Ace Attorney: Secrets beneath Secrets

Turnabout Below, Part 16

May 31

Courtroom No. 6

10:45 AM

Cotoli Morix

"Our knowledge of Marcus Moore begins roughly twelve years ago. There's a large break in between this and everything else that we've figured out as of late, but it's still a solid place to start. After all, it's what we assume to be the beginning of his long stream of crimes, and it's important to explain his origins before getting into what he did," I began. "He lived with his wife and son, but he disappeared soon after his sister-in-law was assassinated. He retreated into nothingness, but the timing of such was rather strange. As we discussed yesterday, he chose to wait until after the Emsthorpe crime ring had been fingered for the crime to disappear. He wasn't seen as 'Marcus Moore' ever again as far as I'm aware, though it is possible that someone could have come into contact with him."

"He started using aliases not long after he left his family behind. He hid his identity behind a false name to ensure that nobody knew who he was, though this didn't stop us from figuring out the truth," Victoria continued. "He didn't appear again to us until recently. He was gone for twelve years, though I get the feeling these twelve years were eventful. After all, he had to commit crimes for the Emsthorpe crime ring to get the money he needed to get by. It wasn't a matter of doing what he had to do to survive though, instead choosing to do this simply because he wanted to."

"What a nasty man," murmured Judge Frost. "I have to wonder how long he was planning on abandoning his family before he left them. He didn't seem to hesitate much, so if I had to guess, I would say it was a plan for quite a while."

"He's already gained something of a bad reputation, and that's just from this trial," Ghastly murmured. He looked over to Prosecutor Wood, who had been rather silent up to this point. He nudged the girl's arm to get her attention. "Are you thinking about him and what he did?"

"I guess I am... He's done a lot to hurt people, and I hate that I'm related to him," Prosecutor Wood murmured. "I know there isn't anything that I can do to change it, but I wish I could. At least he's gone now, which means he can't hurt anyone ever again. That's something I probably shouldn't be happy about, but I can't help it... I'll really need to thank the person who ended his life." She seemed to realize what she had said, and she flushed profusely. "U-Um... Well... I don't think I could possibly make that sound okay..."

"You don't need to worry about it. I think we all understand what you mean. After all, he's done a lot to hurt others, and being thankful for his death... I can't blame you for that, and I don't think anyone else will do that either. After all, we've already explained how much he's suspected to have done," Ghastly remarked, shrugging lightly. 

"We might not have an official number of the crimes he committed, but if he was working with the Emsthorpe crime ring all this time like we suspect, we can assume rather safely that it's a number well above one hundred. Granted, we still don't have any evidence, though I don't think anyone here is going to ask for it. After all, even if we don't know what he did in the past, we know for sure what he's done recently," I remarked. "Speaking of, we should get into explaining all of that. It's something that we should get started on sooner rather than later, because it's already going to be a doozy."

"Don't hold anything back then," Judge Frost said firmly, nodding to me with curiosity in his eyes. He waited patiently for me to speak, and when I looked over to Ghastly, I saw that he was doing the same. 

"First off, we need to go into the truth behind Denton Barr. Denton Barr committed a crime at a local college graduation ceremony, killing the teacher who was going to be responsible for setting up the graduation. He thought she was involved with the Oracle of the Law, though this turned out to be false. His reason for such was finding a bottle she had to be suspicious, though it turned out to be nothing, and it had nothing to do with Oracle. He made that mistake, and it unfortunately cost an innocent person their life," I explained.