Trial (June 16, 2026)

On June 16, 2026, at the start of Wocky Kitaki's trial, Apollo Justice observed that Phoenix Wright wasn't in attendance. Trucy Wright said it was because his foot injury was still nagging him but everything would be fine as long as she was there. Wocky approached his attorney and nonchalantly restated he was willing to take the blame for the crime but once again his father Winfred called out his foolishness. As the trial began, the judge asked Prosecutor Klavier Gavin if the demons of his affair seven years ago had led to his long absence from the courtroom, to which Gavin simply replied that he was busy with his band but was now back in order to face down the one who had bested his brother. Gavin then opened by laying out the scene of the crime and the facts as they stood. Unusually, Gavin went on to say his first witness would be the defendant himself, who would testify on his motive for killing the doctor, seemingly ending the trial before it ever really began.

Wocky Kitaki took the stand and testified that he had targeted the doctor due to a botched operation six months previously. He was out for revenge after having to go to another physician to receive treatment that Pal Meraktis should have been able to handle himself. When pressed for the reason he had to visit Meraktis, Wocky said it was for a gunshot wound he had sustained during a turf war with the Rivales crime family. The bullet had come close to hitting his heart, but Meraktis had apparently done nothing about it, which Wocky believed meant he was covering up his inability to help him.

Gavin presented a recent check-up report to the court, confirming that Meraktis had knowledge of Wocky's injuries and was trying to bury them, thus reaffirming that the defendant would have had a motive. He then called his witness to the crime, Wesley Stickler, an Ivy University Department of Science and Engineering junior. Stickler testified that he was on his way back from shopping when he encountered the standoff in People Park. He said he saw the defendant holding a pistol which he used to shoot the victim in the forehead. Justice objected to this account by referencing the autopsy report, which stated that the victim had died from a gunshot to the right temple. However, Gavin responded by saying that it was probable Stickler called out to the two men during the engagement, which caused the victim to turn his head in the direction of the voice and thus exposed his temple, to which Stickler confirmed. Stickler submitted a revised testimony that took into account those details, saying the suspect had fled the scene right after the gunshot.

However, Justice argued that the pistol had no fingerprints on it, which meant that had the killer dropped the weapon and ran, there would have been no time to clean the gun. Gavin and Stickler both tried to debate the point, but Justice confirmed his claim by presenting the knife found at the scene, which did bear the suspect's fingerprints and thus proved that his hands were exposed despite the gun having no prints. Stickler was ordered to offer new testimony about the moments after the shooting. He testified that since he could neither stop the killer nor leave the scene in good conscience, he chose to use his cell to call the police, and that while he waited for them to arrive, he saw no one.

After pressing all of his statements (an intense look in Trucy's eyes as he did so), Justice was forced to conclude that Stickler never stated a contradiction to the evidence. Just then, a man in a top hat ambushed Trucy and took her hostage at knifepoint. He demanded a twenty minute recess. As he vanished, Trucy could be heard telling Justice to meet her in the defendant lobby. Left without a choice, the judge permitted the recess.

As Justice returned to the lobby, he found Trucy alive and well. But the "assailant" he saw wasn't there -- in fact, this assailant was not even human. In reality, this masked "man" was none other than "The Amazing Mr. Hat", an elaborate wooden playdoll that Trucy somehow kept inside her body. She adjusted Mr. Hat to make it appear that an unidentifiable man was holding her at knifepoint. Trucy then explained to Justice that Stickler had an odd habit of fiddling with his book.

As court resumed (with everyone but Justice left in the dark as to what the kidnapping scene was about), Justice re-examined Stickler's testimony. He found that Stickler, as Trucy told him earlier, tended to fiddle with his book at certain times. During the bit of his testimony where he said he "used his cell phone", Justice perceived this habit and called it out. Presenting the broken mirror in the process, Justice got Stickler to confirm the pink cell phone he possessed -- the one he had found in the garage -- was Stickler's, and that Stickler had used a public pay phone alternatively.

Then, as Justice cross-examined Stickler's final testimony, where he acknowledged using a public payphone since he "accidentally" lost his phone -- he noticed that Stickler claimed to have seen a sign with the word NOODLE on it; but that wouldn't be possible from the angle that Stickler had allegedly seen the scene from. Rather, Stickler would have seen the word ELDOON if he had been on that side; since he saw the word NOODLE, he must have been on the reverse side. However, this opened up a huge contradiction; if Stickler had seen the crime from that angle, and the victim had turned his head to look towards him as claimed, why had he been shot in the right temple and not the left?

Then, Trucy pointed out that considering the movements of Stickler, he was the one who had stolen the panties. Trucy had chased Stickler and he had hidden in the Meraktis clinic garage. That was where he had dropped his phone and stuffed away the panties into the car's pipe. Stickler eventually confessed to this; he claimed that as a Wonder Bar regular, he had become profoundly fascinated with how Trucy's panties pulled off unbelievable tricks (citing how once, Trucy pulled a full-sized tire out of them). As a highly intelligent student, he was determined to find the panties and analyze them himself, apparently to such a degree that he was willing to resort to a serious crime. The first day of the trial ended with no verdict; as Stickler was sent to the detention center, the judge ordered both sides to further investigate the scene and hopefully solve the contradictions of the case.