Princess Tengu was the founder and leader of the Great Tengu Society cult. She appeared as a witness in Russi Clover's trial for the murder of Casper Sly.
The "Great" Tengu Society[]
In reality, Princess Tengu was a fraud who founded the Society for the sole purpose of funding her extravagant lifestyle and deceived her followers into believing that the "Great Lord Tengu" existed. However, private detective Casper Sly managed to collect evidence against her during his investigation into the cult, which he planned to use to expose the truth to the press.
Cornered by Sly's evidence and fearing arrest, Princess Tengu bludgeoned the detective to death in her bed chamber within the Society's headquarters, and set up an elaborate trick with fishing wire inside the elevator to make it appear that he was still alive after leaving her room by appearing alongside a seemingly alive Sly at the meditation hall. Though her plan ran into a minor set back when Power Tengu tried to enter the elevator (which would expose that Sly's corpse was suspended from a wire due to the elevator's weight limit, as it already had the Great Lord Tengu's statue and herself within), she successfully deceived her followers, as well as Phoenix Wright and Maya Fey, who had arrived at the Society to search for the missing Russi Clover at the behest of the girl's parents.
Princess Tengu then sent the elevator to the first floor to make it appear that Sly had disappeared and cause everyone to search for him, when the detective's corpse was actually hidden inside the elevator shaft. She then pretended to discover his body along with everyone else in her chamber after summoning the elevator and sent them to call for a doctor, using that time to remove and dispose of the fishing wire. As everyone in the building, including her, had an alibi during the time of Sly's disappearance, suspicion fell on Clover who was handling the reception on the first floor, resulting in the girl being arrested and put on the trial by Prosecutor Franziska von Karma.
A fraud exposed[]
Princess Tengu was eventually summoned by Wright, who took on Clover's defense, to be the final witness of the subsequent trial.
Despite initially putting on a front as a devout believer of the Great Lord Tengu and dismissing Clover's claim, Wright managed to determine that his client had witnessed Princess Tengu's attempt to test the trick she used on the day of murder, citing the fact that the buzzer signaling the elevator's weight limit didn't go off when Power Tengu entered it (despite it going off earlier that day when von Karma and Detective Dick Gumshoe entered the elevator) as the decisive evidence that Sly was already dead when he was witnessed riding the elevator along with her, thereby invalidating her alibi.
Finally cornered, Princess Tengu broke down and confessed to her crime, sarcastically claiming that Sly had to die for her to continue her façade and mocking her followers for being foolish enough to believe in a completely fictional deity. Princess Tengu was then put under arrest, leading to the Great Tengu Society being permanently disbanded.