Overview

• The North Carolina Department of Adult Corrections said Ernest Nichols, 60, was found unresponsive around 6:50 a.m. Sunday at Greene Correctional Institution in Maury, and EMS pronounced him dead at 7:22 a.m.
• The facility was briefly locked down while a criminal investigation began into what authorities are treating as a homicide.
• The North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation and Greene County officials served a murder warrant on inmate Wilbert Baldwin, 41, a prior second-degree murder convict who is being held without bond and returned to state custody.
• A corrections spokesperson said the prison uses dormitory-style housing and that Nichols was not murdered in a cell, and officials are awaiting autopsy findings.
• Nichols, a former Ranson Middle School gym teacher, was convicted in 2011 of statutory rape of a 15-year-old who was not his student, with a projected release in September 2027 after evidence was seized during his 2009 arrest.