HOUSTON, Mo. (AP) — Even as authorities in rural southern Missouri dismiss the possibility that a transgender teenager’s death was a hate crime, questions remain about why the quiet 17-year-old was killed in such a ghastly manner.

Authorities identified the burned remains as those of Joseph Matthew Steinfeld Jr. That’s the birth name of a transgender girl who went by the name Ally Lee Steinfeld.

The remains were found last week near the mobile home of one of the alleged killers. The body had been burned. Some of the bones were in a chicken coop. Authorities say both eyes were gouged out and Steinfeld had been stabbed in the genitals.

Steinfeld’s mother says her child was living in a mobile home with all three people now charged with murder.