| Courtney Sithe |
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- "Courtney" redirects here; you may be looking for "Justine Courtney", the judge in Gyakuten Kenji 2.
Doctor Courtney Sithe (née Stevens) was the newly-established head coroner of Scotland Yard. She worked at the forefront of forensic science with her daughter, Maria Gorey. She was a witness during Odie Asman's murder trial.
Part of a conspiracy[]
- Main article: The Professor Killings
Courtney Sithe, then known under the surname Stevens, was once the second assistant of Doctor John Wilson, along with exchange student Yujin Mikotoba. The two were present during the autopsy of Klint van Zieks, the supposed final victim of the infamous "Professor." When neither Mikotoba or Stevens were watching, Wilson supposedly found the ring of Genshin Asogi in the victim's stomach; in truth, this was a forgery to frame Asogi and protect the identity of the true Professor, Klint. Though Mikotoba had some reservations, the ring was used as decisive evidence to arrest Asogi.
However, Asogi had made a deal with Mael Stronghart in order to return to Japan: by pleading guilty, he would be falsely declared executed, and later dug up. Stronghart enlisted Stevens's help for this. On the night of Asogi's "execution", she forged an autopsy report, claiming that Asogi had been executed at midnight. The student was then buried alive, and waited to be dug up.
However, that night, disaster struck: Rather than being dug up by Stronghart and exchange student Seishiro Jigoku, Asogi was instead found by student Enoch Drebber, who had been acting as a grave robber in order to pay his debts. In panic, Stronghart ordered Jigoku to end Asogi, and Drebber fled. The student would later speak of his encounter to multiple tabloids, and the legend that the feared "Professor" had risen from the grave swept through England for a short period, before eventually dying out. At large, it was deemed that Drebber had lied about the incident, and that it never happened.
However, one of the reporters for these tabloids, Odie Asman, discovered the truth: Drebber had indeed seen the Professor rise from his grave, alive and well. Asman realized that for this to be true, then the Professor's execution must have been faked, which required the cooperation of the coroner involved in the case. Discovering that Stevens was the coroner for the Professor, Asman blackmailed Stevens under the threat of revealing the truth of the forged autopsy. These blackmails appeared in records as the odd and recurring purchases of 500 scalpels. In the subsequent years, Stevens's former mentor, John Wilson, would take a position as part of the secret "Reaper" organization, and forged the autopsies of its victims. When Mikotoba invited Wilson to Japan, Stevens would end up taking his place in this role, and assumed the role of head coroner. It was during this time that she seemingly married and adopted the Sithe surname. She also started to work with her daughter, Maria Gorey.
Getting her revenge[]
- Main article: The Return of the Great Departed Soul
Ten years later, Courtney Sithe was called to the crime scene for the teleportation device of Albert Harebrayne, who had been funded by Odie Asman, reporter-turned-investor. Upon discovering Asman's body, however, she found it was not a corpse, but rather a wax figure of the Professor. Furthermore, she discovered an anonymous note on the sculpture that ordered her to rearrange the crime scene in order to frame Harebrayne, under threat of revealing the truth of the Professor autopsy. Sithe easily complied, seeing it as her way to finally get back at Asman for the years of blackmail. While she ordered her trusted subordinates to arrange the scene, she secretly descended into the depths of the teleportation device. There, she found Asman, who had actually fallen through the device; the teleportation had all been a magic trick designed by Enoch Drebber in order to kill Asman for ruining his life. However, Drebber made a grave miscalculation: while Drebber's intent was to kill Asman through dropping him from a significant height, Asman managed to survive the fall. Left with no choice but to silence Asman and keep her ten year old secret, Sithe stabbed him with Harebrayne's screwdriver, killing him. This caused blood to drip vertically down his shirt.
The next day, Sithe discovered Ryunosuke Naruhodo and Susato Mikotoba rummaging through her office, and hurriedly forced them out. She later discovered them once more, along with Herlock Sholmes, Tobias Gregson, and Gina Lestrade, who had discovered the hiding place of Drebber ahead of her arrival. When she threatened Gregson and chastised Naruhodo, Gregson revealed that without them, Drebber's lab would have been blown to bits by his time bomb. However, Drebber revealed they had only deactivated one of his time bombs; the other was located in the teleportation machine, and destroyed all traces of it, removing Drebber's "magic trick" from the world.
The following trial, Naruhodo was able to deduce that only someone working with the crime scene would have been able to manipulate it, and pinpointed Sithe. However, due to her high ranking position, he was unable to call her to the witness stand due to insufficient evidence. It was only after Naruhodo found a connection between Drebber and Sithe through the Professor that the doctor was able to be summoned. Sithe at first pleaded that she had nothing to do with the crime. However, as Naruhodo revealed more details and pushed Drebber into a corner, Sithe pleaded guilty: she admitted that she was indeed Drebber's accomplice, and declared that she would take any punishment that was given to her. This confession was enough to remove all doubt that Harebrayne was innocent, securing him his innocence.
However, this confession made Naruhodo suspicious: while the confession was enough to prove that his client was innocent, there were parts of the confession that did not match up with the details of the case. Although Naruhodo could have stopped the trial, as his goal to get his client acquitted had been achieved, he chose to pursue the truth further. WIth the help of Barok van Zieks, Naruhodo stopped the trial from prematurely ending, and was able to push for more testimony from Sithe. Sithe testified that she had falsified Asman's stab wound by stabbing his corpse, which Naruhodo used to uncover the truth that Sithe had almost successfully covered up. Naruhodo argued that if what Sithe said was true, it would have been impossible for Asman's stab wound to have formed a vertical bloodstain. A vertical bloodstain could have only been formed if Asman was in an upright position, and thus alive. With this inconsistency pointed out, Naruhodo unveiled the truth that Sithe had been more than just Drebber's accomplice. She had actually been Asman's true killer, and turned what had ended in an attempted murder into a successful one. Defeated, Sithe slammed her fist on the witness stand, while telling those present that they had no idea what it was like protecting the Professor case all those years. She, along with Drebber, were arrested and sent to prison. Likely as a result of her sensitive knowledge of the Professor incident, Sithe was forbidden from having visitors. This ban was later lifted after the entire truth of the Professor case surfaced.
During the credits, Maria Gorey visits Sithe, admitting she is glad her mother is still alive, despite everything.
Name[]
- Courtney possibly comes from "coroner", relating to her profession.
- Sithe comes from the verb shisu (死す), "to die".
- Her name is one of only two British names not originating in Sherlock Holmes canon to remain completely unchanged in localization, the other being Barok van Zieks.