Hammond Murder Timeline

Sometime earlier in 2016:

• Von Karma writes to Yogi, in his own handwriting, with his plan to murder Hammond and frame Edgeworth. Yogi thinks this sounds like an excellent idea, and is 100 percent on board.

Shortly before Christmas 2016:

• According to von Karma’s flawless plan, Yogi writes to Edgeworth, posing as Hammond, and then to Hammond, as himself. Presumably he asks Hammond to show up before midnight, and Edgeworth shortly after.

December 20th:

• Larry’s surrogate penis malfunctions and the balloon and tank shoot into the lake, right when someone is taking a photo, starting the Gourdy rumor. Larry ventures out onto the lake each subsequent night to look for it until the 24th.

Between December 20th and 24th:

• Lotta sets up her campsite at Gourd Lake.

December 24th, 11:??PM:

• Larry steals a boat from the dock and rows to the middle of the lake to search for his balloon.

December 24th, before 11:50PM:

• Hammond arrives at the shack and goes inside with Yogi.

December 24th, 11:50PM:

• Larry returns the boat to the docks and walks past the shack. As Larry walks by, Yogi shoots Hammond, in the unluckiest coincidence since Miles shot von Karma in the dick. Larry is a deadbeat so he doesn’t call the cops when he hears this, nor does Lotta, who may have also heard it (or at least wondered what set off her camera).
• Yogi takes Hammond’s coat, which miraculously has no blood on it or a bullet hole, unless Edgeworth is THAT unobservant. Let’s also assume he manages to keep clean himself and cleans up the blood in his shack while he waits for Edgeworth.

December 25th, before 12:15AM:

• Edgeworth shows up and meets with Yogi-as-Hammond. They row out to the lake, which Edgeworth apparently does not think is a strange request.

December 25th, 12:15AM:

• Yogi shoots the water twice (in quick enough succession that Lotta’s camera only catches one of these). Then he jumps out of the boat and swims to his shack. Edgeworth picks up the gun, in an uncharacteristically idiotic move. Oh, and Lotta, who has now heard THREE gunshots, still doesn’t alert the authorities. If she had, Yogi would almost certainly have been caught red-handed.

December 25th, between 12:15AM and 12:30AM:

• Yogi swims all the way to shore, returns to his shack (leaving no footprints), puts the wet coat on Hammond, dumps the body in the lake, changes his own clothes, and calls the police. He does all of this without Edgeworth (or anyone else) seeing him. Further, we don’t really know where Edgeworth is at this point (possibly rowing to shore in the boat containing the murder weapon), except that he’s still near the lake when…

December 25th, 12:33AM:

• Gumshoe arrives. He presumably talks to Yogi, and finds Edgeworth, but doesn’t see any reason to suspect him of anything.

December 25th, later that morning:

• That morning, the cops find Hammond’s body and arrest Edgeworth.

NOTE: There is some inconsistency with the time of the second set of gunshots. Gumshoe testified that Lotta heard them at 12:10, but everything else says 12:15.

And there you have it. Now that we’ve all had the opportunity to nitpick the shit out of everything, let’s consider the trial officially over. Don’t underestimate the ability of these people to talk each other to death over it, I say hypocritically. Out in the lobby, the jaunty victory tune accompanies a round of congratulations to the two men who can finally, after what seems like an eternity, freely pleasure each other’s penises. First up is Maya, who high-fives Phoenix for his tremendous showing in court. Of von Karma, she says, “He’s pretending to be all cool, but inside you crushed him, Nick! Crushed!” I guess she was checking her cell phone during all the shrieking and head banging. Phoenix comments about how he nearly shit himself for the entire trial, and Maya agrees. “But now it’s all just a good memory!” she squeals, because I’m sure Edgeworth will look back on all of this fondly. Yay, his trusted mentor killed his dad and then tried to frame him! So nostalgic! And that’s to say nothing of what I went through.