Brooklyn Rapper Troy Ave Still Hasn't Been Charged With Murdering Edgar McPhatter, His Friend and Bodyguard. So Who Did It?

Pictured: Troy Ave. Photo via Instagram

BROOKLYN, NY — If you're still confused as to who shot who at the T.I. concert in Manhattan a month ago, you're not alone.

By the end of the night, 33-year-old Brooklyn anti-gun advocate Ronald "Edgar" McPhatter — Troy Ave's bodyguard, close friend and a fellow member of his B$B rap crew — had been declared dead. Three others were injured.

Troy Ave was arrested by the New York City Police Department (NYPD) the day after and charged with attempting to murder an unnamed individual.

He was notably not charged, however, with killing McPhatter.

The NYPD's initial charges stuck. At the rapper's first appearance in court this week, he was charged by the Manhattan District Attorney with one count of "an attempt to commit the crime of murder in the second degree," a felony, as well as four counts of "criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree," also felonies.

Troy Ave, who reportedly appeared in court Wednesday wheelchair-bound, with bullet wounds in both legs, pleaded "not guilty" to all charges.

DA and NYPD investigators have yet to specify who, exactly, they believe Troy Ave tried to kill that night.

Early on in the NYPD investigation into the T.I. concert shooting, police officials implied they'd caught the guy who killed McPhatter.

“We feel we’ll wrap [the case] up very quickly," NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton, the head of the police force, said in the shooting's immediate aftermath.

He blamed McPhatter's death on "the crazy world of the so-called rap artists who are basically thugs that basically celebrate the violence."

"Unfortunately that violence often times manifests itself during their performances," Bratton said, "and that’s exactly what happened last evening.”

You ain't even wanna come out lastnight bro. U kept saying u had some shit to do.
A photo posted by Young Lito (@younglitobsb) on May 26, 2016 at 3:41pm PDT

NYPD Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce said at a press conference shortly after: "We recovered three guns in a 2003 Chevrolet passenger van with a Virginia plate that was owned and registered by Roland Collins — aka, Troy Ave."

One of those guns was a Kel-Tec 9mm pistol, he said.

"This is the homicide weapon that killed Mr. McPhatter," the police chief said. "We still believe at this point there was one gun used during the entire operation that killed four people — I’m sorry, shot four people, killing one. We still have no other evidence that there was any other gun used."

One month later, though, Troy Ave hasn't been charged with McPhatter's murder — nor has anyone else.

"Going back to when this incident happened, I think it's important to understand that police got no one in that Green Room to make a statement," John Stella, one of Troy Ave's two attorneys, told Patch.

The prevalent theory on social media, Stella said, is that Tax Stone, a major internet personality and podcaster based in East New York, shot Troy — and perhaps killed McPhatter — that night. (Tax Stone, of course, has confessed to no such crime.)

But the NYPD has yet to make any more arrests, or even name any additional suspects in the case.

So the question remains: Who killed Ronald "Edgar" McPhatter?

After the concert shooting, McPhatter's family members, already devastated by his sudden death, were shocked to hear Troy Ave was a suspect.

His sister Jamie wrote on Facebook: "Video shows [Troy Ave] shooting. But I'm still in denial. Why would he kill my brother. His own bodyguard."

McPhatter's mom, Rose, echoed likewise threw shade at the rapper in an interview with the Daily News outside her apartment at Boerum Hill's Gowanus Houses.

“He actually cared a lot about Troy Ave," she said of her late son. "My wish is that Troy Ave cared as much about my son as he cared about him. I say that because I watched how my son would always bend over backwards to help him."

"If [Troy Ave] cared about my son as much as he alleged he does, I would've received a call from him," she said. "He didn't call me. He didn't call any of my other sons.”

And a full month later, Jamie said on Facebook that "Troy Ave, nor his family or BSB records have called or given my mother/family a penny towards my brothers burial or any miscellaneous cost."

(To help cover these costs, the family is now raising money for McPhatter's tombstone via GoFundMe. Click here to donate.)

Stella, Troy Ave's attorney, said that while Troy Ave has not communicated with the McPhatters directly, his family members have been in touch with theirs. The attorney said Troy Ave has tried to call Shanduke, the victim's big brother, from prison, but that Shanduke — who runs the Flatbush-based anti-gun group Gangstas Making Astronomical Community Changes — hasn't been picking up the phone.

In a phone call Wednesday afternoon with Patch, Shanduke's voice was soft and low. He sounded no less burdened with grief than the day after his brother died.

"We're surviving one day at a time," he said of himself and his family.

Asked for his thoughts on the NYPD investigation into his brother's death, and the charges against Troy Ave, Shanduke said: "I have no comment. I'm just sitting back and waiting to see what happens."

Troy Ave has certainly not stayed silent in the public sphere.

In a mixtape released June 6 and named Free Troy Ave, the rapper proclaimed his innocence in recorded phone calls from Rikers Island.

In another bombshell lyric, Troy Ave claims he grabbed the gun from a person who had tried to assassinate him at Irving Plaza that night. (Which, if true, would explain why NYPD detectives said they found the same pistol used to kill McPhatter in Troy Ave's car.)

Below, some of the most telling lines from the mixtape. (Full album here; complete lyrics here.)

On what went down in the Green Room that night:

P*ssy n*gga tried to assassinate me/ I took the gun from him and turned the tables 'round like a G

Find out what’s up when the sh*t goes down/ And you fighting for you life, not a homeboy around/ F*ck 'em if they frauds, I'm f*cking with the lord/ You never let me down, never ran out the door/ The fake help you appreciate the real more

On his innocence:

Soon as I get a bail I’m up out of here/ Then the world will know the truth/ Everybody know I’m innocent/ I know I’m good 'cause my faith been in god.

I’m innocent/ Unless you charging me with being real from the very beginning/ I’m innocent/ That’s a facto

On his late friend McPhatter, also known as "Banga":

RIP my real nigga B-A-N-G/ Couldn’t make your funeral but I heard that you was fleek/ Riding through the sky, know the luggage Louis V/ When we get to heaven’s doors save your boy a spare key

I lost my best friend/ And the sad part about it is I ain’t realize he was my best friend until I lost him/ And that sh*t hurt worse than these bullets from when I got shots

Then, later on in June, the rapper, represented by his family, unveiled a new, $2000 annual scholarship for student athletes graduating from New Utrecht High School in Bensonhurst, where Troy Ave and McPhatter played football together as kids.

"It was the biggest thing in their lives," Stella, Troy Ave's attorney, told Patch. "Even presently, they went to every game together."

We prob only got about 10 snapbacks left....‼️ next wave of shipments go out this week so order now before they're gone!
A photo posted by Troy Ave (@troyave) on Jun 22, 2016 at 5:18am PDT

Troy Ave remained behind bars Wednesday. However, his attorneys were in the process of working with the DA's Office to prepare a bail package they can all agree on.

By the end of the week, Troy Ave's attorneys were also expecting to receive additional surveillance footage from Irving Plaza, which they hope will show what happened in the moments leading up to the now-infamous moment Troy Ave stumbled into the Green Room with a gun.

Stella said he's confident that the defense will disprove "the series of moronic unnamed police sources who were talking [to the press] about how sure they were that Troy fired all the shots that came from the gun."

"There is no murder charge against him," Stella said. "And we don't believe there is ever going to be any evidence to show Troy intended to murder his best friend."