Troy Wagner

## Related Wikis

**Troy Wagner** is the main antagonist in the James Patterson book *Confessions: The Private School Murders*, the second book in Patterson's *Confessions* teenage mystery series. Wagner is a bar owner with two shorter fingers as a distinctive feature about him, as well as the murderer of Matthew Angel's celebrity girlfriend Tamara Gee and their unborn son Trevor.

## History

Wagner had Tamara as a frequent patron, hearing about how she was unhappy with the relationship and ready to cut her losses and run when she couldn't keep a comfortable, esteemed lifestyle with Matthew, even with their baby on the way. Wagner planned to kill her out of having more admiration for Matthew, a New York Giants legend, and believing Tamara was ruining his life. Wagner snuck into the couple's shared apartment while they slept, crept into their bedroom armed with rubber gloves and a kitchen knife, and violently stabbed Tamara several times in her sleep. The couple's fetus son Trevor was also killed from the violence. Wagner snuck back out the dumbwaiter and threw all his materials in a dumpster. He had to take off his gloves to get a steady grip to climb back inside, leaving his bloody handprint with his ring and pinkie fingers leaving a distinctive shorter length in the bloody smudge.

Matthew woke up to Tamara dad next to him, washed his clothes of her blood, and fled to his family's apartment. Detectives eventually tracked and arrested him there, keeping him in jail for months in preparation for the trial. His sister Tandy knew better and worked to prove Matthew's innocence by going through the leads and hearing witness testimonies during the trial. Wagner testified while habitually teepeeing his hands, showing off his shorter two fingers. He hinted at Tamara stating her relationship problems, but he worded it as if in passing from his perspective instead of his motive, then got up and blamed Matthew right from the stand by pretending to regret he didn't speak before Tamara was dead.

When Tandy realized the dumbwaiter was how Wagner got in, she checked inside and immediately saw the bloody handprint. As she witnessed the ring and pinkie fingers were shorter, she immediately realized Wagner was responsible. She called the NYPD sergeant she came to be familiar with, Capricorn Capututo, and she brought him to the scene of the crimes. He called his team and superiors, then the prosecution's office. They arrested Wagner immediately, presented the evidence to the judge, and had Wagner's testimony admitted to the trial again. Wagner coldly gave a full confession on the stand, bitterly insulting Tamara and laying out his entire plan and execution. When he ended his testimony with hoping Matthew "appreciated" the murder while he was walking off, Matthew jumped up and tried to charge Wagner while screaming he held Wagner accountable for killing his girlfriend and unborn child. That was plenty to incite the entire courtroom, leading to the judge ordering the bailiffs to clear everyone out. Wagner was presumably tried, convicted, and incarcerated himself, with Matthew being released and returned home to his family.

## Personality

Wagner was an average class citizen without much notice by other people, especially as a bartender. He was a staunch fan of hard-working icons, presumably men in particular, and hated celebrities he felt had too much of a sense of entitlement, weren't god for anything, and took from others what they wouldn't work for, which presumably implied Wagner's misogyny since he found Tamara the problem in her relationship with Matthew. Wagner was bitter over the idea of lost legacies and eager for doing a part in making history without too much attention for it. He was angry, calculating, hoping for achievement by force, stealthy to keep from getting caught, and meticulous from a refusal to have nothing go out of place. however, Wagner was also contradictory to his own standards, as he thought he "saved" Matthew by killing Tamara and Trevor, yet he still didn't come forward and even blamed Matthew when testifying at Matthew's trial. Wagner finally showed his true colors when confessing and hoping Matthew was glad to be exonerated because Wagner made it happen, giving him a sense of power and superiority. But at the end of it all, Wagner consigned just to getting caught and facing penalties at the end of him escaping punishment for his crimes which was obviously more important to him than Matthew's life after the fact.