PICKENS, S.C. — A convicted sex offender has admitted he strangled a 20-year-old South Carolina college student, leaving her body in her off-campus apartment with her bikini top still wrapped around her neck.

Jerry Buck Inman pleaded guilty Tuesday to kidnapping, raping and murdering Tiffany Marie Souers of Ladue, Mo. The 37-year-old Inman could face the death penalty.

The Clemson University engineering student’s body was found in May 2006. Inman’s DNA matched samples taken from Souers’ apartment and he was arrested near his mother’s home in Dandridge, Tenn., about two weeks after her body was found.

Inman spent about 18 years in prison in North Carolina and Florida for rapes committed in those states as a teenager.