SOME MORE DETAILS ON THE MAN WHO DROVE THE GET AWAY CAR IN WOODARD MURDER CASE

The scheme involved pounds of cocaine shipped via United Parcel Service from dealers in Los Angeles to traffickers in Queens, and cash payments, arranged for by a California middleman on the streets of New York, ferried back.

It worked well until December 2012, the authorities said, when the middleman, Brandon L. Woodard, informed his New York associates that they owed $161,000. He flew to New York to collect the money.

A day after arriving, as he walked down 58th Street near Seventh Avenue, eyes glued to his cellphone, Mr. Woodard, 31, was approached from behind by a gunman, who fired one shot into the back of his neck, killing him.

The details of the cross-country cocaine conspiracy that led to an afternoon killing whose brazenness drew national attention were revealed on Wednesday in an indictment against a Queens man, Lloyd T. McKenzie, said to be the driver of the killer’s getaway car, and five others in Los Angeles and New York.

But the central mystery of the case remained unresolved: The killer, seen on surveillance video waiting for half an hour before calmly drawing a silver pistol and opening fire, has yet to be charged or even identified by officials. His name does not appear in the indictment.

Still, the arrest on Tuesday of Mr. McKenzie, 37, was a significant breakthrough in a case that had frustrated investigators for more than three years. Early on, detectives came to believe that Mr. Woodard, a Los Angeles law school student and club promoter from a well-off family who had numerous arrests, including for drugs, had been killed because of his role in a narcotics trafficking conspiracy. Piecing together his movements and his cellphone communications, investigators found what they believed was evidence that Mr. Woodard gained an entree with cocaine dealers in New York and began acting as a middleman.

But detectives struggled to gather enough evidence to prove the case against the men they suspected of being behind the crime, even as they had an early lead in Mr. McKenzie: “forensic evidence” gathered inside the getaway car, said Stephen Davis, the top spokesman for the New York Police Department.

The indictment against Mr. McKenzie lists five other men as part of the drug conspiracy; none of them have been arrested.

Mr. McKenzie was arraigned on Wednesday in front of Justice Edward J. McLaughlin of State Supreme Court in Manhattan on charges including second-degree murder, conspiracy, operating as a major drug trafficker and criminal possession of a weapon. He pleaded not guilty and was held without bail.

His lawyer, Jason L. Russo, said his client had nothing to do with Mr. Woodard’s death and was not involved in the alleged drug ring. “This entire indictment in this case is built on hearsay and speculation,” Mr. Russo said.

He added that the Manhattan district attorney’s office had questioned Mr. McKenzie three years ago because a friend of his had rented the car used to carry out the killing. But he said the surveillance footage made public at the time did not show Mr. McKenzie in the getaway car.

“Since that time I don’t believe they have developed any solid evidence that links him to these crimes,” Mr. Russo said.

Mr. Woodard’s mother, Sandra Wellington, said in a phone interview from Los Angeles that she had been informed by text message from a New York detective of the arrest of Mr. McKenzie on Tuesday but not that her son “was mixed up in anything.” Still, she said, she was looking forward to the conclusion of the case.

“The truth always comes out,” she said. “And the truth is the light.”

The indictment describes a drug-dealing conspiracy that transported at least 11 kilograms of cocaine from dealers in the Woodland Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles to various locations in Queens, from August to December 2012.

The scheme involved two groups. One, in California, included a father and son, an employee at an insurance company and a cocaine supplier. That group shipped cocaine in U.P.S. packages, according to the indictment. In New York, Mr. McKenzie and another man received the packages and transported them to addresses in St. Albans, Ozone Park and Jamaica in Queens, according to the indictment.

Communicating with text messages, Mr. McKenzie placed orders for the drugs with members of the California ring, who used the Blue Shield of California insurance company in Woodland Hills as a front to ship the packages via U.P.S.

Mr. Woodard traveled back and forth by air from Los Angeles to New York, stayed in Manhattan hotels and collected cash payments for the drugs that had already been shipped, the indictment said.

The scheme fell apart when Mr. McKenzie apparently fell behind in payments in late November, according to the indictment. Then, on Dec. 8, 2012, Mr. Woodard informed Mr. McKenzie, through a messenger, that he owed money for five kilograms of cocaine that had already been delivered. The next day, Mr. Woodard flew to New York and checked into the Thompson Hotel at 6 Columbus Circle, the indictment said.

A day later, Mr. McKenzie used an intermediary to arrange a meeting with Mr. Woodard near a piano store on West 58th Street, the indictment said; Mr. McKenzie drove a rented Lincoln sedan to the spot. In the passenger seat was a gunman with a 9-millimeter pistol, the papers said.

The gunman got out of the car near 202 West 58th Street and fatally shot Mr. Woodard in the neck, the indictment said. Then the gunman walked back to the Lincoln. Surveillance video showed the car slowly pulling into traffic and driving away.