A man serving a life sentence for murder walked off from a work detail on September 5 and has not been seen since. The Georgia Department of Corrections has not so much as notified the public of the escape, as information only surfaced after the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office made a social media post about it Tuesday.
Stacey Wendell Huggins is serving a Life sentence for a 1990 murder in Fulton County. He’s been in GDC custody since July 1990 and, most recently, has been serving his time at Augusta Transitional Center in Augusta. Augusta TC is a minimum security facility which ‘assists residents in making a successful transition back into the community,’ according to the GDC website. The facility is a subdivision of Augusta State Medical Prison.
On September 4, Huggins reportedly walked away from his work release program and did not return. According to local law enforcement, it is unclear as to what time Huggins departed from his work program.
The Richmond County Sheriff’s Office posted this Tuesday – five days after the escape – that they were contacted by GDC the week prior to assist with Huggins.
On September 4, 2025, at approximately 1954 hours, the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office responded to 601 Taylor Street (The Augusta Transitional Center) in reference to an inmate that didn’t return from work detail. Deputies were advised that Stacy Huggins reported to 4337 Wilson Road in Hephzibah, GA which is his assigned work site. It was then reported that sometime during the day Stacy Huggins left his work site on foot in an unknown direction and never returned to the site. The Richmond County Sheriff’s Office in conjunction with the Georgia Department of Corrections are actively searching for Huggins. Huggins was last seen in the Hephzibah area.
Anyone with information on Huggins’ whereabouts is asked to call the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office at 706-821-1020 or dial 9-1-1.
The Sheriff’s Office did not specifically note that Huggins was convicted of murder, but they included his GDC offender sheet, which listed his charge.
As of September 10, 2025, the Georgia Department of Corrections had made no effort to notify the public that the agency has no information on Huggins’ whereabouts. A number of residents in the area spoke out on social media Tuesday to note that they learned of the escape from the Sheriff’s Office Facebook post.
