On May 15, a detainee in Georgia's Clayton County Jail passed away while in custody, marking the sixth death in 2024 at the facility, surpassing the total for all of 2023, according to The Appeal’s analysis of news reports and documents provided by county agencies. The latest deaths follow a series of scandals in recent years that have plagued the facility in the Atlanta suburbs. In 2022, former Sheriff Victor Hill was convicted of violating the civil rights of six pre-trial detainees, including a teenager, when he ordered his employees to strap them in restraint chairs for hours. Hill’s godson, Levon Allen, became interim sheriff in 2022 and later won a special election held last year, but detainees reported that abuse and atrocious conditions have persisted at the jail under his tenure, including bed bug infestations, a lack of beds that has forced people to sleep on filthy floors, and attacks perpetrated by fellow detainees. At least four people died at the jail in 2023, according to The Appeal’s review of records.
In September 2023, U.S. Senator Jon Ossoff of Georgia called for the Department of Justice to investigate the Clayton County Jail, spurred in part by revelations uncovered by Appeal investigations. At least eight detainees have died at the facility since Ossoff’s letter, according to The Appeal’s reporting. But the DOJ has yet to publicly announce any official oversight of the jail. As deaths mount at the jail, the Clayton County Sheriff’s Office has released little information to the public or grieving family members. While the department has published announcements about some jail deaths using its public alert system, it failed to do so after at least two deaths this year. The sheriff’s office would not confirm the total number of deaths at the facility in 2023 and 2024. “We deserve to have answers,” said Annette Sanford, whose son, Jason, died in April just hours after arriving at the jail following an arrest for giving a false name. “Other families deserve to have the answers,” she said. “They don’t feel like they have to answer to anyone. And I want them to have to answer to somebody.”
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