Tasmiyah Whitehead became eligible for parole in 2017. She did not walk out until August 5, 2026. That nine-year gap after first eligibility is now the detail that defines the board’s choice. Georgia Department of Corrections records show she left Pulaski State Prison and remains on parole with a maximum possible release date of May 19, 2040. The State Board of Pardons and Paroles told local television it found a reasonable probability she would remain at liberty without violating the law. Her twin Jasmiyah, who took the identical 2014 plea and received the identical thirty-year sentence, is at the Metro Transitional Center in Atlanta, a minimum-security community facility used to prepare screened inmates for work, education, and counseling.

Her tentative parole consideration is March 2028. Both sisters entered custody as sixteen-year-olds after the January 13, 2010, killing and were sentenced in early 2014 after more than three years of pretrial detention. The stacked terms were twenty years for voluntary manslaughter and five years each for knife possession and false statements. Time in jail before sentencing counted toward eligibility, which is why 2017 was the first legal window. Tasmiyah is now thirty-three and uses the nickname Tas. Coverage of the release in September 2026 emphasized that she served roughly sixteen years in total custody and only about twelve years after the guilty plea, less than half the headline thirty-year figure if pretrial time is set aside. The board is not required to explain why one twin cleared the final review and the other did not, only that conduct in prison and risk ᴀssessments matter.

Georgia is one of the few states that allow inmates to finish high school rather than only a GED; Jasmiyah graduated in 2015 and was class valedictorian. Earlier reports said both pursued coursework after earning credentials. None of that automatically produces a release date. Tentative parole months can slip. Tasmiyah’s earlier projected windows in older profiles did not become a walk-out until August 2026. The remaining supervision until 2040 means the state can still revoke freedom for violations. Jasmiyah’s placement in a transitional center is a step toward the community but is not release. The public argument now is the same one that followed the plea: whether a fight that prosecutors said left Nikki Whitehead stabbed through the lungs, jugular, and spinal cord, then submerged in a tub, is finished business after sixteen years for one daughter and not yet for the other. The board answered only for Tasmiyah. The other clock is still running.

For four months after January 13, 2010, Jasmiyah and Tasmiyah Whitehead were not charged. They had flagged a deputy, led officers to a bathroom in Conyers where Nikki Whitehead lay ᴅᴇᴀᴅ in the tub, and described themselves as daughters who came home from school to a mᴀssacre. The scene was extreme enough that a veteran lieutenant said he had never seen bloodier. Deep wounds reached the lungs, the jugular, and the spinal cord; many other cuts were shallower. A pot and a vase figured in the violence. The twins were released to a great-grandmother while detectives checked the boyfriend who sometimes stayed in the house, a long-distance truck driver who had been there the day before but not at the time of the killing. The official story began to fail on small mismatches