Again, appreciate your comments, and of all the posters who post here that are highly skeptical as to whether he did it or not, I value (and thus scrutinize) your input a lot. I'd rather the truth than a conviction.
But where there is absolutely no evidence of sexual assault, or any assault other than strangulation, and given the circumstances, when you flip things like this to "it might have happened", you lose me and bring me over to the he-did-it side.
For example, if she were attacked on the road, running, and ultimately strangled by a stranger, I think she would have either had to have been knocked out cold by something like a lead pipe to the head (which would leave a fracture), or she would have fought like hell leaving other wounds showing a struggle. Neither exist beyond the blood pooling in her face, which is more consistent with her being dumped with her face down after having died.
A strangulation without other trauma suggests her killer had the ultimate advantage. Not proves, suggests. Like someone in a home laying a trap.
But I'm willing to listen.... one suggestion is you provide your best theory as to how she could have been killed randomly on the road and have suffered so little trauma.
I suppose one suggestion is someone approached her, threatened her, took her to the woods, and told her if she complied she would live. I just don't see that as at all realistic given Nancy is fit and can outrun most, is proven feisty, and also not dumb enough to believe an assailant will take it easy on her. Thus if there was a rape it most likely would have been violent, leading to noticeable trauma. This was not a pleasant paragraph to think about or type.