New York ? A 20-year-old college student from New York City whose love of Mayan culture led her to Central America was murdered while backpacking in Belize, police said Thursday.

Julia Minard was in her underwear and her neck and arms were badly bruised when she was found Sunday in the bushes outside a remote village near the Guatemalan border. Her passport and driver’s license were found nearby in a backpack.

“From the marks around her neck we think she might have been strangled,” said Michael Reid, a spokesman for the Belize police.

A farmer Minard reportedly met in a bar has been charged with her murder, and police were waiting for test results to determine whether she had been raped.