A former middle school teacher behind bars for repeatedly raping a teen girl was killed in a North Carolina prison by a fellow inmate and convicted murderer.

Ernest Nichols was found dead in his cell at the Greene Correctional Institution in Maury on Sunday around 6:50 a.m., WITN reported. He was convicted in 2011 and sentenced to 15 years behind bars for statutory rape, with a projected release date in September 2027.

The grim discovery sparked a brief lockdown at the prison to allow for an investigation, and by Tuesday, the Greene County Sheriff’s Office had served a murder warrant to Wilbert Baldwin, who was convicted of second degree murder in 2010. He was ordered held without bond and then “returned to the Department of Adult Correction to continue serving his current sentence

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