Maybe, maybe not.
IMO, it's possible this murder was not sexually motivated at all. My first thought when hearing about this case was it probably was sexually motivated. However, it's possible the suspect was enraged, for whatever reason, at the girls. Did he think he had privacy from whatever he was doing there and was interrupted by the girls, as an example. Were these poor girls savagely beaten to death, then the suspect simply walked away? We just don't know and LE has released very little.
Random side note, I'm hesitant to read too much into what Carter says. This probably won't go over well, but I think he's very sentimental when he talks in general. The Shack reference is a good example of this. I thought he did the same when interviewed in the DTH podcast with the way he kept describing the area the girls were recovered from.
IMO
Your question was, have LE ever confirmed they were. The answer, as I pointed out, is no. That means maybe they were, maybe they weren't, we have no confirmed information one way or the other.
My clarification was, however, that many people assume no evidence of rape/sexual assault equals no sexual motivation, which is patently false. And there is no maybe/maybe not about that.
Edited to add, that when men are enraged for general reasons it often manifests as sexual violence against women/girls in one way or another. So even a motive of "just rage" could have elements meant to sexually assault or sexually humiliate that were not even premeditated.
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