TOSHA THAKKAR may have lived out her final moments inside the black suitcase in which her body was ultimately found - floating in a canal.

The 24-year-old accounting student was allegedly raped and murdered between 10.30am and 1pm last Wednesday in Croydon.

Tosha Thakkar ... "a lovely human being, a wonderful person."

Her body, stuffed inside a large cloth suitcase, was pulled from a canal behind Meadowbank Park on Friday morning by pipeline maintenance workers. The Herald understands police believe Ms Thakkar, an Indian national from Gujarat, was strangled.

But she may not have been dead when her body was packed into the suitcase, and police are investigating whether she eventually suffocated inside it.