A 49-year-old McMinn County man is awaiting extradition to Louisiana after he was arrested Tuesday and confessed to a 1987 rape, according to authorities.
Tommy Ray Gurley, of 207 County Road 314, is charged in connection with a case in St. Tammany Parish, La.
“We’ve apprehended a dangerous suspect in McMinn County, helped in solving a 24-year-old cold case, and may also have contributed to solving other cases across the South,” McMinn County Sheriff Joe Guy said in a news release.
Guy said Gurley has lived in several Southeastern states over the past 25 years, and other agencies likely will resubmit DNA in cold rape cases to see if he is a possible suspect.
Gurley was identified as a suspect when his DNA was entered into a national database after a 2008 arrest in North Carolina.