So. From what I've read on here so far, the area she was found in was impoverished and had a large African American population. Someone speculated her disappearance could've gone unreported due to racism in the area.
Personally, I don't believe she lived in that area. From what's been reported, it seems like she was invited to a formal event; a wedding, prom, or a funeral, by an African American- perhaps a family friend or a close friend of her own. *I'm putting less stock into this because of the estimated age, but she might've been a prostitute.
Clothing: Missing from the body: a sock, both shoes, and a glove (possible she wore only 1 glove as many women do in formal events). Where are her shoes? From her attire, it's safe to say she wore high-heels or at least a healed type of shoe. Where's her jewelry? Almost every woman I know wears jewelry in a normal setting, so for her to be found without any, along with her purse, is odd. *Reason I suspect she had a purse is because most formal dresses do not have pockets. I'm also not sure of the significance, but it doesn't state wether or not there was underwear present on the body- I'm leaning towards no.
With all of this information noted, my take on this is she was robbed and sexually assaulted.
Missing shoes: Well, if she were being robbed or attacked, it would be difficult to run away in healed shoes, did she take them off so she could escape, or were they kicked off/removed along with her sock and glove during a struggle. Someone else bought up a fetish, could the suspect have a fetish and taken the shoes as a "trophy"? The missing jewelry and purse was stolen by the suspect. Missing underwear and maybe bra were removed during the sexual assault. I should add it doesn't state wether or not a bra was present. I do wonder how her clothes were found, it says on the body, but was her dress found lifted up? was her top found over her head or around her neck?
There's many different theories to what could've happened. Maybe she was a prostitute murdered during intercourse. The prom theory, was she was accidentally or purposefully killed by her boyfriend during an argument, maybe she was drowning in the water nearby, but the boyfriend couldn't rescue her in time and took her purse and jewelry to conceal her identity. Could've been hitch-hiking and ended up with the wrong person. Maybe she witnessed something she shouldn't have and was chased down and murdered. A racially motivated murder and the police covered it up to avoid a national "outcry" - a young white woman murdered by a supposed African American? There's countless possibilities on what could've happened, but we should start by with we do know and hypothesize off of that.