I also made a topic on this at GFAQs but I didn't think posting it here would hurt as well.

Self-explanatory title but I'll explain it in more depth. Of all the murder scenarios in the series, which one do you think was the most well-thoughtout, crafted, incriminating (in terms of the defendant), and executed?

I'll wait a bit to see what opinions you all have. Remember, you can only choose ONE so think it through. You can rank others above each other if you want but you can only have ONE absolute "favorite", so to speak.

For those who don't remember each murder set-up, allow me to jog your memory:

In-Game Murders

1-1:
Sahwit murders Cindy and uses himself a witness to the time when Larry left Cindy's apartment to pin the crime on him. Of course, he didn't mean to kill her in the first place since he didn't expect her to be home so soon.

1-2:
Redd wire taps Mia's phone and plans a murder ahead of time to frame Maya. He writes Maya's name in blood disuising it as "Mia's effort to identify her killer in her last moments alive". He also shifts some of the blame to May and even puts Phoenix under pressure as the alleged 'murderer'.

1-3:
Hammer steals a costume to disguise himself as Will or The Steel Samurai to pin Vasquez's murder on him. Wendy is a witness to Hammer heading to "Studio 1". No one sees Will. Vasquez kills Hammer in Studio 2 and moves the body to Studio 1, the "murder scene".

1-4:
Manfred sends Yogi a letter to kill Hammond, disguise himself as him, create a witness, and fake his death by falling into the lake on purpose to frame Edgeworth for murder in order to exact revenge on Gregory.

1-5: Gant kills Goodman, gets in contact with Lana to stage a murder and take the fall for him, and sends Edgeworth out on a pointless task to unexpectedly deliver the body (and, supposedly frame Edgeworth for the murder as a fail-safe).

2-1: Wellington pushes Dustin off the park walkway. He attempts to frame Maggey by writing her name in the ground but mispells it. There's no proof that he did it but he did look for his phone that Dustin had, which is why he killed him. Wellington tracks his phone down to Phoenix, clobbers him over head with a fire extinguisher, and retrieves the wrong phone.

2-2:
Morgan and Mimi plot to frame Maya for the murder of Grey by staging a phony "spirit channeling". Mimi creeps up behind Maya, drugs her, then stabs Grey. Grey, still alive, fires a shot at Mim but misses and puts a hole in Maya's sleeve. Mimi then takes the gun and cuts the silver chord.

2-3:
Acro plots to kill Regina ahead of time but ends up killing the ring master and unintentionally framing Max. Through a series of coincidences thoroughly ridiculous events, Acro somehow winds up framing Max for the murder of Russel by clonking him over the head with a bust.

2-4:
Engarde hires DeKiller to murder Juan. Adrian gets in the way and almost unintentionally frames herself for murder, throwing some heat off of Engarde.

3-1:
Dahlia plans to kill Phoenix but murders Doug for the fear that she might be revealed. She plants Phoenix's bottle of Cold Killer X on Doug to further implicate him, though Phoenix nearly framed himself by pushing Doug into an electric cable pole.

3-2:
Atmey plans the murder of Kane days in advance. He sends Mask*DeMasque's calling card to Lordly Tailor to set up his heist, insists that he be alone at the crime scene, dumps Kane's blackmail letter in Ron's home, and snaps a photograph of himself disguised as Mask*DeMasque stealing the Kurain Urn from Lordly Tailor at the time specified in the blackmail letter to give himself an alibi. On October 11 at 1:00 am Atmey arrives at Lordly Tailor ahead of Ron, kills Kane, knocks Ron unconscious, and leaves no trace of his presence there. In addition, he also presses the alarm button on the wall to summon a security guard to Kane's office in hopes of framing Ron.

3-3:
Tigre slips poison into the cup of coffee Maggey served Glen to get the MC Bomber virus which will put him out of his debt with the Cadaverinis. With Maggey unconscious, Tigre, Viola, and Armstrong re-enact the entire murder scene to create a witness by the name of Victor Kudo. To make sure Maggey takes the blame, Tigre impersonates Phoenix and ends up dealing Maggey a "Guilty" verdict.

3-4:
Valerie calls out Dahlia and Terry saying that the truth must come out. Dahlia arrives ahead of time, murders Valerie, and disguises herself. She waits for Terry to arrive then dumps the body in the car trunk. She sets up a camera to photograph their meeting. Terry believes he arrived at the bridge first and that he met Valerie, not Dahlia. To top it off, Dahlia pressures Terry into committing suicide in court.

3-5: Godot murders Misty at the Inner Temple Courtyard and Iris plans to take the blame for it. A lightning strike impedes upon their plans by setting Dusky Bridge on fire. Godot calls out Iris and creates a pendulum to swing Misty's body underneath the burning bridge, which Larry sees upside down as a flying Iris. Iris takes the body to Hazakura Main Temple and stabs the already dead Misty with the Shichishito. Months prior to that date, Morgan and Dahlia plan ahead of time to kill Maya. Morgan leaves the letter at the Fey Manor, which Pearl finds and reads. Unbeknownst to Pearl that following these instructions will result in Maya's death, she willingly goes along with her mother's plan.

Personally, I think 3-2 had the best murder scheme. Everything had to be planned to perfection and Atmey had more than enough ample time to get everything ready. The fact that there was no evidence to implicate him saved him as well; or would have if he hadn't slipped up with his last testimony.

*NOTE: "Greatest" could refer to a number of synonyms but we'll just call it that for now.

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Last edited by Mr. Bear Jew on Sat Dec 01, 2007 11:30 pm, edited 10 times in total.

Hands down, 1.5.
Gant manipulates a murder scene just to have Lana manipulate another one on the thought that Ema was the real killer, making her his slave else the "truth" come free.

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I go with 3-4. There are a couple that were more elaborate, but most of that occurred on the spur of the moment to cover up, or went horribly wrong. Dahlia did quite a bit of planning to off her stepsister, then even managed to get Terry to commit suicide (which was apparently planned well in advance). And to top it all off, at least for the moment, she gets away with it.

I'd have to say 2-4, as hiring a professional is generally a good plan. (And, actually, if de Killer hadn't kidnapped Maya, but instead Engarde had just convinced Phoenix to take the case on it's merits, it might have worked -- Phoenix was pretty convinced of Adrian's guilt for a little while.)

Though, clearly, the best way to get away with murder in the PW world is to do it at the courthouse or the police station; Von Karma, Gant, and Dahlia both get away with their first murders, with what seems like very little investigation. Gant fails on his second try because he's being too cute -- he tries to have it happen in BOTH places.

Note for 2-2: I'm pretty sure that it was Mimi who "cut the silver cord".

I think that 3-2 had the best planned out murder, but that 2-4 ended up better with Adrian accidentally getting framed for it, even though that wasnt planned to happen.

I agree with 3-2 being the most thought out...pretty nifty idea to fake a robbery (and get yourself purposely caught) on the night of the murder to create an alibi.

But I think 1-5 is probably the greatest in my book...I think Gant would probably be one of the few murderers in the series to have gotten away with the crime, if he didn't pretty much bait himself into becoming a suspect.

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1-4, 1-5, 1-5, 3-2 and 3-5 were pretty damn clever.

2-1 Pure genius.

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I pick 2-4. Most of the murders in the series seem hmmm...far-fetched? Although I agree that at the end, things get explained and pieces fall back together, some cases are just too intricate and too creative to happen in real life To me, 2-4 (after reading the descriptions and going through everything again) sounds like the most "believable" one. There's not as much "funky" stuff going on - manipulating crime scenes, creating fake witnesses, etc. It might not be the most wowing scheme, but it did *almost* work

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None of the above, SL-9 was the greatest. Kill everyone that saw? That's pretty big.

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1-1 : Crap, I killed this girl. I know! I'll say someone else did it! *genius*

1-2: If you're going to go to all the trouble of wiretapping someone's line to find out when our target would be alone and when someone else was coming along to take the fall, you should at LEAST get your story down first. But I DID see her run to the left... I know I did...

1-3: Hammer fails in every possible way.

1-4: This probably could have worked if Yogi had burned the freaking letter like he was told.

1-5: Considering the murder was spontaneous and Gant had very little time to deal with the body, I think he did pretty well.

2-1: Stupid mistakes all around.

2-2: Not killing Dr. Grey on the first attack is pretty much all that screwed things up here.

2-3: Did Acro really put any thought into this at all? If the cloak Russel just HAPPENED to be wearing hadn't just HAPPENED to get caught on the bust, it would have been incredibly easy for a witness to figure out the bust was tied to a rope.

2-4: Uh, Engarde didn't really do much planning besides hiring de Killer and setting the video recorder. Most of 2-4 was Adrian shooting herself in the foot.

3-1: There was probably a better way to get that necklace back than trying to kill the person carrying it.

3-2: WINNER. As was said, Atmey certainly would have gotten away with it if he had only kept his ego in check a minute longer.

3-3: One problem with this one; what if Maggey hadn't fainted? What if she ran for help?

3-4: ...Outsmarting a mentally handicapped guy isn't exactly something to brag about.

3-5: No, just...no. There were about eighty billion ways Morgan's plan could have been foiled that didn't involve Misty dying, but no, needed to be a hero.

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I wouldn't really consider murdering everyone in sight a "great scheme".

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3-2 for the idea that Mask☆DeMasque and Luke Atmey are the best characters in all of PW history and DL-6 for the fact that not even the victim knew who killed him! If Karma just shut up and didn't scream like a banshee, Karma would have escaped without a hitch.

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3-3 was the best

the only witness to the first murder who would testify truthfully would be the defandant, and no one takes the defendant's claims seriously..

in other words, there was no witness to truly say that the "waitress" didn't commit the crime

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2-4 is easily the best. All Engarde had to do was sit back and relax whilst Shelly strangled the life out of little ol' Juan. But no, he got greedy and decided to film the deed, paving the way for his downfall. Which I'd guess he regrets whilst he's living out the rest of his life in a 6 by 9 jail cell.

Every other murder scheme I've encountered (up to 2-4) seems to me to be a spur-of-the-moment affair to me, apart from Hammond's death.

1-5 would be my Fav.
Not only did Gant not have a whole lot of time to prepare for the 2nd murder, but the first one was never found out until now. Then for him to woven everything to look like Lana did it was also awesome.

I did like 3-5 and 3-2 also, there were pretty epic but ending up failing bad in my opinion.

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The ending to 3-5 made me fume SO - MUCH

Favorite case had to be

from each game

1-4

So many characters, you find out about Edgeworth's past, plus Karma just reeks of awsome

2-2

The only case that I actually understood. Plus the end with Franziska made it worth the aggrivating cross examination of Lotta and Ini

3-3

Funny, good story, good characters. Greatest quote by Phoenix in the whole game

"DOES HE HAVE AN UNLIMITED AMMO CHEAT?!?!?!?!"

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You mean "murder plots", right? This is a topic for the plans, not the cases themselves. Keep it that way.

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well for actual PLANS

I'd have to say almost the same line up, but in JFA it would be changed to 2-4 due to the hiring of an asassin and the face that Enguarde puts on as a farce to make you think he's a nice guy.

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Is this the plan for carrying out the murder or what? Or for the murder and cover-up? If the second, then either SL-9, 3-2, or 2-2

Kill a person, then make it look like a young girl did it to blackmail the sister, then help the sister rearrange the crime scene to convict a serial killer

Get convicted of larceny as insurance against being found GUILTY of murderer

and using your dead sister's identity while people think you're dead and then a whole bunch of other crazy crap is just AWESOME

In terms of the initial plans the murderers came up with, here are some which I think were the best:

1-3: Someone said before that Hammer fails in every possible way. This isn't really true. In fact, the only way he fails is in falling onto the spikes. Had his plan succeeded, he would have managed to kill Dee and very successfully frame Will Powers for the murder. He would also have probably had a chance to clear up the rest of the incriminating evidence against himself (i.e. the sleeping pills). I'm not sure how it would have played out from there, but he probably would have had a reasonable chance of getting away with it.

1-4: This is a classic example of a "locked room mystery". Von Karma had Yogi set it up so that only one person could possibly have committed the crime (Edgeworth). Had Yogi just destroyed the damn letter (why he didn't still baffles me... it's such a simple thing to do!) at least von Karma would have gotten away with it, even if Yogi was found out.

2-2: Here, the plan was brilliant, but Mimi's carrying out of it was flawed. It would have worked so perfectly if she'd just managed to stab Grey properly. There would have been no revealing gunshot holes, no annoying lawyers and photographers breaking in at the worst possible moment. Mimi and Morgan could have completely hidden the fact that she was ever there and Maya would have gone down for it. (Plus there's the fact that one of the pieces of evidence, the key, really should not have been where it was found. I still don't understand that one... )

2-4: The simplest plan, and in my opinion, the best. If Adrian Andrews hadn't interfered the police would have had no choice but to give up as soon as they found de Killer's card. There was no way to prove who hired de Killer and even if Engarde was suspected, he would have gotten away scott free. (Of course, some months later he would probably have been found dead in his own home with another card lying beside him... it doesn't pay to blackmail assassins).

I've only played T&T once, so it consistently had that air of confusion as I made my way through the cases and I haven't been able to objectively analyze them. When I replay it I'll analyze the schemes in that game and perhaps post some more that I think were particularly well planned.

2-2, I think.

3-5 was pretty smart. Not only did Tigre get out of there with a disk that could get him millions, he impersonated Phoenix and got Maggy a guilty verdict. Tigre made one tiny mistake of letting Phoenix investigate his office. If Phoenix hadn't gone in there, Tigre would have gotten way with it. Recreating the crime scene is genius, too.

1-4: As many other people have said, Von Karma would have easily gotten away with the crime if Yogi had just burned the letter. Since we're talking about "schemes" here, it doesn't take into account people's mistakes, like Yogi NOT burning it. Von Karma told him to burn the letter after reading it, so he had already considered it would link back to him. Giving him all the details like that WOULD have not made him suspect at all, and Yogi would've had no proof that he was given instructions.

2-2: Again, I also agree that if Mimi had just killed Dr.Grey instantly, it would've been the perfect crime. In addition to that, she had also studied up about spirit channeling in the process of living the life of Ini, so she could have delivered an imitated channeling flawlessly. Again, the fact that there was no one else in the room is always a good way to make someone suspicious. Again, the scheme itself was clever.. execution.. meh.

3-2: This was a really interesting case for me, committing a crime and using it as an alibi. He was really close to getting away with it too. Atmey even noticed when the statue was placed in the storeroom on the day of the crime, which meant that he was observing to make sure everything was consistent with the details on the night he actually stole the urn. Also the fact that they kept saying Lordly Tailor provided the computers, so it wasn't as easy to say he manipulated the data. (it was still kind of obvious to me, but it's definitely trickier).

3-3: I can't decide which one I like better from T&T.. 3-2 or this. Recreating a murder scene like that in order to create witnesses with no motive to lie was genius. Not to mention that if you think about it, Tigre might not have had to kill Glen at all. He was just supposed to collect his debt. Glen had brought the virus with him, so either way, if he hadn't won the lottery, he would still have been able to pay it off with that, and hence no killing necessary. But the fact that Tigre came prepared to kill, and had the whole thing re-enacted was a LOT of thinking ahead! Not to mention impersonating a lawyer (albeit quite badly!) to ensure that Maggey was framed is crazy follow-up! I guess you can't expect less from the mafia xD. I mean.. murder in a closed room with no witnesses is one thing.. but committing a murder in a public place AND with witnesses that support you? That takes some serious planning! And about Maggey fainting, I'm sure Tigre would've done something about that too if she hadn't... like a chop on the neck, punch in the stomach, or gas,... too bad he screwed up soooo stupidly in the end.

Eep.. long post again..

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I go with The Stolen Turnabout. Atmey/Ron gaining alibi on each other murder was a brilliant plot twist. I love how the whole idea of double jeopardy. I only recently learned it's part of the 5th Amendment in my U.S. Democracy class. I would choose 1-4 or 1-5 after.

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DEFINETLY 2-2. That was wierd!

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3-2.

Atmey FTW.

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1-5
Not only did you have two murder scenes you had two suspects. One being the Spazz I love so dearly :3

I truly love how you handle three cases in one big case. One in the prosecutor's parking lot, the other in the evidence room, and in Gant's office. How can I not love it!

And of course 3-3 and 3-2.

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1-5 was perfect. They had NOTHING on Gant! NOTHIIIING!!!

Also, lets be honest, if Wellington never stated anything about the "bananas", he would've been excused as a witness, considering such a random piece of testimony was the start of his downfall.

2-3 was also perfect. No rope was ever found, correct?

2-4, 3-2, and 3-3 as well. But if Terry never died, Dahlia would've been convicted in 3-4.

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