Who is the killer in Knives Out: Wake Up Dead Man?

The big question driving Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery is finally answered in Rian Johnson’s third Benoit Blanc case for Netflix, led again by Daniel Craig. The new film drops Blanc into a rural upstate New York parish, where a Good Friday killing happens in a way that seems to break basic logic. Spoiler-free version is simple: it’s a locked-room church murder with a priest as the obvious fall guy, and the solution hinges on a tiny timing gap and a staged “miracle.”

Spoilers start now. In Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, the person who physically kills Monsignor Jefferson Wicks is Dr. Nat Sharp, but the plan is built by Martha Delacroix, with Samson Holt pulled in to help execute the “resurrection” play that follows.

Who killed Monsignor Jefferson Wicks in Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery? The killer explained

In Wake Up Dead Man, knives out finally points to Dr. Nat Sharp as the hands-on killer, even though the movie spends a long time making Father Jud Duplenticy look like the only plausible suspect.

The murder happens at Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude during the Good Friday service, right after Wicks delivers a harsh sermon and steps into a sealed side chamber off the altar. Jud moves to the pulpit to continue the service, then checks on Wicks after a thud, and the case appears to trap him inside a narrow window where nobody else could have gotten in or out.

The trick is that the “first death” is staged to make Jud believe Wicks is already dead before the real stabbing happens. Nat’s setup uses two linked ideas: Wicks’ hidden flask, and a devil-head bar ornament connected to a local spot called Il Diavolo.

Jud’s earlier actions matter because he swipes a devil-head piece from the bar and later tosses it through the church window during a heated moment, which creates a clean, trackable prop that seems one-of-a-kind. Blanc’s breakthrough comes when he realizes there was a second matching devil-head, which means someone could build a duplicate effect without Jud knowing it.

Nat spikes Wicks’ secret flask with a tranquilizer so the monsignor is knocked out on schedule. Then he plants a blood-squib effect on Wicks and triggers it remotely, creating the appearance of a dramatic stabbing at the exact moment Jud is most likely to rush in.

Only after Nat enters as the helpful town doctor does the real killing happen. He switches the staged devil-head piece for the second matching devil-head weapon and stabs Wicks for real, leaving behind the “perfectly impossible” picture that frames Jud.

That is why the series has two answers that both matter. Nat does the stabbing, but Martha designs the larger conspiracy, chooses the timing, and uses the church’s internal politics to keep Jud in the crosshairs. By the time Blanc publicly identifies Nat as the murderer, the movie is already steering toward the bigger confession that explains why this crime needed a fake miracle attached to it at all. Father Jud Duplenticy said,

"Oprah".

How the “impossible” church murder was staged, and why Jud looked guilty?

Wake Up Dead Man, knives out keeps Jud as a believable suspect because the film gives him real friction with Wicks from the start. He is a boxer-turned-priest with a recent scandal, sent to the church as punishment after punching a deacon, and he immediately clashes with Wicks’s rigid authority and controlling style.

The church is also full of people with private incentives, which lets the investigation feel crowded without losing the main frame job: keep the town, and the police, staring at Jud while the real plan runs underneath.

The locked-room mechanics are simple but strict. Wicks enters the side chamber. A sound follows. Jud disappears from the congregation’s view just long enough for suspicion to stick, and the sealed space makes it hard to imagine another path in. Nat’s remote-triggered blood effect is what weaponizes that timing.

It creates a “done deal” moment, so Jud’s next choices look incriminating, including the instinct to protect the church’s reputation by hiding Wicks’ drug-laced flask rather than handing it to investigators. That single decision becomes the loose thread Blanc keeps pulling, because it is physical proof that Wicks was drugged and that the timeline was manipulated. Martha Delacroix said,

“It makes me sick, these kids putting rocket ships all over his sacred resting place!”

The ending explained: the confession, the real motive, and what the final scene means

Wake Up Dead Man becomes a motive story once the method is solved. After Blanc exposes Nat, the film pivots to why Martha needed Wicks dead and why a resurrection had to follow. The key is Eve’s Apple, a diamond fortune tied to the church’s founding family.

Martha is the only person trusted with the secret that Wicks’ grandfather, Prentice, hid the diamond inside his own body, which means the fortune can only be recovered by desecrating the crypt. Wicks is preparing to do exactly that, and he is also aligned with Cy Draven, who is revealed as Wicks’ illegitimate son and a looming inheritor of the power the diamond can buy.

Martha’s “miracle” plan is designed to restore faith and control the story. Samson is meant to pose as the resurrected Wicks emerging from the mausoleum, holding Eve’s Apple, while Nat stands by as the “witness” who makes it credible. The plan collapses because Jud shows up at the wrong moment, and because Nat decides he wants the diamond for himself. Nat knocks Jud out, kills Samson, takes Eve’s Apple, and leaves Jud set up to feel responsible when he wakes.

The final reveal lands in two stages. First, Blanc names Nat as the killer in the public unraveling. Then Martha’s confession explains the moral center of the case, including her guilt over what happened to Grace Wicks and the church’s buried cruelty.

The last stretch ends with Martha outplaying Nat at his home by switching the poisoned tea, forcing him into the acid disposal plan he helped prepare, and returning to confess while already dying herself. Jud and Blanc keep Eve’s Apple away from Cy, and Jud ultimately hides it inside a new crucifix, choosing containment over spectacle as the church moves forward. Benoit Blanc said, “impossible crime.”

Stay tuned for more updates.