You might want to read (or watch the movie) Murder in Coweta County. The prosecutor didn’t even have that much to go on. Just some unidentified brain tissue and some bone fragments. And the testimony of a couple of poor Black farmhands against the rich white landowner.
Everyone knew the woman was dead and they knew the kid had killed her. But there wasn’t enough blood found to prove she was dead. (A friend bought her house and he and his wife had to clean up the blood stains).
While the kid was in custody, they tried to get him to confess to the killing to a cellmate, but he wouldn’t. So they pretty much had to wait until the body turned up before they could charge him with anything.