The NYPD yesterday released a dramatic series of surveillance photos that show a killer about to gun down his unsuspecting target on a busy Midtown street.

Brandon Lincoln Woodard, 31, had just checked out of the swank 6 Columbus hotel near Columbus Circle when he was followed by the assassin on West 58th Street and killed near Seventh Avenue Monday afternoon.

The assassin escaped in a getaway car. Cops early this morning were questioning the couple who rented the car, The Post has learned, although investigators don't believe they were driving it — but they are looking at the possibility they may have loaned it to someone who then used it in the crime.

Earlier on that fateful day, the law student appeared nervous as he had what turned out to be his final breakfast, at the La Parisienne diner.

“He ate breakfast at the counter but he was always looking over his shoulder,” said cashier Dimitrios Drimalitis, 61. “He looked scared and afraid of something.”

1. A silver Lincoln MKX sedan pulls up along West 58th Street and parks in an open spot near Seventh Avenue. Wearing a black hooded sweatshirt, the hit man (circled) exits through the passenger door, looks around and paces back and forth next to the sedan. He's 20 minutes early and his victim, Brandon Woodward, 31, is still checking out of the swanky 6 Columbus hotel.

2. The killer pulls his sweat-shirt hood over his head. At about 1:15 p.m., Woodward walks east on the north side of West 58th Street and crosses Broadway. He checks his smartphone, as if looking for directions, and passes right next to his assassin, who is waiting for an opportunity to strike.

3. Woodward turns around and walks west. He glances over his shoulder at the hooded man but seems not to recognize the killer and keeps going. The assassin approaches from behind, pulls a gun and blasts Woodward at close range with a single 9mm shot to the head. The 31-year-old father crumples to the ground. The shooter enters the Lincoln sedan and is whisked away by his getaway driver.

Woodard returned to his hotel and then left at 1:15 p.m., possibly lured away by the killer and drawn into a trap, said Police Commissioner Ray Kelly.

“It’s certainly a distinct possibility,” Kelly said. “We are looking into that.”

Cops said Woodard was killed with a weapon that ballistics determined was also used in a 2009 shooting in which two men riddled a St. Albans, Queens, house with bullets. No one was hit.

“They never found out who did it’’ or why, said Eshe Warner, 24, whose late grandmother, Iris Warner, owned the home at the time.

“They just shot at the house — no one ever came in.’’

NYPD detectives went to Woodard’s hometown of Los Angeles yesterday as cops zeroed in on drugs as a possible motive.

“Because of his extensive criminal record, we’re looking into the possibility it was drug-related,’’ a police source said of the shooting. “We’re also looking into his ties to the entertainment industry. He ran a small promoting business, and the address comes back to his home. We’re looking to see who his clients were.”

A search of Woodard’s hotel room yesterday came up empty, a source said. After checking out of the hotel, the victim left his duffel bag at the front desk. He was supposed to return for it.

Police were examining the cellphone Woodard was using, apparently texting, just as he was shot.

Woodard arrived alone in New York on Sunday with a one-way airline ticket. He had dinner that night with a female pal he met six months ago in LA, she told cops.

Woodard, the father of a 5-year-old girl, last spoke to relatives Sunday, when he called his mother to say he’d be back in LA the next day.

“I’m hurt right now,” said the victim’s stepfather, Rod Wellington, speaking on behalf of the mother, who was too shaken to talk. “This is devastating.”

Woodard was one day away from a law-school semester final at the University of West Los Angeles, where he was a second-year student. He had a bachelor’s in business from Loyola Marymount University in LA.

Woodard was a hard-partying club promoter who often entertained at all hours of the night, said neighbors. He was frequently the subject of noise complaints over blaring hip-hop music.

He was charged with cocaine possession in California in June and had 20 prior arrests, for drugs, robbery, petit theft and leaving the scene of an accident.

Woodard pleaded not guilty on the coke rap, and was scheduled to be back in court next month.

In 2009, he was sentenced to three years’ probation after pleading no contest to a misdemeanor charge of hit-and-run driving in Torrance, in Los Angeles County.

In 2008, he stole items from two upscale markets in Beverly Hills and was slapped with a nine-day jail sentence and 200 hours of community service on two misdemeanor charges of grand theft.

Woodard also once claimed he was roughed up by bodyguards working for R&B superstar Usher.

His family said he had not had a formal job since starting law school — although he worked with his mother, Sandra McBeth-Reynolds, at her mortgage firm.

The firm, LA-based United International Mortgage, has been targeted by lawsuits for alleged fraud, breach of contract and collections.

“The number of people they burned, and people who lost their homes, is huge — their enemies list is huge,” Tonya Pinkins, a Tony Award-winning Broadway actress, told the Hollywood Web site showbiz411.com.

Pinkins — a former actress on the TV soap “All My Children,’’ who is the ex-partner of McBeth-Reynolds’ current husband, Wellington, said “she would sell properties to Brandon and then he would default on them.’’

Additional reporting by Frank Rosario, Jamie Schram, Pedro Oliveira Jr, Helen Kumari, Jennifer Bain and Genevieve Wong

kirstan.conley@nypost.com