Over 40 years ago, on this very day, Dianne was brutally murdered. (RIP)
Strangulation has been known to be a very intimate way of murdering. If the original intention of the culprit was only to steal her belongings, they would not have to stay long enough to do the strangulation and rape her because it might have increased the chance of them getting caught.
The culprit, if not for a while, had at least been stalking her for a few hours and planning the assault. Sadly, they seemed to have the other intentions planned, too.
Not necessarily. Monte Rissle for example didn’t even plan to murder his first victim at all. He just wanted to rape her but she had challenged his dominance over a situation that threatened his individual fantasy by her acting as if she wanted the rape. Saying things to invite him to “do it” with her. He wanted her afraid and scared and when she wasn’t, it turned him into a murderer. Essentially ruining the fantasy so he claimed that he hit her head on a rock to “shut her up” and as this happened near a river, he drowned her there during the rape. So this individual may have had robbery on the brain, fantasized at some point about rape and choking / strangulation but didn’t know where to stop being enthralled in the fantasy. The fantasy in this case would be sexual gratification through the annihilation of another or the “death drive”. Chances are the killer was acting out something he didn’t even fully understand about himself yet. It just seems too unorganized to be planned for a long time. It might have been more spontaneous like David Berkowitz who claimed he would just drive around for hours every night looking for girls and when he saw what he wanted, he knew. He claimed he never actually knew what he was looking for but that he knew it when he saw it. I think this seems like something similar. The robbery, depending on what was taken could just be his way of making it seem like the motive was robbery in an effort to conceal his compulsions. Some killers have done this because they were ashamed of their “guilty pleasures” and didn’t want to appear weak or as a deviant of some kind as it would challenge their masculinity or dominance. They would need to re-assert control over their self image in some way.