HOMOSASSA, Fla. (AP) – A registered sex offender named a “person of interest” in the disappearance of a 9-year-old girl was questioned for a second time by police Thursday after he was arrested in Georgia, police said.

John Evander Couey, 46, who lived near the home of Jessica Lunsford before leaving Florida, had been questioned by police in Georgia over the weekend, and “he is getting more and more interesting to us as time as goes on,” Citrus County Sheriff Jeff Dawsy said.

Authorities called him a “person of interest” in the case, though he has not been charged and sheriff’s spokeswoman Ronda Hemminger Evan said there was nothing that ties him directly to Jessica’s disappearance on Feb. 23.

“Couey is being cooperative with us and he is answering our questions,” Dawsy said. “We’re building a rapport with the gentleman.”

Couey was arrested Thursday near a Salvation Army shelter in Augusta, Ga., because he didn’t notify Florida officials he was leaving the state, a requirement for sex offenders. He had a first court appearance on Friday and could return to Florida quickly if he waives the extradition process, Dawsy said.

Couey’s home in Homosassa is about two miles from Jessica’s, but he also sometimes stayed with his half sister who lives within “eyeshot” of her house, Dawsy said.

Mark Lunsford, Jessica’s father, said Wednesday that the family didn’t know Couey.

“It’s someone nobody has seen before,” Lunsford said. “I know my daughter doesn’t go with strangers. So I just don’t see it.”

No one answered the doors Wednesday evening at the half sister’s house and Couey’s mobile home. Homosassa is about 60 miles north of Tampa.

Detectives tried to contact Couey five days after Jessica disappeared and discovered he no longer lived there. Police in Georgia picked him up on Saturday and interviewed him for about two hours before releasing him.

Couey’s criminal record includes arrests for burglary, carrying a concealed weapon and indecent exposure. In 1991, he was arrested in Kissimmee on a charge of fondling a child under age 16. Records don’t show how the case was resolved.

During a burglary in 1978, he was accused of grabbing a girl in her bedroom, placing his hand over her mouth and kissing her, Dawsy said. Couey was sentenced to 10 years but was paroled in 1980.

George Kanaris, owner of a restaurant about a mile from the Lunsford home, said Couey worked there as a dishwasher in the early 1990s but was fired after he wrote a three-page romantic letter to a busgirl who was 14 or 15.