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Updated: Mar 06, 2019 23:27 IST

An Indian origin dentist in Sydney who went missing on Sunday was found stabbed to death Tuesday night, police said.

Police found the body of Dr Preethi Reddy (32), in a suitcase in her car. The body had multiple stab wounds. The New South Wales police said they are investigating the circumstances surrounding the woman’s death. She worked at Glenbrook Dental Surgery in the Blue Mountains, about 70km west of Sydney.

Police said that Preethi stayed at a hotel on Market Street in Sydney’s CBD on Sunday with her ex-boyfriend, who was killed in a head-on collision with a truck on the New England Highway, south of Tamworth Monday night.

In a media conference on Wednesday, a NSW Police spokesman confirmed that police had spoken to the ex-boyfriend, who has also been identified as a dentist, as part of the missing person investigation before he was killed on Monday.

ABC identified Preethi’s ex-boyfriend as Harsh Narde. The head-on collision, around 340 kilometres from where Preethi’s body was found, is believed to have been deliberate.

“The ABC understands Dr Narde was the key suspect in Dr Reddy’s murder,” it said in its report.

Preethi’s death left her colleagues shaken.

“It’s devastating, and this is completely out of character,” dental assistant Chelsea Holmes told the ABC. “I spoke to her last Thursday and it was ‘see you next week’ and completely normal.”

Preethi was first reported missing by her family on Sunday after she failed to come home from a dental convention at St Leonards on the suburbs of Sydney.

Police were told she last made contact with her family at about 11am on Sunday, saying she planned to head home after having a late breakfast in Sydney.

CCTV footage showed Preethi at a McDonald’s inside the Strand Arcade in Sydney’s CBD about 2:15 am on Sunday. She can be seen wearing a long-sleeve black shirt, black pants and black ballet flats.

Her sister, Nithya Reddy, posted on Facebook that she had previously been located at Hotel Urban in Greenwich on Sydney’s lower north shore.

A Facebook page set up to help find Dr Preethi Reddy said it was “highly out of character for Preethi to not contact family and loved ones”.