BOSTON -- Investigators continue to probe the death of a Boston graduate student who turned up dead in New York City over the weekend.

Her body was found naked on a Brooklyn street.

NewsCenter 5's Jorge Quiroga reported that it appears Imette St. Guillen, 24, was strangled and suffocated, according to a medical examiner.

"I remember her as a beautiful young lady, inside and out. I remember her as someone who was very much a part of the life of this school," Boston Latin headmaster Cornelia Kelley said of the 1999 graduate.

St. Guillen's naked body was dumped in a garbage lot in the east New York section of Brooklyn. Her face was covered with duct tape. Her hands were tied behind her back. She had been sexually assaulted and strangled.

"It's just so tragic, it's really ... my heart goes out to the family and the friends and the roommates," said a New Yorker.

St. Guillen's roommates in Manhattan's upper West Side said she was last seen about 3 a.m. Saturday at a trendy bar called The Pioneer in the Bowery Section of lower Manhattan. Her body was found 17 hours later, Saturday night, after an anonymous 911 call to police.

St. Guillen attended George Washington University after graduating from Boston Latin, then went to New York four years ago to work on a master's degree in forensic psychology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

Kelley recalled that St. Guillen was well-liked in Boston, where she was on the track and swim teams, in the choir and a member of the National Honor Society.

"Bubbly, dark hair, beautiful eyes. Just someone other young people gravitated to," Kelley said.

Her family still lives in the three-decker on Francis Street where St. Guillen grew up three blocks from Boston Latin High School.

"My heart was broken. Because she's a very nice person, a very nice girl. And when you have children, you know, you think about yourself too. It's very sad," a family neighbor, Elza Dumornay, said.

Her family wasn't available for comment. In New York, detectives are now scouring surveillance camera videos at the bar where she was last seen hoping it will lead them to a suspect.