Georgia · Washington County · Crime & Courts

Washington State Prison in Georgia: Three Arrested in a Contraband Drop Investigation, Two Still Wanted

The Washington County Sheriff's Office announced Wednesday that three of five people identified in a contraband drop investigation have been arrested, FOX 5 Atlanta and WGXA report. Two remain wanted and were not identified. The investigation opened on March 30 — this is an announcement, not an overnight incident. Neither outlet itemizes the charges, and nobody has been convicted of anything.

What the sheriff's office announced

Two newsrooms reported on Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2026 that the Washington County Sheriff's Office has arrested three people in an investigation into attempted contraband drops at Washington State Prison, and that two more people identified in the same investigation are still wanted.

FOX 5 Atlanta's account: “The Washington County Sheriff's Office has arrested three individuals and is still searching for two other individuals wanted in an attempted contraband prison drop.” The station continues: “Authorities began their investigation on March 30. They were able to identify and charge five individuals related to the drop at the Washington State Prison.”

WGXA's account: “Three people are in custody after a months-long investigation related to prison contraband drops in Washington County.” The station reports the sheriff's office “said the investigation began on March 30 after an attempted prison drop, leading to the identification of five people connected to the crime,” and that “two others are still wanted in the case.”

Both outlets credit the same origin. FOX 5 Atlanta states in its own source note: “The information in this story comes from the Washington County Sheriff's Office.” WGXA attributes throughout to WCSO and to Sheriff Joel Cochran. Two independently owned newsrooms carried this. One agency supplied it.

Five identified, three arrested — the number to get right

Five people were identified. Three were arrested. Two are still wanted. Those are three different numbers describing three different things, and collapsing them into “five arrested” would be wrong in a way that matters to two people who have not been arrested and have not been named.

The two outlets word the five differently, and this page publishes both wordings.

• FOX 5 Atlanta: “They were able to identify and charge five individuals related to the drop at the Washington State Prison”
• WGXA: the investigation began “after an attempted prison drop, leading to the identification of five people connected to the crime”

Identify and charge is not the same statement as identification. One account has charges attached to all five; the other has identification attached to all five and charges stated only for the three in custody. This page does not resolve that, and it does not report that anyone who has not been arrested has been charged.

What both accounts agree on is the arithmetic that matters: three in custody, two outstanding.

Charged, not convicted

Nobody named on this page has been convicted of anything. Three people have been arrested and, per both outlets, charged. That is the beginning of a criminal case, not the end of one.

Nothing in the record compiled for this page reports an indictment, an arraignment, a plea, a trial or a sentence. No prosecutor is named. No court is named. No case number appears.

Nothing on this page narrates the alleged conduct as an established event. An attempted drop is what the sheriff's office describes and what two newsrooms reported. Whether any individual did what is alleged is a question for a court that has not yet been identified in this record.

An arrest is a police decision, made on probable cause, before a prosecutor evaluates the evidence and before a judge weighs anything. Arrests are dismissed, declined, reduced and dead-docketed routinely. Three arrests are three arrests.

The three people named

Both outlets name the same three people with the same three ages. The names and ages below were checked character by character against both accounts.

• James Murphy, 34. FOX 5 Atlanta gives his hometown as Lawrenceville. WGXA gives the name and age without a hometown
• James Dowdle, 48. FOX 5 Atlanta gives his hometown as Lawrenceville. WGXA gives the name and age without a hometown
• Ashley Armistead, 35. FOX 5 Atlanta gives the hometown as Mansfield. WGXA gives the name and age without a hometown

The exact sentences, so a reader can check them: FOX 5 Atlanta reports, “Sheriff Joel Cochran stated that James Murphy, 34, of Lawrenceville, and James Dowdle, 48, of Lawrenceville, were arrested and are already in custody. Ashley Armistead, 35, of Mansfield, is also in custody.” WGXA reports, “WCSO said 34-year-old James Murphy, 48-year-old James Dowdle and 35-year-old Ashley Armistead have since been arrested and charged with multiple drug and prison-drop-related offenses.”

This page republishes no photograph of anyone. Images credited to the Washington County Sheriff's Office appear in the record compiled for this page and none of them is reproduced here. There is no scene picture, no map and no coordinates on this page.

All three are presumed innocent. Nothing further about any of them — no address, no employer, no family member and no criminal history — appears in the record compiled for this page, and nothing further is published here.

The charges are not itemized, and this page does not itemize them

Neither outlet lists a single count. This is one of the more common places a news page invents something, so the exact language from both accounts is set out here and nothing is added to it.

• FOX 5 Atlanta: “Each individual is facing various drug and prison-drop-related offenses, the sheriff stated”
• FOX 5 Atlanta, in its own what-we-don't-know section: “Sheriff Cochran did not specify the charges each individual suspect is facing”
• WGXA: the three “have since been arrested and charged with multiple drug and prison-drop-related offenses”

That is everything. No number of counts, no Georgia code section, no distinction between felony and misdemeanor, and no statement of which charge attaches to which person. The Georgia statutes described further down this page are general law, included because readers ask what the offence category is. They are not the charges in this case, and this page does not present them as such.

What was seized

The two accounts overlap and differ, and both are printed.

• FOX 5 Atlanta: “Several weapons, drugs, and phones were seized during the investigation.” Its summary line reads, “Investigators seized drugs and weapons intended for inmates at Washington State Prison”
• WGXA: Sheriff Cochran “shared a photo of seized contraband that was headed to Washington State Prison,” and the station's caption describes “Weapons, drugs and other contraband seized from an attempted drop at Washington State Prison”

Phones appear only in the FOX 5 Atlanta account. That is not a contradiction — a shorter list is not a denial of a longer one — but this page attributes the phones to the outlet that itemized them rather than to both.

No quantity, weight, drug type or weapon type appears in the record compiled for this page. “Weapons” is the word both accounts use, and neither says what kind. Sheriff Cochran's quoted remark in the FOX 5 Atlanta account refers to “dangerous weapons like the ones pictured here,” which points at a photograph rather than describing the items in words.

Neither outlet's photograph is republished here. This site does not reuse news or agency images.

What Sheriff Cochran said, in two different versions

Both outlets quote Sheriff Joel Cochran, and the two quotations are not the same statement. They share one closing sentence and nothing else. Both are reproduced here, each attributed to the outlet that carried it.

As quoted by FOX 5 Atlanta: “One of the reasons we work so hard to stop these drops is to keep dangerous weapons like the ones pictured here out of the prison. These weapons pose a serious threat to the officers and staff who work at Washington State Prison, as well as to those incarcerated there,” he said. “… This is an ongoing battle, and we intend to stay in it for as long as it takes.”

As quoted by WGXA: “Keeping contraband, drugs, and weapons out of our prisons takes constant effort and cooperation,” wrote the sheriff. “We will continue working alongside our partners to hold those responsible accountable and do everything we can to keep our community and prisons safe. This is an ongoing battle, and we intend to stay in it for as long as it takes.”

Two details are worth flagging. FOX 5 Atlanta introduces the remarks with “he said”; WGXA introduces them with “wrote the sheriff,” which describes a written statement rather than an interview. And the ellipsis in the FOX 5 Atlanta version is the station's own — it marks material the station did not carry between the two halves of the quotation, and this page has not filled that gap in.

The one sentence both outlets carry identically is: “This is an ongoing battle, and we intend to stay in it for as long as it takes.” It supplies WGXA's headline. It is a statement of intent by an elected official, not a description of anything that has been proved.

March 30 is the incident. Aug. 12 is the announcement

Nothing on this page happened last night. The investigation opened on March 30, 2026, after an attempted prison drop. The arrests were made public on Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2026. Between those two dates sit more than four months that neither account describes.

• FOX 5 Atlanta: “Authorities began their investigation on March 30.” The station's photo caption dates it fully: “Washington County Investigators began probing an attempted contraband drop at the facility on March 30, 2026”
• WGXA: the investigation “began on March 30 after an attempted prison drop”, and the station describes the whole thing as a “months-long investigation”

Neither outlet gives the date any arrest was made. FOX 5 Atlanta says two of the three “were arrested and are already in custody” and that the third “is also in custody.” WGXA says the three “have since been arrested.” Whether the arrests happened on one day or across months is not established anywhere in the record compiled for this page.

That gap is the ordinary shape of this kind of case, and it is stated here rather than smoothed over, because a reader who assumes a fresh incident will misread everything else on the page. March 30 was a Monday. Aug. 12 was a Wednesday.

The two who remain wanted

Two of the five people identified have not been arrested, and their identities were not released. FOX 5 Atlanta says so directly, in its own words: “The sheriff's office did not release the identities of the two individuals who remain at large.” WGXA reports only that “two others are still wanted in the case.”

This page publishes nothing about them. No name, no age, no gender, no hometown, no description and no speculation about who they might be or how they relate to the three who were arrested. There is nothing to withhold here — the information does not exist in the record compiled for this page — and inventing a characterisation of two unidentified people would be indefensible.

“Wanted” is also not the same as “charged” or “guilty.” It describes law enforcement's intention to locate someone. Where warrants exist, who they name and what they allege does not appear in anything cited on this page.

Where our sources differ

Two published accounts sit behind this page, from two independently owned newsrooms, both attributing the same underlying agency. Nothing below is averaged, merged or resolved. Where an account does not carry a point, the table says so rather than implying agreement.

One name check, done deliberately. Murphy is rendered “James Murphy, 34” by FOX 5 Atlanta and “34-year-old James Murphy” by WGXA. Dowdle is 48 in both. Armistead is 35 in both, and the spelling A-r-m-i-s-t-e-a-d is identical across the two accounts. Three names, three ages, no conflict to publish.

How independent these sources actually are

Two independently owned newsrooms carried this story, and both of them got it from the same place. Both halves of that sentence are true and neither one cancels the other.

FOX 5 Atlanta is a FOX Television Stations property. WGXA is a Sinclair station serving middle Georgia. Those are two different corporate owners, which is more independence than most pages on this site get, and it is why the small differences between the two accounts — hometowns in one and not the other, phones in one and not the other, “he said” against “wrote the sheriff” — are worth reading closely.

But neither newsroom was at the prison and neither has been shown a case file. FOX 5 Atlanta says so itself in its source note: the information comes from the Washington County Sheriff's Office. WGXA attributes to WCSO throughout. What this page has is one agency's account, relayed twice, by two organisations that did not check it against each other.

Two relays of one statement is not two confirmations. If the sheriff's office is wrong about something, both stories are wrong about it in the same way, and so is this page. That is the honest description of the sourcing here.

The Local Alert has obtained no record in this matter — no arrest warrant, no incident report, no booking record and no court file — and has spoken to nobody. Everything here comes from the two published accounts listed at the bottom of this page.

What a contraband drop investigation actually involves

This section is general background on how this category of case works. It is not a description of what investigators did here, which neither outlet describes.

A prison drop is the delivery of contraband from outside a secure facility to someone inside it, outside every authorized channel. The word describes the handoff and not the method. Historically that has meant packages thrown over or pushed under a perimeter fence, items left at a work detail or a rec yard, contraband carried in by a person with lawful access, goods concealed in property, mail or a vehicle, and in more recent years delivery by unmanned aircraft.

What makes these cases document-heavy rather than scene-heavy is that they usually turn on communications and money rather than on physical evidence at a fence line. The recurring investigative building blocks in this category, stated generally, are:

• The seizure itself, which fixes a date, a location and a set of items, and which is often the only physical evidence
• Recorded inmate calls and messaging, which are routinely monitored and are the reason a prohibited telecommunications device is treated in Georgia law as seriously as a weapon
• Money movement, because someone outside is usually being paid, and payment leaves a trail through accounts, cards and transfer services
• Facility records — visitor logs, work assignments, housing and movement history — which sit with the prison rather than with a county sheriff
• Multiple agencies, because the perimeter belongs to a state prison, the surrounding roads belong to a county, and the people involved frequently live somewhere else entirely

That last point is visible in this story without any inference: two of the three arrested are described by FOX 5 Atlanta as being from Lawrenceville, which is in Gwinnett County, and one from Mansfield. The case is in Washington County. Whether any agency outside Washington County was involved is not stated in the record compiled for this page.

Four months is not a long time for a case like this, and a gap between a seizure and an arrest announcement is the norm rather than a sign of anything. This page draws no conclusion from the interval.

What Georgia law makes it

Also general background. No code section appears in anything cited on this page, and naming a statute here is not an assertion that any named person violated it. Every section below was read in the code text.

• O.C.G.A. § 42-5-18 — “Items prohibited for possession by inmates; warden's authorization; penalty; use of unmanned aircraft to accomplish violations.” This is the central provision. Subsection (b) makes it unlawful for any person to obtain for, procure for, or give to an inmate a gun, pistol or any other weapon; any intoxicating liquor; amphetamines, biphetamines, or any other hallucinogenic drugs or other drugs, regardless of the amount; any telecommunications device; or any other article or item, without the authorization of the warden or superintendent or a designee. Subsection (c) makes it unlawful for an inmate to possess a closely overlapping list, which also includes tobacco without authorization. The penalty subsection reaches a person who commits or attempts to commit a violation, and makes it a felony; under the current text, a subsection (b) violation carries a mandatory minimum term of imprisonment of two years and not more than ten years
• The statute's definitions are unusually broad and worth reading. “Inmate” covers a prisoner, detainee, criminal suspect, immigration detainee or other person held in a place of incarceration. “Place of incarceration” covers any prison, probation detention center, jail or institution, state, federal, local or privately operated. “Telecommunications device” covers a device, an apparatus associated with a device, or a component of one that enables communication with a person outside — a telephone, a cellular telephone, a personal digital assistant, a transmitting radio or a networked computer
• O.C.G.A. § 42-5-15 — “Crossing of guard lines with weapons, intoxicants, or drugs without consent of warden or superintendent.” A separate offence covering a person who comes inside the guard lines established at a state or county correctional institution with a gun, pistol or any other weapon, or with or under the influence of intoxicating liquor, amphetamines, biphetamines or other hallucinogenic or other drugs, without the knowledge or consent of the warden, superintendent or a designated representative. It is a felony carrying not less than one nor more than four years
• O.C.G.A. § 42-5-16 makes it unlawful to trade or traffic with, buy from, or sell any article to an inmate without the knowledge and consent of the warden, superintendent or the designated representative in charge
• O.C.G.A. § 42-5-17 makes it unlawful to loaf, linger or stand around where inmates are employed or kept after being ordered by the person in charge to desist
• O.C.G.A. § 16-13-30 is Georgia's general controlled substances section, covering purchase, possession, manufacture, distribution and sale, with penalties that vary by schedule and by weight. Neither outlet cited on this page names a drug or a quantity, so nothing here indicates which part of that section, if any, is in play
• O.C.G.A. § 16-4-1 defines criminal attempt: a person commits it when, with intent to commit a specific crime, he performs any act which constitutes a substantial step toward the commission of that crime. Both outlets describe an attempted drop, which is why the concept matters here

The Local Alert is not a law firm and this is not legal advice. No count has been proved against anyone named on this page.

The drone provision, and what this record does not say

Nothing in the record compiled for this page says a drone was involved. FOX 5 Atlanta states the opposite of a finding: “It's unclear exactly what the individuals used to attempt to carry out the prison drop.” WGXA does not address method at all. This page therefore does not describe the method, and readers who arrived expecting a drone story should know the record does not support one.

Georgia has legislated on the method separately, and it is included here as background on the law rather than as a description of this case. O.C.G.A. § 42-5-18(f)(1) makes it unlawful for any person to intentionally use an unmanned aircraft system to violate subsection (b) or (b.1). O.C.G.A. § 42-5-18(f)(2)(A) makes it unlawful to intentionally photograph or otherwise record images of a place of incarceration through the use of an unmanned aircraft system for purposes of committing a criminal offence. The penalties sit in the same subsection: not less than one nor more than ten years for the delivery offence, and not less than one nor more than five years for the photography offence.

The existence of a specific drone provision tells a reader something true about the category without telling them anything about this case: the legislature wrote it because the method became common enough to name. That is context. It is not evidence.

Who runs the prison, and who ran this investigation

Three bodies could plausibly be confused in a story like this, and they are not interchangeable.

• The Washington County Sheriff's Office is a county law enforcement agency, headed by an elected sheriff — here, Sheriff Joel Cochran. Both outlets credit this office with the investigation and the arrests. A Georgia sheriff also runs the county jail, which is a different facility from a state prison
• The Georgia Department of Corrections is the state agency that operates Georgia's state prisons. It is not named in anything cited on this page, and the record compiled here does not say what part, if any, it played in this investigation
• The staff at Washington State Prison are the people who work inside the facility. Sheriff Cochran's quoted remark in the FOX 5 Atlanta account refers to “the officers and staff who work at Washington State Prison, as well as to those incarcerated there” — he is describing who is put at risk, not describing his own employees

The distinction is not pedantry. An open records request for an incident report goes to a county sheriff; a request for facility records goes to a state department. Sending either to the wrong custodian produces a denial and a wasted month.

Washington State Prison is in Georgia

The facility named in this story is a Georgia prison in Washington County, Georgia. It has nothing to do with the state of Washington, and both outlets cited here place it in Washington County under a Georgia dateline.

This matters more than it should because the name is genuinely ambiguous in search, and because “Washington County” itself exists in more than thirty states. Washington County, Georgia sits in the middle of the state, roughly between Macon and Augusta. If you are looking for coverage of this case, put “Georgia” in the query.

Neither outlet cited on this page gives a town, a street or an address for the prison, and none is supplied here. No map and no coordinates appear on this page.

What happens to a case like this after an arrest

This section is general Georgia procedure, not a forecast about anyone named on this page.

• An arrest starts the clock, not the case. A charged person is entitled to a first appearance before a judicial officer, where charges are read and bond is addressed
• Bond is decided by a court, not by the arresting agency. Under O.C.G.A. § 17-6-1 a listed set of serious offences is bailable only before a judge of the superior court; everything else is bailable by a court of inquiry. Nothing in the record compiled for this page reports a bond decision for any of the three
• A prosecutor, not a sheriff, decides what is ultimately charged. The counts on a booking sheet are frequently not the counts on an accusation or an indictment, and they can be added to, reduced or dropped entirely
• A Georgia felony is prosecuted in superior court and reaches trial only after indictment by a grand jury or a waiver of that step
• Co-defendant cases move at different speeds. Three people arrested in one investigation can end up with three different outcomes on three different timetables
• People who are still wanted may or may not ever be charged, and this page makes no prediction about the two who have not been arrested

No prosecutor's office, court or case number appears in anything cited on this page, so none is named here.

How to get records in Washington County

Three different custodians hold three different things.

• Arrest and incident records go to the Washington County Sheriff's Office, the agency that made the arrests. Cite the Georgia Open Records Act, O.C.G.A. § 50-18-70 and the sections that follow it. Under O.C.G.A. § 50-18-71 an agency must produce responsive records within a reasonable amount of time not to exceed three business days, or within that same three business days provide a description of the records and a timeline for when they will be available
• Give the custodian both dates. March 30, 2026 identifies the attempted drop; Aug. 12, 2026 identifies the announcement. A request that names only one may miss the file you want
• Facility records — anything generated inside Washington State Prison — are a state matter and go to the Georgia Department of Corrections, not to the county
• Court files sit with the clerk of the court where each case is filed. A clerk can find a file from a defendant's name and an approximate date; a request with neither goes nowhere
• Costs are governed by the same statute. The agency must notify you within three business days if the estimated cost will exceed $25, and copying is capped at ten cents per page for letter or legal size documents. Subsection (d) requires the agency to notify the requester of the specific legal authority for anything it withholds
• Expect redaction or a denial on an open prosecution, and expect a fuller file after a case closes. Being told no on an active matter is the ordinary outcome, not a sign of obstruction

If you have information

The agency that took this case is the Washington County Sheriff's Office. No tip line number for that office appears in the record compiled for this page, so none is printed here rather than a number this page has not verified. The office's own published contact details are the correct route.

• The Local Alert is not a law enforcement agency and cannot take information about this case or pass it to anyone
• Two people are still wanted and were not identified. Naming someone publicly on a guess does real damage to a real person, and it does not help an investigation
• If you are a family member of someone incarcerated at a state prison, questions about the facility itself go to the Georgia Department of Corrections rather than to a county sheriff
• Attention: anyone contacting you about a pending criminal case and pressing for a signature or a payment the same week is not doing you a favour. Read before signing, and take the time to read

Victim resources in Georgia

This section is general information for anyone in Georgia, not a statement that anyone was harmed in this case. No injury and no death appears in anything cited on this page.

• Georgia's Crime Victims Compensation Program, administered through the state's Criminal Justice Coordinating Council, can help with medical costs, counselling, lost wages and certain other expenses for victims of violent crime. It has deadlines and it generally requires that the crime was reported to law enforcement
• Georgia's crime victims' rights laws give a victim standing to be notified of proceedings, including bond hearings, and to be heard at certain stages. Staying reachable by the prosecutor's office is the practical step that makes that work
• A district attorney's office has victim-witness staff by statute. O.C.G.A. § 15-18-6 lists assisting victims and witnesses through the complexities of the criminal justice system among a district attorney's duties
• Correctional officers hurt on the job are covered by workers' compensation like other employees, and a state employee's claim runs through the employing agency rather than through a county
• Incarcerated people and their families can raise safety concerns with the facility and with the Georgia Department of Corrections; the sheriff's office that made these arrests does not run the prison
• Write things down with the date on them. Memory of a specific day degrades fast, and a contemporaneous note is worth more later than a careful reconstruction

The Local Alert is not a law enforcement agency, not a hospital and not a law firm, and cannot tell any individual what to do.

What we don't know yet

Nothing above is filled in by inference. This page records what two newsrooms published from one agency's account as of the timestamp at the bottom, and it does not revisit itself as the case develops. For the current status of an open investigation, contact the Washington County Sheriff's Office; for the status of a case, contact the court.

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Frequently asked questions

What did the Washington County Sheriff's Office announce?
That three people have been arrested in an investigation into attempted contraband drops at Washington State Prison in Washington County, Georgia, and that two more people identified in the same investigation are still wanted. FOX 5 Atlanta reports that the sheriff's office “has arrested three individuals and is still searching for two other individuals wanted in an attempted contraband prison drop.” WGXA reports that three people are in custody after a months-long investigation and that “two others are still wanted in the case.” Both outlets attribute the information to the Washington County Sheriff's Office.

How many people were arrested?
Three. FOX 5 Atlanta and WGXA both report three arrests. Five people were identified in the investigation, which is a different number and a different fact, and two of those five have not been arrested.

Were five people arrested?
No, and this is the single easiest thing to get wrong in this story. Five people were identified; three were arrested. FOX 5 Atlanta words it as: “They were able to identify and charge five individuals related to the drop at the Washington State Prison.” WGXA words it as: the investigation “began on March 30 after an attempted prison drop, leading to the identification of five people connected to the crime.” Those two renderings differ — one says charge, one says identification — and this page publishes both without resolving them. What both agree on is that three are in custody and two are not.

Who are the three people who were arrested?
FOX 5 Atlanta reports: “Sheriff Joel Cochran stated that James Murphy, 34, of Lawrenceville, and James Dowdle, 48, of Lawrenceville, were arrested and are already in custody. Ashley Armistead, 35, of Mansfield, is also in custody.” WGXA reports: “WCSO said 34-year-old James Murphy, 48-year-old James Dowdle and 35-year-old Ashley Armistead have since been arrested and charged with multiple drug and prison-drop-related offenses.” The names and ages match across both outlets. The hometowns appear only in the FOX 5 Atlanta account. All three are presumed innocent.

What are they charged with?
Neither outlet itemizes the charges, and this page does not invent a charge list. FOX 5 Atlanta reports, “Each individual is facing various drug and prison-drop-related offenses, the sheriff stated,” and states in its own what-we-don't-know section that “Sheriff Cochran did not specify the charges each individual suspect is facing.” WGXA reports the three were “arrested and charged with multiple drug and prison-drop-related offenses.” That is the whole of it. No count, no code section and no per-person breakdown appears in the record compiled for this page.

Has anyone been convicted?
No. Three people have been arrested and, per both outlets, charged. Nothing in the record compiled for this page reports an indictment, a plea, a trial or a sentence. All three are presumed innocent, and nothing on this page narrates the alleged offence as an established event.

When did this happen?
Two different dates matter and confusing them is the second easiest mistake here. The investigation opened on March 30, 2026, after an attempted drop — that is the incident. The arrests were announced on Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2026 — that is the news. WGXA published at 1:21 p.m. ET on Aug. 12 and updated at 1:56 p.m.; FOX 5 Atlanta published at 10:04 p.m. ET the same day. Nothing on this page describes an incident that happened overnight, and neither outlet gives the date any of the three arrests was actually made.

What is a prison drop?
It is the delivery of contraband from outside a prison to someone inside it, without going through the front gate or any authorized channel. In practice that means getting a package over, under or through the perimeter — thrown across a fence line, carried in by someone with access, hidden in property or a vehicle, or flown in. The word “drop” describes the handoff, not any particular method. Neither outlet cited on this page says which method was involved here, and FOX 5 Atlanta states in its own text that “It's unclear exactly what the individuals used to attempt to carry out the prison drop.”

What was seized?
The two accounts describe the seizure slightly differently and this page prints both. FOX 5 Atlanta reports, “Several weapons, drugs, and phones were seized during the investigation,” and its summary says “Investigators seized drugs and weapons intended for inmates at Washington State Prison.” WGXA reports that Sheriff Cochran “shared a photo of seized contraband that was headed to Washington State Prison,” and its photo caption describes “Weapons, drugs and other contraband seized from an attempted drop at Washington State Prison.” Phones are itemized only in the FOX 5 Atlanta account. No quantity, weight or type of drug appears in the record compiled for this page, and no photograph from either outlet is republished here.

Who are the two people still wanted?
That was not released, and this page will not guess. FOX 5 Atlanta states it plainly in its own text: “The sheriff's office did not release the identities of the two individuals who remain at large.” WGXA reports only that “two others are still wanted in the case.” No names, no ages, no descriptions and no hometowns appear in the record compiled for this page, and none are supplied here.

What does Georgia law say about getting contraband to an inmate?
The core section is O.C.G.A. § 42-5-18, headed “Items prohibited for possession by inmates; warden's authorization; penalty; use of unmanned aircraft to accomplish violations.” Subsection (b) makes it unlawful for any person to obtain for, procure for, or give to an inmate a gun, pistol or any other weapon; any intoxicating liquor; amphetamines, biphetamines, or any other hallucinogenic drugs or other drugs, regardless of the amount; any telecommunications device; or any other article or item, without the authorization of the warden or superintendent or a designee. Subsection (c) makes it unlawful for an inmate to possess a closely overlapping list, which also includes tobacco without authorization. A violation is a felony, and the penalty subsection reaches attempts as well as completed acts. Naming the statute here is not an assertion that anyone violated it — no code section appears in anything cited on this page.

Is it a felony to give a Georgia inmate a cell phone?
Under O.C.G.A. § 42-5-18 a telecommunications device is listed alongside weapons and drugs, and the statute defines the term broadly: a device, an apparatus associated with a device, or a component of a device that enables or may be used to enable communication with a person outside a place of incarceration, including a telephone, cellular telephone, personal digital assistant, transmitting radio, or a computer connected or capable of being connected to a computer network. Providing one to an inmate without the warden's authorization is prohibited by subsection (b). The statute carves out one narrower situation, and it applies to inmates rather than to the person on the outside: where an inmate violates the Code section while being held pursuant to an arrest or conviction for a misdemeanor offense, possession of a telecommunications device is treated as a misdemeanor. Nothing in that carve-out reduces the subsection (b) offence of furnishing one.

Was a drone involved?
Nothing in the record compiled for this page says so, and this page does not suggest it. FOX 5 Atlanta states that it is unclear what the individuals used. Georgia law does address the method separately: O.C.G.A. § 42-5-18(f)(1) makes it unlawful for any person to intentionally use an unmanned aircraft system to violate subsection (b) or (b.1), and (f)(2)(A) makes it unlawful to intentionally photograph or record images of a place of incarceration using an unmanned aircraft system for purposes of committing a criminal offence. That is standing Georgia law, included as background on how the state has legislated around contraband delivery. It is not a description of this case.

Who runs Washington State Prison, and who ran this investigation?
Those are two different organisations and the distinction matters. State prisons in Georgia are operated by the Georgia Department of Corrections, a state agency, and the staff who work inside a state prison are its employees. The Washington County Sheriff's Office is a county law enforcement agency with jurisdiction in the county, and it is the agency both outlets credit with this investigation and these arrests. Sheriff Joel Cochran is the elected head of that county office. The Georgia Department of Corrections is not named in anything cited on this page, and the record compiled here does not say what role, if any, prison staff played in the investigation.

Is Washington State Prison in the state of Washington?
No. Washington State Prison is a Georgia prison in Washington County, Georgia, and both outlets cited on this page place it there. The name is a persistent source of search confusion, and it is worth being explicit about: this story is in middle Georgia, roughly between Macon and Augusta, and has nothing to do with the Pacific Northwest.

How do I get records in Washington County?
The arrest and incident records request goes to the Washington County Sheriff's Office, the agency that made the arrests, under the Georgia Open Records Act at O.C.G.A. § 50-18-70 and the sections that follow. Under O.C.G.A. § 50-18-71 an agency must produce responsive records within a reasonable amount of time not to exceed three business days, or within that same three business days provide a description of the records and a timeline for when they will be available. Subsection (d) requires the agency to notify the requester of the specific legal authority for anything it withholds. Copying is capped at ten cents per page for letter or legal size documents, and the agency must tell you within three business days if the estimated cost will exceed $25. Give the custodian both dates that matter: March 30, 2026 for the attempted drop, and Aug. 12, 2026 for the announcement. Records held by the prison itself are a state matter and go to the Georgia Department of Corrections instead. Court files sit with the clerk of the court where the cases are filed. Expect redaction or a denial while a prosecution is pending.