Yanni Yogi

"Old man"

- Ayup......*Zzzzz*

Yanni Yogi was a court bailiff and the prime suspect in the DL-6 Incident. He appeared as a senile witness in the murder of his old defense attorney, Robert Hammond.

The incident

 * Main article: DL-6 Incident

In 2001, Yanni Yogi accompanied Gregory Edgeworth and his son Miles into an elevator to leave the courthouse. Suddenly, an earthquake struck, shutting off the power and leaving the three stranded in the elevator for five hours. During this time, Yogi began to panic and attacked Gregory. Miles tried to stop them by throwing Yogi's gun. There was a single gunshot and a scream, and all three of the passengers fell unconscious. When Yogi woke up, Gregory Edgeworth was dead and he was the top suspect in the murder. However, due to the lack of evidence against him, the police used a spirit medium by the name of Misty Fey to contact Gregory's spirit. Gregory also accused Yanni Yogi of the murder, so he was arrested and put on trial for the murder. During the trial, his lawyer Robert Hammond instructed him to plead temporary insanity to avoid conviction; Yogi did so and pretended to have brain damage, and he was declared not guilty.

Yogi's life, however, was ruined. His fiancée Polly Jenkins committed suicide; his career as a bailiff was wrecked, and his social standing was no more. He could never forgive Hammond or Miles Edgeworth for the incident. For the next 15 years, Yanni Yogi pretended to be a senile old man who ran a boat rental shop at Gourd Lake, with only a parrot he named Polly to keep him company.

Murder of Hammond

 * Main article: Turnabout Goodbyes

Sometime in December 2016, Yogi received an anonymous letter, written by veteran prosecutor Manfred von Karma, that contained detailed instructions for killing Hammond and then framing Miles Edgeworth for his murder. On Christmas Eve, Yogi first called Hammond and Edgeworth to his shack. Hammond got there first and was shot through the heart. Then, about 15 minutes after midnight, Yogi put on Hammond's coat to disguise himself as Hammond, and then he met with Edgeworth. They rode a boat to the middle of Gourd Lake. He made known his intentions for revenge and then shot the murder weapon twice; it would appear to any witnesses that Edgeworth had shot the victim. Yogi jumped backwards into the lake, leaving Edgeworth and the pistol on the boat. He then put the coat back on the victim's body, threw it into Gourd Lake, and called the police, telling them that Edgeworth had killed Hammond.

Witness
Edgeworth's attorney, Phoenix Wright, investigated the area around Gourd Lake and encountered Yogi in his shack. Yogi pretended to be senile as usual, not even giving Wright his name. However, while talking to the parrot Polly, Wright caused it to yell, "Don't forget DL-6!" This exposed Yogi's involvement in the incident to Wright.

During the second day of trial proceedings, Yogi was called to the stand. With Wright unable to get much headway with the witness, the judge declared Edgeworth guilty, but then Larry Butz burst into the courtroom and testified about what he had heard on the night of the murder. Through his testimony, Wright established the real place and time of death. However, Yogi escaped from the courtroom, suspending the proceedings for the next day.

Later that day, Wright returned to Yogi's shack. His assistant caused Polly to reveal the combination for a safe, "1228", which contained von Karma's letter. Wright later found the files from the DL-6 Incident and suspected that the old man was Yogi.

By the third and last day of the trial, Yogi had been apprehended and he took the stand again. He tried to explain his disappearance; Wright tried to prove his identity, but Yogi had burned his fingers to prevent exposure of his identity through his fingerprints, presumably years beforehand. In a bold and desperate move, Wright called the parrot to the stand. He told Polly to reveal the combination for the safe again and suggested that it was based on the date in which the DL-6 Incident occurred: December 28, 15 years earlier. Wright also suggested that Yogi had named his parrot after his deceased fiance, Polly Jenkins, which Yogi couldn't have done if he didn't remember his earlier years.

Yogi finally gave up at this point. His entire demeanor changed as he dropped his act and showed his mental faculties were not damaged. He confirmed his identity and the fact that he had committed the murder.

Personality
Little is known about Yogi's personality before the murder of Gregory Edgeworth. What is known is that he was the first to panic in the lift and attack Edgeworth as the air thinned to unbearable amounts. What can be assumed, however, is that his personality changed after the incident, as the loss of his job and his fiancée left him with a great deal of resentment and anger.

While under the guise of "Old Man", Yogi appeared senile and confused. He called Wright "Keith" and Maya Fey "Meg" and acted like he believed they were his children who had come back to him to inherit his "pasta shop". He also had the habit of falling asleep spontaneously. However, as soon as his true identity was revealed, Yogi lost all traces of his previous personality, immediately becoming lucid and calm. Even his posture changed from hunched-over to upright.

Name

 * His Japanese name, "Haine Koutarou" (灰根 高太郎), may come from a combination of the names of two poets: Kōtarō Takamura (a Japanese poet who is famous for his book of poems about his deceased wife Chieko) and Heinrich Heine (a German poet).


 * Yanni Yogi could be a reference to the character of Yami Yugi from the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise, who also has two different personalities.


 * Before his true identity is revealed, he is identified as "Uncle". In Japan, the equivalent title ("oji-san") is commonly used to address elders.