Investigators located a car believed to be the getaway vehicle used in a daylight shooting in Midtown in which a Los Angeles man was shot at point-blank range, a law-enforcement official said on Wednesday.

Brandon Lincoln Woodard, 31 years old, was shot and killed by an unknown assailant as he walked along West 58th Street on Monday afternoon. The shooter, whose image was captured on video, was seen calmly leaving the scene after entering a car that was idling a few yards from the fatal encounter.

The 2012 silver Lincoln MKZ was found parked but apparently abandoned on 157th Street in Jamaica, Queens, the official said. It was located by an automated license-plate scanner used by the New York Police Department and was traced to an Avis Budget Group Inc. rental-car location in Huntington Station, N.Y.

The car was last rented on Nov. 11 by a man and a woman, the official said. New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said the people had been interviewed by police but he didn't say whether they were linked to the crime.

The official said the people are Queens residents and aren't considered suspects. According to the official, the Lincoln was taken to a police facility so it could be searched.

Mr. Woodard was visiting New York from Los Angeles. Police officials said he was likely lured to the murder scene as part of what authorities have said appears to be an orchestrated "hit."

But his presence in New York—and why he was targeted—remained a mystery.

Speaking at a news conference on a separate matter, Mr. Kelly said it was unclear why the victim had traveled to the city. He said Mr. Woodard arrived at about 5 p.m. on Sunday and checked into a Midtown hotel more than an hour later.

In the evening, he watched a football game with a female friend and then went to dinner at a nearby restaurant, Mr. Kelly said. The woman didn't spend the night with Mr. Woodward, he said.

Moments before the shooting, Mr. Woodard checked out of the hotel and left his luggage with a valet, saying he would return, Mr. Kelly said.

Mr. Kelly said police are examining the contents of three cellphones Mr. Woodard had with him on the trip. Detectives were obtaining court orders to search a phone found in his bag and two others he was carrying when he was killed.

A second law-enforcement official said investigators found some "circumstantial evidence that suggests his involvement in drugs as well as his involvement in the entertainment/booking industries and those avenues are still being explored."

NYPD detectives who were dispatched to Los Angeles to work on the case obtained search warrants to look for possible evidence in Mr. Woodard's home there, the official said.

In video surveillance of the violent episode, Mr. Woodard is seen checking his phone repeatedly in the moments before a heavyset man wearing a black hooded sweatshirt walks up behind him and shoots him a single time in the head.

"On the film, he appears he was looking at his phone so obviously we're very much interested in what information was on the phone at that time," the police commissioner said.

Investigators have since matched ballistic evidence from Monday's incident to a 9mm semiautomatic used to fire 12 shots in a home in St. Albans, Queens, in November 2009. No one was injured in that shooting.

Mr. Woodard, who had several arrests since 2004 for charges including a hit and run, obstructing justice, theft, driving under the influence of alcohol and other drug counts, graduated with a business degree from Loyola Marymount University and attended one year of Whittier Law School from fall 2010 through spring 2011.

—Sean Gardiner contributed to this article.

Write to Tamer El-Ghobashy at