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A middle school gym teacher who described himself as a “pig” before being jailed for repeatedly raping a 15-year-old girl was killed by another inmate in his North Carolina cell Sunday.
Ernest Nichols, 60, was convicted in 2011 and sentenced to 15 years behind bars for statutory rape. He was originally arrested on a staggering 27 charges, including a laundry list of sex offenses, WRAL reported.
Nichols was found dead in his cell at the Greene Correctional Institution in Maury, NC around 6:50 a.m., sending the prison into a lockdown.
By Tuesday, the Green County Sheriff’s Office served a murder warrant to fellow inmate Wilbert Baldwin, who is already serving a sentence for second-degree murder, the outlet reported.
Nichols worked at Ranson Middle School in Charlotte for 14 years, but was swiftly suspended without pay and banned from the grounds when administrators learned of the accusations, WBTV previously reported.
His 15-year-old victim, who was not a student at the school, said that he raped her multiple times over a six-month period in 2008 after impersonating his own son on Facebook and MySpace.
She said that Nichols would send her sexually explicit messages and make bizarre requests like making up sexual stories or letting him know “whenever she entered the shower,” according to an arrest warrant obtained by the outlet.
The disgraced ex-teacher would sometimes watch the teenager have consensual sex with another male and ordered her to tell people “she wanted” to have sex with him if anyone asked about their encounters, which all took place at his family’s home, the warrant stated.
Before Nichols was arrested, the young victim’s mother confronted him about the months-long abuse and said he called himself a “pig” during their conversation, according to the warrant.
He was arrested in October 2009 at his home as police seized videotapes, a video camera, photographs and sex toys found around the property.
During his hearing, Nichols stubbornly refused to cooperate with the judge when prompted to enter a plea and repeatedly insisted he wasn’t a “straw man.” He continued to insist that he didn’t understand the charges he was facing, even after a bailiff was ordered to physically restrain him, the outlet reported.
He was set to conclude his sentence in September 2027.
