- Levin’s last known Lyft ride ended in Okeechobee on that Monday afternoon.
The car of a missing Lyft driver was found hundreds of miles away, with a suspect that’s wanted for murder in Central Florida, according to the family.
Wauchula Police Department sent a team of investigators to North Carolina after Matthew Flores, 35, was taken into custody. The car of Gary Levin Lyft driver, 74, of Palm Beach Gardens was found in Rutherford.
Levin had been missing for four days at the time.
U.S. Marshals were involved in capturing Flores, after a nearly 50-mile police chase which ended on foot and with Flores apprehended.
His charges include second-degree murder and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. The current murder charge is in connection with a separate case in Hardee County.
An update from yesterday, February 6th 2023, reveals that police are trying to determine how fugitive Flores came into contact with Levin in the first place. Lyft says that Flores did not request a ride on the Lyft platform.
Levin’s last known Lyft ride ended in Okeechobee on that Monday afternoon.
His phone has been dead since just after and no one has heard from him since. Flores, who three days later was arrested, is from Arcadia, just 60 minutes west of Okeechobee.
The police are wondering if Flores, who was on the run from Wauchula police for the separate murder charge, tried to get a lift from Levin’s Lyft.
Lyft has no record of a ride request but Flores could have approached Levin after he dropped off his Okeechobee fare. Police are looking into all angles.
They theorize it could be a carjacking, if Levin had dropped off his last customer near the Bravo supermarket. They also keep in mind it could have been that someone else requested a Lyft and that because Levin was already in Okeechobee, Flores could have climbed into his car.
John Eason says they are interviewing Flores’ friends and family again this coming Monday to find out.
“Finding anybody that helped, aided and assisted Mr. Flores since the 24th, we’re going to do everything we can to bring charges against them as well, and make sure that they’re prosecuted to the fullest extent as well as we can,” Eason said.
Flores has a girlfriend that has been ruled out with any kind of connection to the incident, as she was in jail at the time. Though, she was arrested for helping Flores run from the January murder charge, so good thing they checked.
Flores is refusing to speak to the detectives that went to North Carolina about the Lyft driver. He’s being held on evading police and violation of probation charges, according to Eason.
Eason also said Palm Beach Gardens Police somehow connected Flores to Levin before Flores was arrested in North Carolina. No calls to Palm Beach Gardens have been returned to police.
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