GREENVILLE, South Carolina (AP) -- A registered sex offender wanted in the death of a Clemson University student who was strangled with her bikini top was captured late Tuesday in Tennessee, officials said.
Jerry Buck Inman, who was wanted on arrest warrants for murder, rape and kidnapping, was taken into custody during a traffic stop about a mile from his parents' home in Dandridge, Tennessee, Sheriff David Davenport said.
Inman was being taken to the county jail. No other details of his arrest were immediately released.
Inman's DNA matched samples taken from Tiffany Marie Souers' apartment, said State Law Enforcement Division Chief Robert Stewart.
The body of the 20-year-old civil engineering junior from Ladue, Missouri, was discovered May 26 in her off-campus apartment, wearing only a bra with the bikini top still around her neck.
Inman, a 35-year-old construction worker, was registered as a sex offender in Florida and North Carolina. His last address is listed as Dandridge.
His mother, Vera McArthur, told The Greenville News earlier Tuesday that her son is bipolar and often suicidal, and had no idea South Carolina authorities were looking for him. She said he had been doing construction work in Tennessee and hasn't been in South Carolina recently as far as she knows.
"He just takes off and is gone a couple of days," McArthur told the newspaper.
Before Inman was captured, the Souers family in suburban St. Louis was authorities had identified a suspect, said Souers' 16-year-old brother, Trevor.
"There's a sense of relief, but of course, anger," he said. "It just brings up all these thoughts and emotions."
