Two years ago, serial killer Joe Darke was put to death for a string of murders.  But was it a fair trial?
(Contributed by Johnny Law - Ace Attorney)

Date:  February 21st, 2015
Defense Attorney:  Unknown
Prosecutor:  Neil Marshall / Miles Edgeworth
Defendant:  Joe Darke
Victim:  (Edward Jones, Edith Kirby, Jeb Bates, Jason Knight, and Rachael Moss) /Neil Marshall
COD:  Stabbed in the back / one car crash victim, several others unspecified.
MW:  Unspecified / A suit of armor .
Guilty:  Joe Darke / Damon Gant

SL-9 began with a lethal car accident involving an unknown driver and a businessman known as Joe Darke.  Darke was scared out of his wits, and to cover-up his involvement, he killed a witness that saw the accident, which in turn started a chain of murders that Darke himself was responsible for.  In response, the police formed a special investigations team consisting of Detectives Bruce Goodman, Jake Marshall, and "Cough-Up Queen" Angel Starr, with Lana Skye and Damon Gant supervising. Eventually, the now-infamous Darke grew feelings of guilt and turned himself in. During a questioning initiated by Neil Marshall, the prosecutor for the case, and Gant, a thunderstorm knocked out the electricity in the police department, allowing Darke to flee the interrogation room.

Darke made his way to Gant and Lana's office, intent on hiding. Once he got there, he found that someone else was at the scene; Lana's younger sister, Ema Skye. Darke, thinking that Ema had seen too much, attempted to murder her, but Neil managed to subdue Darke with a piece of the Prosecutor of the Year award, which he had received earlier in the day.  Ema, confused, shoved the person who she perceived to be Darke - in actuality, Neil - into the wall, upon which he lost consciousness. After that, Ema herself lost consciousness, and Gant arrived on the scene not long afterwards.

Thinking he could use the situation to his advantage, Gant cut out a piece of Neil's vest, upon which was Ema's handprint, and proceeded to lift the unconscious Prosecutor up, and impaled him on the suit of armor's sword. Gant then used Neil's blood to write out Ema's name on one of his clay pots, then smashed the pot on the floor, breaking it, and hid away the most legible part of Ema's name, along with the piece of vest he had cut out earlier. He then left the scene to wait for someone else. That someone was Lana. Upon seeing the scene, she believed that her sister Ema had shoved Neil onto the sword and killed him.

First, she wiped off almost all of the blood from the broken pieces of the pot. She then asked for Gant's help to re-arrange the scene (which Gant had already done) and removed Neil's body from the sword. They then laid Neil's body on top of Darke, and broke the tip off of Darke's switchblade knife. Lana buried the tip into the fatal wound, and stuck the knife in the wound so that the handle was pointing out. Lana then contacted the other officers, and Darke was arrested for the murder of Neil Marshall.

During investigation, Ema drew a picture on a piece of paper (the back of the SL-9 evidence list), depicting a part of the struggle between Darke and Neil, and handed it to Goodman. However, Gant managed to get his hands on the list and tore it in half, keeping half of the list for himself, and the other half was given to the prosecution. In court, Miles Edgeworth, taking over for Neil as prosecutor, used the forged evidence, including the tip of the switchblade knife, to convict Darke. Darke was sentenced to death for his crimes.

The verdict only benefited one man: Damon Gant. Upon the resolution of the SL-9 case, Gant was made the District Chief of Police, for having contributed to solving such an important case. Utilizing his newfound power, he transferred Lana Skye to the Prosecutor's Office as Chief Prosecutor. Gant then reminded Lana of the "incriminating" evidence he had against her sister, Ema (Lana, of course, had no way of knowing the evidence was forged).  For the next two years Gant would hold that evidence over her head as a means of blackmail, getting her to manipulate more cases.

The results of SL-9 never sat well with the other detectives. Gant feared they would make their disquiet public: as a result, Starr was fired, and Jake was demoted to patrolman level. Goodman kept his position, because it would have been too suspicious for all three detectives to be removed from their jobs. Two years later, when the evidence from SL-9 was due to be transferred out, Goodman was killed, starting PW:AA Case 5.