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Former Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools teacher Ernest Nichols was serving up to 22 years in prison at Greene Correctional Institution in Maury, North Carolina, officials say.
Street View image from May 2023. © 2025 Google
A former Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools teacher in prison on a statutory rape charge was killed by a fellow inmate convicted of murder, North Carolina investigators say.
Ernest Nichols, 60, “was found unresponsive” in his cell at Greene Correctional Institution shortly before 7 a.m. Sunday, Oct. 5, the N.C. Department of Adult Correction said in a news release.
Nichols was convicted in Mecklenburg County court in 2011 and due to be released from prison in September 2027, officials said.
His cause of death was not released, but the N.C. State Bureau of Investigation called it a case of homicide.
The bureau announced on Oct. 7 that Greene Correctional Institution inmate Wilbert Baldwin, 41, had been charged with murder in the case.
A motive has not been released.
“Baldwin was previously convicted of second degree murder in 2010 in Richmond County,” state officials said. “Baldwin was served with the murder warrant and given no bond. He was returned to the Department of Adult Correction to continue serving his current sentence.”
Nichols pleaded guilty to statutory rape in August 2011 and was sentenced to serve 18 to 22 years in prison, according to the Mecklenburg County District Attorney’s Office.
The crimes occurred while Nichols was a physical education teacher at Ranson Middle School, but the victim was not a student, the Charlotte Observer reported in 2009.
“Nichols, age 44 at the time the crimes were committed, was arrested in October of 2009 when a 16-year-old girl reported that she had been raped by him when she was age 15,” the District Attorney’s Office said in a 2011 news release.
“The defendant video-taped his crimes involving the victim and, when he was confronted by the victim’s mother after the victim disclosed the abuse, Nichols drove down Highway 73 and threw the video recordings into the woods. That evidence was retrieved by the Huntersville Police Department.”
Greene Correctional Institution is about a 240-mile drive northeast from Charlotte.
This story was originally published October 10, 2025 at 12:40 PM.
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Mark Price
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