A former middle school gym instructor, who infamously labeled himself a “pig” prior to his imprisonment for the repeated sexual assault of a 15-year-old girl, was murdered by a fellow inmate in his North Carolina cell on Sunday.
Ernest Nichols, aged 60, faced conviction in 2011 and received a 15-year prison sentence for statutory rape. Initially, he was charged with an alarming 27 offenses, which included numerous sexual crimes, as reported by WRAL.
He was discovered deceased in his cell at the Greene Correctional Institution in Maury, NC, around 6:50 a.m., prompting a lockdown of the facility.
By Tuesday, the Greene County Sheriff’s Office had issued a murder warrant for fellow inmate Wilbert Baldwin, who is already incarcerated for a previous conviction of second-degree murder, reported the outlet.
Nichols had been employed at Ranson Middle School in Charlotte for 14 years, but he was quickly suspended without pay and barred from the campus upon the revelation of the allegations, according to WBTV.
The 15-year-old victim, who was not a student at Nichols’s school, recounted that he assaulted her multiple times over a six-month timeframe in 2008 after deceptively posing as his own son on social media platforms like Facebook and MySpace.
According to an arrest warrant obtained by the outlet, the girl said Nichols sent her graphic messages and made strange demands, such as inventing sexual stories or informing him whenever she entered the shower.
The disgraced former teacher allegedly watched the teenager engage in consensual sexual activities with another boy and instructed her to tell anyone who inquired that “she wanted” to be intimate with him, with all incidents occurring at his family’s residence, as detailed in the warrant.
Before Nichols was apprehended, the victim’s mother confronted him about the ongoing abuse, during which he referred to himself as a “pig,” as stated in the warrant.
He was arrested at his home in October 2009, where police discovered videotapes, a camera, photographs, and various sexual devices scattered throughout the premises.
During his court proceedings, Nichols notably refused to cooperate, insisting that he was not a “straw man” when asked to enter a plea, and maintained that he did not comprehend the charges against him, even after a bailiff was directed to physically restrain him, as reported by the outlet.
He was slated to complete his sentence in September 2027.
