Published: Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2008 / Updated: Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2008 07:18 AM

Rapist pleads to Clemson strangling

PICKENS -- His face twitching occasionally, a shackled Jerry Buck Inman barely glanced at the pictures of the off-campus apartment where Clemson University student Tiffany Souers was raped and strangled.

But after a nearly two-hour hearing Tuesday afternoon in a Pickens County courtroom, the 37-year-old registered sex offender from Tennessee, facing the death penalty, admitted to committing crimes that shocked the Clemson community and made national news.

Inman pleaded guilty to murder, first-degree criminal sexual conduct, first-degree burglary and kidnapping in the May 26, 2006, slaying of the 20-year-old Souers, a rising junior from a wealthy St. Louis-area family.

"I just want to enter the plea to get it over with ... to go on with the sentencing phase," Inman, dressed in an orange jail jumpsuit, quietly told Circuit Judge Ned Miller.

Inman -- recognizable for his shaved head and a bat tattoo on his neck -- showed little emotion, his mouth downturned when he wasn't speaking. He glared, though, at least once toward Bob Ariail, the 13th Circuit solicitor for Greenville and Pickens counties.

Miller, a former Greenville County public defender, will decide after a trial before him the week of Sept. 8 whether to sentence Inman, who has spent nearly half his life behind bars, to death or life without parole.

Donna Schwartz-Watts, a forensic psychiatrist who examined Inman six times on behalf of the defense, testified Inman's desire was no secret to her.

"Mr. Inman has always been very clear to me that his wish is to receive death," said Schwartz-Watts, a professor at USC.

Schwartz-Watts testified Inman is taking medication for depression and has a long history of a mood disorder. She added he "certainly has a sexual disorder."

Inman, who spent about 18 years in Florida and North Carolina prisons for rape, also is charged in the rape of a Tennessee woman and the attempted rape of an Alabama woman in their homes in the days before the rape-strangulation of Souers.

After arriving in South Carolina, the unemployed construction worker said he ran out of money and was looking to rob some place, according to police statements. He found his way to The Reserve, an off-campus apartment complex in Central near Clemson, on May 25, 2006.

He first saw Souers during the day on the patio of her first-floor apartment, drove around awhile, and went back to her apartment during the early morning hours of May 26, 2006, according to one of his police statements.

Ariail said Inman entered the apartment about 1 a.m., about two hours after a friend had dropped her off after an evening out at a local restaurant.

Inman said he climbed over the railing of the patio of Souers' apartment and entered through an unlocked door. He said he woke the sleeping Souers, who was alone in the four-bedroom apartment, in her bedroom, covering her mouth with his hand.

Inman told investigators he tied Souers' hands behind her after she fought with him and asked her for money, but she said she didn't have any.

In one of his statements, he said he "did not want to talk about the sex part, but I did have sex with her." A forensic pathologist later determined that Souers suffered "traumatic sexual intercourse," Ariail said.

Inman told investigators he strangled Souers with a bikini top and knew she was dead "because she stopped struggling." He said he fled with her bedsheet, car keys and two of her credit cards.

Timeline of events leading to Jerry Buck Inman's guilty plea Tuesday: