Aus investigators struggle to determine final movements of murdered Indian-origin doctor

The only suspect in the murder of a 32-year-old Indian-origin woman dentist in Australia travelled 400 kilometres with the sole purpose of seeing her despite knowing that she was dating another man, police have said as they struggled to determine what happened in a window of several hours yet to be accounted for on the day of her death.

The man suspected of murdering the Sydney dentist Preethi Reddy, whose body was found stuffed in a suitcase, with numerous stab wounds, in her car parked in an eastern Sydney street, New South Wales, is another Indian-origin dentist and her ex-boyfriend Harsh Narde.

Narde died after his BMW car collided with a truck on the New England Highway on Monday night, a day after his ex-girlfriend was reported missing, New South Wales Police (NSW) said.

The head-on collision, around 340 kilometres from where Reddy's body was found, is believed to have been deliberate, they said.

Police reportedly believe Narde travelled 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 reported.

"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 Reddy and Narde said he last saw the pair chatting animatedly in the hotel lobby following the event on Saturday night.

Narde had no history of violence, according to sources.

"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."