully attempting to join the Richmond County Sheriff’s Department, he explained in a deposition that he had spent the previous nine years as an auto tech in Augusta. He saw the GDC as a way to break into law enforcement.
” A friend of mine who was a police officer recommended going out to the medical prison and then from there going over to the sheriff’s department”, he testified.
By Anthony’s account, he and Farmer butted heads. Anthony alleges that Farmer attacked him with a flashlight in a separate lawsuit on an afternoon in July 2021, leaving him with a fractured elbow that remained untreated until a counselor learned of the injury a few weeks later.
When asked about it in the deposition, Farmer claimed to have beaten Anthony.
Anthony claims in a lawsuit involving the stabbing that he confronted Wyatt to ask why the orderly had n’t delivered his dinner tray. According to the suit, Wyatt said he did n’t deliver the tray because Anthony had” sold” it. In response, the suit says, Anthony threw “bodily fluids” at Wyatt through the slot in the door where the trays are delivered.
Anthony described what transpired next when he explained to the AJC that he had witnessed Farmer enter the control room. The small window in his door allowed him that view, he said, although he could n’t see what the officer was doing once inside. Then, he said, his cell door opened and Wyatt attacked.
” I really did n’t know Farmer was going to pop the door”, he said. ” That was a shock”.
Farmer did n’t immediately call a medical emergency, and it took three hours before Anthony was transported to the hospital, according to his lawsuit.
While the civil case is pending, Farmer’s criminal case was resolved on Wednesday when he admitted to aggravated assault, unlawful acts of violence in a penal institution, possession of a knife while committing a crime, and violating his oath of office. He received a three-year prison sentence from Superior Court Judge Sheryl Jolly, who placed him on probation for twelve more.
In his briefing before the court, prosecutor Kevin Majeska said,” Quite honestly, it’s a miracle that this is n’t a malice murder or felony murder case.”
Farmer’s attorney, Tianna Bias, told the court that Farmer did n’t know that Wyatt had a knife when he allowed him into Anthony’s cell. She also said Farmer was n’t aware of Wyatt’s criminal history.
Who knows what might have happened if there had been reinforcements there or he was n’t one-on-one with someone who was listed as a trustee with a violent criminal history, even though he made the decision that he could n’t go back and undo? Bias told the AJC after the hearing.
Wyatt has asked for a trial and has entered a not-guilty plea to similar charges relating to the incident.
For Anthony, the trauma has been emotional as well as physical. He spent his entire day praising what he thought was a cruel sentence. Then, when he thought he had a measure of security in a locked, single-man cell, he found himself bloodied by an attacker.
Jordan claimed that she and Trammell both understood that challenging the Department of Corrections in court would be, but the purpose of the case was to push the system forward.
” It really feels like you’re running in quicksand”, she said. ” But you have to do it, because what’s the alternative? Just letting the system continue as it is and people continue to suffer abuse and have no hope, right? When you take away someone’s liberty interest, with that comes the responsibility for those folks to be treated humanely and constitutionally. In Georgia, that is just not the reality of our prison system today”.
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