A Jewish man from Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, was brutally murdered by a passenger apparently attempting to flee an outstanding murder warrant on him. Gary Levin, 74, a lifelong Philadelphia resident who moved to Florida several years ago, vanished last Monday after completing a Lyft run in the Sunshine State.

Howard Rice, a 50-plus year friend of Levin, said that he spoke to Gary just before his disappearance.

“He had tried to call me a couple of times, but it was a couple of hours later” before he could call him back, Rice said.

Call logs show Mr. Levin tried calling his friend three times between 3:41 p.m. and 3:48 p.m.

“The first thing I said to Gary was, ‘What took you so long to call me back? He said, I have someone in the car, driving to Okeechobee,'” Rice said, adding that the 10-minute conversation that followed raised no red flags for him.

“I thought about it long and hard, and I didn’t see any difference between a normal phone call that we would have,” he says.

“As we were getting ready to hang up, one of the things Gary did all the time, he would say. ‘I love you, Howard,’ and he would not get off the phone until I said, I love you too, and he did that.”

Police found Levin’s 2022 Kia Stinger in North Carolina, and the man driving it – 35-year-old Mathew Scott Flores – was taken into custody after leading police on a chase through several counties. Flores was already wanted by police for an unrelated January 24 murder in Florida.

Mr. Levin’s remains were found in Florida’s Okeechobee County on Saturday morning near the spot where Lyft records state he dropped off his last passenger.

“The sadness and the frustration in this is all so much for my family and I. I appreciate all the reach out and positive prayers. Since this case is being looked at by so many people at this point I have to have faith in our legal system and the people working on it. I have to believe they are doing everything possible to bring home a father, grandfather, brother, friend, uncle and cousin to his loved ones,” Levin’s daughter wrote in a family statement.