Preethi Reddy's body was found inside a suitcase on Tuesday. Photo / Facebook
Preethi Reddy's body was found inside a suitcase on Tuesday. Photo / Facebook
The final movements of Sydney dentist Preethi Reddy's life remain unclear with a window of several hours yet to be accounted for on the day of her murder.
Investigators are working hard to determine what happened between Dr Reddy's last phone call at 11.06am on Sunday and her death sometime that afternoon.
It's believed she was killed inside her ex-boyfriend Harshwardhan Narde's room at the Swissotel Sydney on Market St, a luxury venue where several other dentists were also staying, after attending a dental convention in the city's northern suburbs the day prior.
Police reportedly believe Narde travelled the 400km from Tamworth to Sydney for the continuing education course with the sole purpose of seeing his ex-girlfriend despite her telling him: "I've moved on, you need to do the same," The Daily Telegraph reports.
"Preethi told him she had met someone else and that it was serious and she was moving to Melbourne," an anonymous source told the newspaper.
A colleague of Dr Reddy and Narde's, who attended the conference and asked not to be named, said he last saw the pair chatting animatedly in the hotel lobby following the event on Saturday night.
"They looked happy and stayed back to chat after the conference ended at 7pm," he said.
"I knew they (had previously been) in a long-term relationship, many of us did.
"The bizarre thing I noticed that night was that he took down his Facebook shortly after the conference. It made me wonder why."
CCTV footage captured Dr Reddy in McDonald's on Sunday about 2.15am. Photo / Facebook
A few hours later, Dr Reddy was captured on CCTV inside McDonald's at the Strand Arcade in Sydney's CBD — amid Mardi Gras celebrations — about 2.15am on Sunday. CCTV footage shows Dr Reddy standing at the counter before she appeared to leave alone and walk south on Market St. Further surveillance footage shows her entering the Swissotel foyer about five minutes later. A NSW Police spokesperson said Dr Reddy stayed in the hotel with "a man known to her" overnight.
At 11am on Sunday, she spoke to her family over the phone and told them she would have a late breakfast then head home to Penrith. But when she failed to return that night, her family reported her missing to Nepean Police Area Command and created a Facebook page to help find her.
Narde was captured on the hotel's CCTV camera getting help from a hotel porter to lift a large and heavy suitcase into the boot of a car on Sunday afternoon, according to The Daily Telegraph.
The bag contained Dr Reddy's body, which was discovered in the boot of her car on a laneway in Sydney's eastern suburbs around 9.30pm on Tuesday. She had been stabbed numerous times.
Dr Harshwardhan Narde has previously been in a relationship with murdered Sydney dentist Preethi Reddy. Photo / Facebook
While Dr Reddy was still the subject of a missing person's inquiry on Sunday night, Narde sent a series of text messages, to one of her concerned friends.
Detective Superintendent Gavin Dengate revealed officers grilled Narde while Dr Reddy was still the subject of a missing person's inquiry. In a shocking twist, Narde died about 10pm on Monday night — a day after Dr Reddy was reported missing — in a head-on collision with a truck near Tamworth in what police believe was a deliberate act. He was living in Tamworth, in country NSW, at the time of his death.
The following day, Dr Reddy's car was discovered parked on the side of the road in Kingsford. It's understood her body was found in a suitcase inside the boot.
A NSW Police spokeswoman told news.com.au authorities were not looking for any other suspects in relation to Dr Reddy's murder.
The scene of the fatal crash on the New England Highway. Photo / Facebook
Police have since appealed to the public to help them trace Dr Reddy's final movements.
But Supt Dengate cautioned against speculation as to what happened.
"We're looking at the timeline of when they met up," he said. "We're still making inquiries. It is very difficult now, with what's happened, to get that."
"At this stage we know they met up in Sydney, now we're looking at all the movements between those two to establish exactly what happened," Supt Dengate told reporters on Wednesday.
