Georgia will shut down 2 prisons in October

ATLANTA --- The Georgia Department of Corrections will close prisons in Odum and Homerville in October and move inmates and staff to other south Georgia lockups, officials announced Friday.

The 200-bed Wayne State Prison in Odum, which requires more than $1 million in repairs, will close in October, and inmates will be transferred to a nearby Long County lockup.

Inmates and staff at the Long County facility will move to a new, more cost-efficient housing unit, known as a fast-track unit, at Smith State Prison in Glennville.

Inmates and staff at the 200-bed Homerville State Prison will move to a new fast-track unit at Valdosta State Prison.

Combined, the closures will shave roughly $6 million off the department's $1 billion budget.

The department is under orders to reduce expenses by 6 percent, or roughly $66 million.

NICHOLSON --- The birth parents of a 9-month-old Jackson County girl who died of heat stroke Tuesday want her foster mother prosecuted for leaving the girl locked in a minivan for more than two hours, according to the couple's attorney.

But friends of foster mother Wendy Osborne came out Thursday in support of the 29-year-old, pointing out that she has fostered several children over the past five years without problems and saying that what happened to the child, Jessica Scovil, was a tragic accident.

Jackson County sheriff's detectives are waiting to decide whether to charge Ms. Osborne, who lives near Nicholson, until they receive the results of toxicology tests, Chief Deputy David Cochran said.

An autopsy performed at the Georgia Bureau of Investigation Crime Lab in Decatur confirmed that Jessica died from heat stroke.

-- Edited from wire reports