A former North Carolina middle school teacher convicted of repeatedly raping a 15-year-old girl has been killed inside a state prison, and a convicted murderer serving time at the same facility has been charged in his death, authorities said. Ernest Nichols, 60, was found unresponsive in a dormitory at Greene Correctional Institution in Maury at 6:49 a.m. on Sunday; staff initiated emergency life-saving measures and summoned EMS, which pronounced him dead at 7:22 a.m. The North Carolina Department of Adult Correction (DAC) said the death is being investigated as a homicide, and the prison was placed on a temporary lockdown as investigators secured the scene and interviewed witnesses.
On Tuesday, the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation announced that Greene County Sheriff’s Deputies had served a murder warrant on inmate Wilbert Baldwin, 41, in connection with Nichols’s death. Baldwin, who was previously convicted of second-degree murder in Richmond County in 2010, was given no bond following service of the warrant and remained in DAC custody. The SBI said it is leading the inquiry at the request of the sheriff, with DAC cooperating. No additional details about motive, weapon, or the precise location within the dorm were immediately released.
Nichols had been incarcerated since 2011 after pleading guilty in Mecklenburg County to statutory rape. At the time of Sunday’s killing, his projected release date was September 2027. DAC’s preliminary public statement identified him by name and age, confirmed the time he was discovered, and noted the lockdown of the minimum-custody facility while the homicide investigation proceeded. A DAC spokesperson also said Greene houses offenders in dormitory-style units rather than individual cells, underscoring that Nichols was found in a shared housing area rather than a single-occupancy lockup.
The prison complex in Maury includes Greene Correctional Institution, a male minimum-custody facility with dormitory housing and reentry programming, and two nearby facilities that hold higher-custody populations. Greene is designated for reentry preparation and also provides medical support beds for chronic care, according to state materials describing the site’s mission and layout. Job postings and administrative documents list Greene’s minimum-custody capacity at roughly 650 inmates, with offenders typically living in open-bay dorms.