DETROIT -- An argument over a man may be the motive of two Hamtramck women charged in the strangulation death of 20-year-old Maria Carissimi of St. Clair Shores, whose lifeless body was found on Belle Isle in Detroit earlier this month, police said.

Two women, Alicia Yellowfox-Hall, 23, and Misti Farmer, 28, both of Hamtramck, were Carissimi's friends – and are charged in her slaying.

"Initial motive was that they were fighting over a man," a Detroit police spokeswoman told the Macomb Daily.

Both women were in court on Thursday for a preliminary exam.

In that hearing, a 36th district court judge reduced the women’s charges.

Farmer and Yellowfox-Hall were facing first-degree murder charges but the judge decided to lower the charges against Yellowfox-Hall to assault with intent to do bodily harm.

Farmer is now facing second-degree murder charges.

Until now, police have not released much information on the motive of Carissimi's slaying, and whether she was killed on Belle Isle or if her body was later dumped off.

Prosecutors said the women took Carissimi into the woods on Belle Isle to beat her up and ended up killing her.

A man walking his dog in a wooded area near the Belle Isle Nature Zoo at around 9 a.m. on April 3 found Carissimi's body, police said.

Her body was found fully clothed, facedown and wearing high heels.

The paper reported that hours before police found Carissimi's body, her father, James Carissimi, was tipped off by one of Maria Carissimi's friend that girls had dumped her body on Belle Isle.

James Carissimi told the Macomb Daily that he went to Belle Isle and drove around searching for his daughter. When he couldn't find her, he returned home and called police stations and hospitals. He told the paper, shortly after he saw a news report about a body found on Belle Isle, he positively identified her.