Image Officials said they were investigating the death of Bee Love Slater as a homicide but said that it was too early to say if it was a hate crime.

The body of a black transgender woman, said by the authorities to have been burned beyond recognition, was found inside an abandoned car in Florida.

The victim, Bee Love Slater, 23, was the 18th transgender person known to have been killed in the United States this year, according to Human Rights Campaign, a civil rights organization that tracks anti-transgender violence.

The authorities had to use dental records to identify her after she was found on Sept. 4 just outside of Clewiston, Fla., a city on the southwest side of Lake Okeechobee , Steve Whidden, the Hendry County sheriff, said Saturday night in an interview.

Sheriff Whidden said investigators were treating the case as a homicide, but had not uncovered any evidence to suggest that the killing was a hate crime.