New York City police are pursuing the case of Brandon Woodard "aggressively" and have some intriguing leads, according to Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, but authorities are still largely mystified with the chain of events that lead to the Los Angeles man's seemingly planned out murder Monday.
Authorities questioned a 40-year-old Queens man for hours but were forced to release him Tuesday evening, hitting another brick wall. According to The New York Daily News, the man was the boyfriend of the woman who rented the getaway car, a Lincoln MKZ, although he is not a suspect. Police say it appears the woman who rented the vehicle loaned the car to someone else before the murder occurred.
Police in Queens reportedly found the getaway car Tuesday evening with the help of high-tech license plate readers, said the Daily News. Authorities were able to capture the license plate number as the car went through the Midtown Tunnel shortly after Woodard's murder. According to Kelly though, police still haven't located the two suspects wanted in Woodard's death, or determined who may have ordered his murder and why.
Woodard was fatally shot in broad daylight in an active, tourist-heavy area of Manhattan, and the killing "certainly appears to have been planned," Police Commissioner Kelly told reporters. Kelly added that based on security videotape, detectives suspect Woodard was lured into an ambush.
Police Commissioner Kelly said Woodard arrived in New York from Los Angeles at Kennedy Airport around 5 p.m. Sunday and then checked into the Thompson Hotel around 6:30 p.m. That evening he watched a football game with a female friend and they then went for dinner at a close by restaurant, said Kelly
Monday, Woodard left his hotel just before 1:30 p.m., telling the concierge he would pick up his luggage later. Of course, that never happened.
According to police the entire murder was captured on CCTV.
"In the video, the gunman wanted in the shooting death yesterday of Brandon Lincoln Woodard, 31 of Los Angeles, is seen 10 minutes before the shooting," said the NYPD in a statement.
"The shooter, who appears to be bald and may have a beard, exited a late model Lincoln sedan, initially bare-headed, but soon pulled the hood of his jacket over his head. Ten minutes later, at approximately 2:00pm, the shooter walked up behind Woodard and fired. In [a still from the video], the gunman is seen behind Woodard a moment before the shooting, pulling the weapon from his jacket pocket."
"The victim was walking westbound on West 58th Street," NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said. "The shooter walked up behind him and shot him at close range."
Police has since searched Woodard's hotel room and bags but have found nothing suggesting why he came to New York, and his family is equally confounded.
The NYPD is paying close attention to three phones Woodard was carrying when he flew to New York City on Sunday. Two of the phones were found on his body and another was left in his luggage back in his hotel room.
"Obviously, we are very much interested in what information was on the phone at that time," Kelly told reporters Wednesday.
Ballistics evidence may point to a lead in the case. According to police, the 9mm semiautomatic used to kill Woodard was the same weapon used to last month to shoot up the outside of a home in Albans, Queens, in 2009 where no one was hurt.
Authorities are also investigating possible connections to drug dealing, and Woodard's ties to the music industry. He once claimed Usher's bodyguards beat him up.
Police are also investigating a connection between a cell phone tracked in Woodard's killing and a horrific murder in Queens when three men who had been at a party in Brooklyn thrown by a local party planner were ambushed, and shot at with 63 bullets from an AK-47. The cellphone police tracked is registered to the party planner, a source revealed to the Daily News.
Detectives from the NYPD are now in Los Angeles obtaining a search warrant for Woodard's home.
Los Angeles and Las Vegas police departments have confirmed Woodard had a long history of run-ins with the law. Woodard was reportedly charged with criminal and drug charges 20 times, and was due back in court in Los Angeles on Jan. 22 following an April arrest in West Hollywood for felony cocaine possession. He had previously pleaded not guilty.
Woodard's mother and stepfather, Sandra and Rodney Wellington, released a statement Tuesday asking anyone with information on the killing to contact police.
"There are no words to express our shock and sadness in the face of our family's horrendous tragedy. We eagerly await justice for Brandon," the statement said.
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