Pickens, S.C. ? A registered sex offender confessed to killing a Clemson University student and to sexual assaults in Alabama and Tennessee, authorities said Wednesday.

Jerry Buck Inman, 35, was returned to South Carolina to face charges of murder, rape and kidnapping after his arrest late Tuesday near his parents’ home in Dandridge, Tenn., said Jefferson County, Tenn., Sheriff David Davenport.

He was arraigned before a South Carolina magistrate who did not set bond.

DNA from Tiffany Marie Souers’ off-campus apartment had led authorities to Inman two weeks after the 20-year-old civil engineering student was found wearing only a bra on the bedroom floor of her apartment. She was strangled with a bikini top and her wrists and ankles were bound.

“He didn’t know the victim,” Davenport said Wednesday. “It is our information he was driving around in the (victim’s) neighborhood and saw her and he liked her looks.”

In Rainsville, Ala., Inman was charged with attempted rape, burglary, robbery and theft of property in a May 23 incident in which authorities said he broke into a home and tried to attack a 24-year-old woman after she came home for lunch. Davenport said he expects Inman also will be charged with a May 24 rape in Sevierville, Tenn.

“It seems like he was just wandering around, finding vulnerable people – women – and preying on them and conducting sexual assaults and getting progressively worse,” Davenport said. “This may be just the tip of the iceberg.”

Investigators said they found several items related to the crimes in Inman’s vehicle.

The victims identified Inman from tattoos shown on news reports, Davenport said. Florida prison records indicate Inman has several skull tattoos and a bat tattooed on his neck.

“We interviewed him on all the offenses that people were relating to us,” said Jefferson County Chief Deputy Bob McCoig. “He did confess to all three cases.”