Australian police have found the body of missing Sydney dentist Preethi Reddy, with multiple stab wounds, stuffed inside a suitcase which was kept in the boot of her own car.
Reddy, 32, is believed to have attended a dental convention in St Leonards, a suburb of Sydney, where her ex-boyfriend Harshwardhan Narde was also present. According to foreign media reports, Reddy and Narde had dinner after the conference at an Indian restaurant in Crows Nest. Investigators believe Reddy and Narde decided to stay at a hotel on Market Street on Sunday.
Police suspect Narde to have murdered Reddy at the hotel on Sunday and dumped her body in the boot of her car which he parked on the road seven kilometres away.
Reddy's family told the police that she had spoken to them at 11 AM on Sunday and told them that she would head home after breakfast. When she didn't return home, her parents contacted the police.
Earlier in the day, when the news that Reddy was missing had spread among her friends and family, a mutual friend of both Reddy and Narde messaged the latter to see if he had heard from her.
Narde replied saying that he had spoken to her in person on Saturday evening. When the friend asked him if she told him where she was going, he said, "She said she's going home." He had also told the friend that he had spoken to Nithya, Reddy's sister, and that the family was really worried.
Police suspect Reddy was already dead when Narde was replying to the messages, denying knowledge of her whereabouts.
Narde later reportedly rammed his BMW into a truck and was killed instantly in the fiery crash.
Friends of Reddy had told the police that she and Narde had a troubled relationship for the last five years. After the duo broke up, she decided to move on and started dating another man in November and was planning to get married to him.
A close friend of Reddy said she suspected Narde took her to dinner to try and get back with her. When he came to know about her plans to move to Melbourne and get married to her boyfriend, Narde is likely to have snapped and murdered her, she said.
"I wish she never felt sorry for him, she was too nice. She saw him depressed and blamed herself and thought one dinner will not harm her," the friend told the Daily Mail.