The reward for the safe return of missing college student Holly Bobo was raised to $250,000 by an anonymous donation this week, The Commercial Appeal reports.
The timing roughly coincides with the Tuesday arrest of a registered sex offender in western Tennessee, who lived near Bobo, for alleged kidnapping, attempted rape and sexual battery charges, according to TV station WTVF.
The bust raised eyebrows because a spokesman for the Tennessee Bureau of Investigations refused to tell The Jackson Sun if the suspect, Terry Lee Britt, 53, was being questioned in Bobo's disappearance.
Bobo, a nursing student, was 20 when she was last seen on April 13, 2011 walking into a wooded area near her home in Parsons with a man dressed in camouflage.
The previous reward offered for reliable information about Bobo's disappearance was $85,000. Authorities told media outlets that a private donor kicked in the additional funds.
The last development in the search for Bobo came last month when law enforcement agents searched the home of an Ohio man they said was interfering with the investigation. Tony Calabrese was not a suspect in her vanishing, but authorities said he was soliciting tips and claiming to be the head of a search team looking for the missing woman, The Associated Press says.