A former North Carolina middle school teacher who was jailed for raping a teenage girl has been found dead in his prison cell, allegedly killed by his cellmate.
Ernest Nichols, 60, was discovered lying on the floor beside his bunk at Greene Correctional Institution on Sunday morning, according to officials with the North Carolina Department of Adult Correction.
Wilbert Baldwin, 41, who was serving a 20-year sentence for second-degree murder, has been charged with Nichols' murder. Baldwin has been moved to Maury Correctional Institution and is being held without bond.
Nichols was teaching physical education at Ranson Middle School in Charlotte when he was convicted in 2011 of statutory rape. He had been set for release in September 2027.
According to court documents, Nichols raped a 15-year-old girl multiple times over a six-month period beginning in the fall of 2008. He used a fake Facebook account posing as his teenage son to contact the victim, asking her to create sexually explicit stories and to message him 'whenever she entered the shower.'
The Department of Adult Correction said the investigation into Nichols' death remains ongoing.
