After two men got out of an orange car on Lawrence Street three years ago and fatally shot Alvaro Vigueras Medina before driving off, Yonkers detectives made progress quick.

The driver, Jonathan Planas, dropped his cellphone on the street and didn’t pick it up, according to a prosecutor’s summary of the investigation in a court document. Surveillance video and license plate readers identified the car as belonging to Planas’ sister-in-law and tracked it to a parking lot on Ashburton Avenue where Planas rented a spot.

And when they searched Planas’ apartment four days later, hidden in a sock they found nine .40 caliber bullets that matched the seven shell casings recovered on Lawrence Street near where the driver’s side of the car had been.

Planas was indicted on charges including second-degree murder a year after the Oct. 10, 2020, killing and last week pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter after he was promised a sentence of no more than 23 years in state prison.

Authorities have not publicly revealed a motive in the case but they don’t believe the 20-year-old Medina was the intended target, as he and Planas were unknown to each other.

The investigation into the second occupant of the car is ongoing. Video of the shooting showed both men firing and a 9mm shell casing was discovered in the street where the passenger side of the car was, according to the court document.

Detectives faced an initial hiccup when the video showed an orange car while the car discovered under a tarp in the lot two days later was gray. But there was a piece of orangish acrylic attached to the car. A manager of the lot told police that some people had been working on the car in the lot the afternoon of Oct. 10, hours after the shooting, and they believe the orange car-wrap was removed at that time, according to the prosecutor’s summary.

The murder charge would have carried a sentence ranging from 15-years to life to 25-years to life but the manslaughter plea means Planas no longer faces up to life in prison. Westchester Judge George Fufidio left open the possibility that he could give Planas less than 23 years depending on what he learns from the pre-sentence report.

He scheduled sentencing for Feb. 22, 2024.

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Yonkers NY killing: Guilty plea for man who dropped phone at scene