Richard Wellington |
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Richard Wellington |
I am Richard Wellington, the "Drifting Virtuoso" with a Ph.D. in Drifting, as it were. |
Richard Wellington, the sole witness of the murder of police officer Dustin Prince, was a self-proclaimed "Drifting Virtuoso" who was looking for the "right" university.
Murder of Prince[]
In reality, Richard Wellington was a small-time con artist involved with a ring of about 20 other crooks. If anyone got their hands on his cell phone, which contained not only the phone numbers, but also a number of messages from other members of his ring, it would have been all over for him.
One day, Wellington lost his cell phone and tried to call it. It was eventually answered by Maggey Byrde and Dustin Prince, who were going out on a date. He was promised his cell phone back, but when he got to the park, he found that the girl who picked up his phone was with a policeman. Fearing that Prince had already accessed his phone and discovered his secret, Wellington started to panic and attacked the officer by pushing him off a ledge to the beach below, breaking his neck and killing him in the process. During the struggle, however, Prince grabbed his assailant's glasses and took them with him as he fell.
Wellington spent a lot of time looking for his glasses to no avail. Not wanting to be put on trial for his crime, Wellington decided to frame Byrde for the murder and wrote the name "Maggie" in the sand with the victim's right hand, not knowing how to spell Byrde's name, or the fact the victim was left-handed. He also mistook his victim's birthday present, a yellow left-handed baseball glove, for a bunch of bananas. Byrde was put on trial for the murder.
At the witness stand[]
- Main article: The Lost Turnabout
Prosecutor Winston Payne set Wellington up as a witness for the murder. Meanwhile, Byrde showed Wellington's phone to her defense attorney, Phoenix Wright, who "lit up" at the key piece of evidence. Later, just before the trial, Wellington called his phone and found that it was in Wright's possession. Wellington hastily knocked Wright out with a fire extinguisher, giving him amnesia, and took the phone Wright was holding.
Despite his amnesia, Wright managed to expose these contradictions in a rudimentary testimony given by Detective Dick Gumshoe, and Wellington was subsequently put on the stand to testify as an eyewitness. The amnesiac lawyer found numerous holes in Wellington's testimony, with the con artist's stories gradually becoming flimsier until they completely fell apart, and Wellington was revealed as the real killer.
However, Byrde's innocence was not quite yet proven, as Wellington had wiped all the numbers on the phone in his possession and, in a last ditch attempt to protect himself, pointed out that unless he could demonstrate the ownership of the phone in his possession, it was impossible to prove he was the murderer. Unfortunately for him, Wright had his co-counsel Maya Fey call his own cell phone, which turned out to be the phone that the con artist had. Wellington had taken the wrong phone from the defense attorney; the phone still in Wright's possession was Wellington's.
Realizing that he had no escape, Wellington strangled himself by pulling the scarf around his neck until his face went blue and he passed out.
Personality[]
Phoenix Wright |
(And yet again, another flood of meaningless words... Talk about a first-class waste of time...) |
Wellington was an arrogant and egotistical man who was about as talkative as Wendy Oldbag. He would often make various allusions to historic figures and would compare himself and others to them. Before his appearance in court, Winston Payne warned the judge that Wellington had a tendency to say things that would "rub people the wrong way". His overreaction to Prince seems to indicate he was overly paranoid and had lost the ability to make rational judgments.
Wellington usually wore glasses with near-sighted lenses due to poor vision (he said that both his eyes were "20/200"[1]). At one point he claimed to be a star baseball pitcher in junior high, but then admitted that he was actually fourth in line. He preferred strawberries over bananas.
When agitated, Wellington had the habit of playing with his scarf; merely grabbing hold of it when angry or nervous, pulling on the ends and thereby choking himself a little when startled, and pulling so hard he turned blue and passed out when revealed as the killer.
His mobile phone ringtone was Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor. In contrast, he was not very impressed with Wright's The Steel Samurai: Warrior of Neo Olde Tokyo ringtone, calling it "stupid-sounding".
Appearance[]
Richard has black hair with a yellow fringe, gray eyes, and visible eyelashes. He wears a blue suit somewhat unbuttoned with a white pocket square, black cuffs, and white buttons. He wears a black shirt somewhat unbuttoned, black heeled shoes, and a white scarf. He did wear glasses with a blue frame which were around the same prescription as Maggey's until they broke when lost them.
Name[]
- Japanese - Takamasa Moroheiya (諸平野貴雅):
- "Moroheiya" (諸平野) is the Japanese name for the corchorus, a plant of the family Malvaceae.
- "Takamasa" (貴雅) is a stereotypical "rich kid" name in Japan.
- English - Richard Wellington:
- His full English name comes from the words "rich" and "well", to give a feeling of him being rich or well-off. "Wellington" itself could also be a reference to the aristocratic Duke of Wellington British title.
- Richard is often shortened to "Dick", tying into the character being an obnoxious blowhard.
- A "gumshoe" refers to a wellington boot, so Richard Wellington's name is a pretentious synonym for that of Dick Gumshoe, who testifies before him.
- His full English name comes from the words "rich" and "well", to give a feeling of him being rich or well-off. "Wellington" itself could also be a reference to the aristocratic Duke of Wellington British title.
Unofficial[]
- Brazilian Portuguese - Ricardo Maurício:
- "Ricardo" is a common name and means "strong or brave prince". Refers to how rich he is using the western adaptation, starting with "ric-" from "rico" (rich).
- "Maurício" is derived from Mauro and means "Moorish, dark-skinned"; makes reference to being "bad", precisely because he was the culprit in the case, and "mauricinho" (preppy), in connection with Ricardo.
Notes[]
- Richard Wellington is the only culprit from the first trial (i.e., the "tutorial") of an Ace Attorney game who is never seen or mentioned outside of the episode in which he appears. He shared this distinction with Frank Sahwit until the latter appeared in The Captive Turnabout. The reason this pattern was not repeated after Wellington is due to a trend starting with Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations of having the first episode of each game tie into an overarching plot.
- Owing to the fact that he only appears in trial gameplay segments, Richard Wellington is the sole culprit in Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Justice for All to lack Psyche-Locks.
- At the beginning of his breakdown sequence of sprites, his scarf disappears while he squeezes his face.
Development[]
- Wellington is shown in a suit similar in color to that of Miles Edgeworth for some images in The Art of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney.
References[]
- ↑ Phoenix: And that is why I asked you how bad your eyesight is!
Wellington: They're both 20/200. I suppose you're going to tell me that's terrible, right!?
Judge: Why are you not wearing your glasses today then?
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Justice for All. Capcom. Episode: The Lost Turnabout (NOTE: His eyesight is stated as being "20/25" in some versions). 2007.