DETROIT -- A man charged with sexually assaulting a 16-year-old Michigan girl is now accused of killing her while free on bond, preventing her from testifying in the rape case. The girl, Mujey Dumbuya, was found dead in January in Kalamazoo woods about 50 miles from her Grand Rapids home.

Kent County Prosecutor Chris Becker said Wednesday that two men are facing charges connected to the Dumbuya's death. Her partially clothed body was found on January 28, three days after her family last saw her. Her cause of death was listed as "asphyxia, including strangulation" on the death certificate.

The man accused of rape, Quinn James, is charged with first-degree murder, kidnapping and other crimes. He's accused of sexually assaulting Mujey last summer and then killing her while he was free on a $100,000 cash bond in the case.

Get Breaking News Delivered to Your Inbox

James' co-defendant, Gerald Bennett, is charged with conspiracy to commit murder. Police said in a probable-cause affidavit that he contacted Bennett through someone in Detroit after seeking someone to help him with the slaying and disposing of her body. He also gave Bennett a vehicle as payment, the document said.

James Quinn WWMT

Investigators have alleged the men plotted to kill the teenager, but few details have been released about the killing and specific roles the men played in it. They are jailed awaiting arraignments.

Dumbuya said James, who at the time worked for her school district and is her boyfriend's uncle, forced her to have sex with him multiple times and in various locations starting when she was 15, according to court documents obtained by CBS affiliate WWMT. James was arrested in November and was terminated from his maintenance position with the school district later that month, according to numerous reports.

According to the court documents obtained by WWMT, Dumbuya told police James raped her in a car in a school parking lot. Just before the attack, Dumbuya said James told her, "There is something about you. I could stop, but I just can't."

James allegedly admitted having sex with Dumbuya in a car outside the Ridge Park Charter Academy in Grand Rapids where his nephew, Dumbuya's boyfriend, is a student. He allegedly said the sex was consensual.

He was charged with multiple counts of criminal sexual conduct, reports the station. He pleaded not guilty and was released on $100,000 bond days after his November arrest.

James was ordered to have no contact with Dumbuya while awaiting trial. Dumbuya was to testify at the proceedings, scheduled to start nine weeks after her body was found, the station reports.

Kentwood District Judge William Kelly had wide discretion to set the amount of James' bond with the third-degree criminal sexual conduct charge, which pertains to the sexual assault of a minor. Authorities picked him up on Feb. 1 on an unrelated 2014 sexual assault charge and the bond in the case involving Mujey was increased to $250,000 after she died.

"When I set the $100,000 bond, Mujey was alive," Kelly said last month.

Becker, the prosecutor, told The Associated Press Wednesday afternoon that the bond appeared appropriate to him at the time, given the charge.

"$100,000 is not an insignificant amount -- it was a substantial cash bond that Kelly put out," Becker said. "He posted bond -- it happens."

The AP left a message Wednesday for James' attorney, Jonathan Schildgen, who has said his client didn't kill Mujey or sexually assault her.

Mujey's mother, Fatmata Corneh, said in a statement that James has "no idea what you have put me and my family through," adding that he "broke us into pieces."