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DEAD END IN CITY RUBOUT: Cops question, release person of interest in brazen execution
Confounded cops struck out again last night when they released a 40-year-old man they had grilled for hours in the slaying of 31-year-old Brandon Woodard of California.

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BY ROCCO PARASCANDOLA , NANCY DILLON AND GINGER ADAMS OTIS / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Police are still searching for the gunman that executed Brandon Woodard in cold blood.

It is the case of curious clues, tantalizing leads and yet no keys to crack the murder of a young father who was gunned down on a busy Manhattan street.

Confounded cops struck out again last night when they released a 40-year-old man they had grilled for several hours in the slaying of 31-year-old Brandon Woodard of California.

Sources said the Queens man is the boyfriend of a woman who rented the getaway car, a Lincoln MKZ. But the man, who may be a friend of the getaway driver’s, is not a suspect, police sources said Wednesday night. And it appears the woman loaned the car to someone else before the grisly slaying.

Then there’s the connection to a gruesome killing in Queens, an ambush in which three men who had been at a Brooklyn shindig thrown by a local party planner were sprayed by 63 bullets from an AK-47 as they sat in a car. A cell phone police tracked in the Woodard killing is registered to the party planner who hosted that event, a source said.

Woodard himself had three cell phones in his possession, one of which seems to have directed him by message right into the path of his assassin around 2 p.m. Monday.

COURTESY WOODARD FAMILY

Brandon L. Woodard

The victim walked right past the man who would in a few minutes pump a bullet into his head. Had he kept going, who knows? But Woodard doubled back after someone apparently sent him the message that made him return.

Video surveillance shows the ice-cold killer watching his victim as he heads east on W. 58th St. Police suspect the murderer let Woodard pass because the street at that moment may have been too crowded for the hit.

The getaway car had pulled into a parking spot about 20 minutes before Woodard was killed, and video footage also showed the hit man casually leaning against the car door. He watched Woodard exit the Thompson Hotel and head east.

Woodward didn’t react as he passed the predator, who then leaned into the passenger door of the sedan and spoke to someone inside. The foot traffic was heavy at the time.

A few minutes later, Woodard doubled back, heading west along a less-crowded street and appearing to be reading something on a cell phone.

Cops are pursuing the case “aggressively,” Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Wednesday.

RELATED: GUN USED TO KILL LAW STUDENT ALSO USED IN QUEENS SHOOTING YEARS AGO – COPS

They’re paying particular attention to three cell phones Woodard brought with him from Los Angeles. He left one in his luggage but was carrying two with him.

Officers in the 113th Precinct in Queens found the getaway car Tuesday night with the help of high-tech license plate readers. Cops got the license plate number as the sedan went through the Midtown Tunnel shortly after Woodard’s murder.

“Obviously, we are very much interested in what information was on the phone at that time,” Kelly told reporters Wednesday.

Police may have also uncovered a link between Woodard’s execution-style murder and a triple homicide that occurred in Queens over the summer, a police source said.

The victims in that killing, three men, were parked in front of a friend’s house in Springfield Gardens that the party planner threw on July 7.

The men had gotten into a fight with others at the party, who followed the victims to Springfield. The shooters sprayed them with a hail of AK-47 bullets as the men sat in their parked car. Cops said at the time that 63 shots were fired from the assault rifle.

One of the cell phones police tracked in the Woodard killing is registered to the party planner who hosted the July event, a source said.

COURTESY WOODARD FAMILY

Brandon Lincoln Woodard, seen here with an unknown little girl on his lap.

NYPD detectives have flown to Los Angeles to get a search warrant for the victim’s home and dig deeper into Woodard’s background. Police don’t have a clear motive for the killing, but they are investigating Woodard’s ties to the entertainment business and possible drug world connections.

Woodard’s parents, unaware Wednesday afternoon that the NYPD had brought someone in for questioning, were overcome with emotion when they learned the news.
The victim’s mother, Sandra Wellington, put her hand over her face and reached out to her husband for support.

“We’re just hopeful that whoever did this will be brought to justice,” stepdad Rodney Wellington told the Daily News. “She’s very fragile right now,” he said.

“Thank you. Thank you,” he said, grateful for the news

MARCUS SANTOS FOR NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Blood is visible on the sidewalk at the scene of the shooting near Columbus Circle.

Police also interviewed a young woman Wednesday who was with Woodard for what turned out to be his last supper, on Sunday night.
Kelly said Woodard landed at Kennedy Airport around 5 p.m. Sunday. He checked into the Thompson Hotel around 6:30 p.m.

He watched a football game with the female companion, and the two then went out for dinner at a nearby restaurant, Kelly said.

Woodard left his hotel Monday shortly before 1:30 p.m., and told the concierge he would return for his luggage. He never did.

Police searched his room and his bags but found nothing to tell them why the man had come to New York. His family is equally mystified.

Brandon L. Woodard
Woodard, father to a 4-year-old girl, had an extensive criminal history, mostly stemming from drug-related charges.
A law student at the University of West Los Angeles, he had 20 prior arrests for drugs and robbery, among other things. He was charged with cocaine possession in California in June.

Woodard was killed with a weapon that detectives determined was used in a random shooting in St. Albans, Queens, in 2009.

His parents Wednesday were dealing with the sad details of bringing Woodard’s body home for burial.
“Sandra Wellington is still in shock,” said family spokesman Fred MacFarlane. “At this juncture, the family doesn’t know any rationale for what happened, why it happened.”

MacFarlane added that the family’s primary goal now is to shelter Woodard’s little girl from the tragic truth.

“I don’t think that they have discussed this yet with the 4-year-old daughter. They’re trying to protect her,” he said.

With Joe Kemp and Oren Yaniv
[email protected]

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