Lee Arrendale prisoner charged with two inmate murders

Photo byNowHabersham.com

A Lee Arrendale State Prison inmate has been arrested and charged with murdering two other inmates at the correctional facility in Alto, according to the Habersham County Sheriff's Office.

21-year-old Jeanni Maria Geuea of Clinch County is charged in the deaths of Hallie Marie Reed and Sherry Elaine Joyce, jail records show. The women died earlier this year, eight days apart. Arrest warrants say they were strangled to death.

Habersham County sheriff’s deputies arrested Geuea at the prison on Friday, Sept. 27. They charged her with two counts each of felony murder, aggravated assault, and riot in a penal institution.

Three murders in two years

Sources say both victims were housed in the same mental health unit where another inmate was murdered two years ago. Joyce was killed on April 27, 2024. Reed died on May 5.

Geuea was serving a 5-year sentence on a 2020 charge out of Clinch County for terrorist threats and acts. She had been in prison for just over two months when Joyce was killed, online records from the Georgia Department of Corrections show.

At the time of her death, Joyce was serving a life sentence out of Toombs County for murder. Reed was serving a 5-year sentence out of Catoosa County for obstruction of a law enforcement officer.

Angela Anderson was murdered in the mental health unit at Lee Arrendale State Prison on September 11, 2022. A year later, authorities charged LASP inmate Leticia Land with her murder.

Prison to be closed

The prison, which has come under fire for alleged inhumane treatment in recent years, is slated to close under a plan approved by the Department of Corrections in 2023.

The plan calls for relocating approximately 1,000 Lee Arrendale inmates to a prison in McRae in Central Georgia. The Lee Arrendale Transitional Center will remain open.

The state has yet to release a date for the prison’s closure. The Department of Corrections has not responded to Now Habersham’s request for further comment regarding this year’s murders.