Man who killed teens had phone in prison, took selfies

NORTH FULTON COUNTY, Ga. — This week, the Georgia Department of Corrections confirmed it has disciplined convicted double killer Jeffrey Hazelwood after we brought it to their attention he had posted a "selfie" on Instagram from prison using a smuggled cellphone.

The mother of a former friend of Hazelwood told Channel 2’s Mike Petchenik the convicted killer was also using that phone to send her daughter messages through Facebook. A GDC spokeswoman told Petchenik investigators didn’t know from where the phone came or to whom it belonged, but that Hazelwood had gotten ahold of it.

Hazelwood is serving two life sentences after pleading guilty, but mentally ill, to the August 2016 killings of two teens, Carter Davis and Natalie Henderson, behind a Roswell grocery store.

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A former South Carolina prison guard is making it his mission to keep cellphones out of the hands of prisoners.

In 2010, he says an inmate gang leader at the correctional facility where he worked used a phone to put out a contract hit on him for confiscating a package of contraband.

“They paid this guy $6,000 using a cellphone and a reloadable green dot card,” Johnson said.

Johnson said the contract killer kicked in his door one morning and shot him six times.

“I died twice on the operating table, but was too stubborn to stay there,” he said. “I’m in pain 24/7.”

Johnson said prisons need to do more to prevent the phones from getting inside.

“We do have dirty staff. The inmates send their buddies to get jobs with vendors the prison does business with and they hide stuff,” he said. “We had grandmothers bringing in cellphones on artificial hips. We had girlfriends smuggling things inside their genital areas.”

The former captain said he’d like to see inmates locked down all of the time, but he said he realizes that might not be feasible. The Federal Communications Commission won’t currently allow for signal jamming, so, Johnson is advocating for prisons to use special technology that contains wireless signals coming from the prisons.

“It offers an alternative to signal jamming that the prisons can afford and it’s proven to stop cellphones,” he said.

In an e-mail, GDC spokeswoman Joan Heath said the department is currently testing that technology at a few facilities, but she said it’s expensive, costing about $1 million.

"GDC utilizes enhanced front line and technological methods to assist with preventing contraband from entering our facilities. These efforts include additional training on contraband detection, improved package screening of items entering facilities, enhanced staff screen during shift change, cell phone detection canines, secure evidence storage procedures, BOSS scanners, cell sense devices, through-body scanners, thermal imaging, perimeter netting and infrared cameras, to name a few.  Between FY10 and FY17, GDC has spent more than $7m on these efforts.  In addition, we conduct shakedown operations at all 33 state prisons year-round."

Cox Media Group