A Crime Of The Mind II: Malave On Trial
In April, Dr. Malave's trial began. For the jury to believe Jane, prosecutor Raoul Zambrano knew he needed to put her on the stand. Jane testified for three days. On the second day, a surprise witness appeared - one of Jane's personalities: brash "Vanessa." Then she lapsed back into Jane.
Jane also testified about the calendars she kept, detailing her alleged sexual encounters with Malave. "The only problem with the calendars is that there were several occasions where she said that she was at my office where she didn't even have an appointment," Malave says.
Defense attorney Chandler Muller tried to show jurors that because of her illness, Jane could not be believed.
Dr. Herbert Spiegel also says Jane may be making it all up. "The odds are very great that it's more fantasy than fact," he says. In 63 years as a psychiatrist, he's seen more than 10,000 patients.
"I've been practicing now over a half century and I have yet to see an authentic multiple," he says.
He even examined "Sybil," the woman whose life was made into a best selling book and movie - and he didn't believe her. Speigel says Jane actually shows signs of a different condition called borderline personality disorder, which often fuels behavior problems, a victim complex and a taste for revenge.
Other experts say Jane really has multiple personality disorder, and can change at any time. During one interview, as one of her lawyers tried to console her, Jane became "Bridgette," then "Vanessa," and then Jane again, all in less than 10 minutes.
Even if Jane is faking her condition, Zambrano says, she couldn't fake the evidence. No one disputes that Malave's semen is in Jane's underwear. But Malave says he was framed, the victim of a conspiracy among Jane's personalities: Vanessa, Bridgette, and Delilah, who was the mastermind.
Dr. Malave says he didn't learn about the plot until after Jane had gone to police. But looking back, he believes the conspiracy was hatched while he and his wife were on vacation in July 1999. That's when their son Joe, then 19, got a call from a woman calling herself Delilah. She said she was a journalism student, researching Hispanic Americans, and asked to meet him at a local bookstore. It was Jane.
Malave says he then realized a strange story his wife had told him months earlier suddenly made sense. She had seen a figure dressed in black, picking through the family's garbage cans. Though she admits she couldn't identify the person, the black Nissan truck was a perfect match with Jane's, right down to the teal trim.
Malave claims Jane got his sperm by going through his garbage. "My wife Sonia was throwing away a lot of my underwear while I was losing weight in the spring of 1999. After we had moments of intimacy, we'd discard them because I didn't intend to use them anymore," he says.
Their theory is that she somehow transferred Malave's sperm from his underwear to hers – probably by rubbing the two garments together.
As proof, Muller pointed out that Jane had medical training. She worked in a urologist's office where men provided semen samples. Muller contends Jane not only had the training, she had a blueprint: A book titled "Coffin Dancer," the same screen name Jane used to send harassing emails to Malave.
"It talks about transfer of DNA, going through trash," Muller says. Jane says she has never read the book, although she doesn't know if one of the other personalities has.
"I did not take Dr. Malave's trash," she says. "I did not take his underwear and transfer it onto my underwear. The semen on my underwear was there because Dr. Malave had sex with me."
But the jury apparently believed Dr. Malave's bizarre story, finding him not guilty. Dr. Malave, who was ecstatic with the verdict, hopes to get his medical license back soon.
But is he really innocent? Find out as 48 Hours investigates.
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