Psychologist dissects accused killer’s multiple personalities

“Wrath did it” — “it” being the shooting deaths of Jacob Remaley’s mom and his younger brother.

That’s what 14-year-old Jacob told a state police detective that cold morning in November 2016.

When the detective asked to speak to Wrath, Jacob walked to the wall then violently banged his head against it. When he turned to face the detective, his visage and his voice were changed.

Wrath was speaking. And this is what Wrath told police:

“I had to come in and take control. So, if you want to arrest me, arrest me. But, don’t arrest that kid. Thatkid went through too much.”

Those notes, taken by a Pennsylvania state police detective at 11:08 a.m. Nov. 30, 2016, along with hours of face-to-face interviews with Jacob, now 16, have led forensic psychologist Alice Applegate to diagnose Jacob with Dissociative Identity Disorder — colloquially known as “multiple personalities.”

She testified Thursday in a Westmoreland County courtroom as a judge weighs a defense motion that Jacob face trial as a juvenile, rather than as an adult.

Police believe Jacob shot in the head as they lay sleeping that morning both his mom, 46-yearold Dana Remaley, and his brother, 8-year-old Caleb.

Jacob’s defense attorney, Public Defender Wayne P. McGrew, doesn’t deny it — not in the strictest sense of the word. His client may have been holding the gun, but his alter ego, Wrath, was responsible for firing it.

Mr. McGrew is building a defense based on mental illness and the star witness is Ms. Applegate, who holds a doctoral degree in psychology.

Ms. Applegate said Wrath represents the protector of Jacob and his unexpressed rage as living in a home where he amounted to a

“slave,” a “robot.” A Christmas gift was a vacuum. He was left at home when his mother and brother went to Disneyworld several weeks before the killings.

He was responsible for straight-As, cooking, cleaning, and “accepting his punishments with a smile.” He even was required to grow his hair long so his mother could donate it, when cut, to a charity that makes wigs for cancer patients.

“His life was difficult,” Ms. Applegate said.

Wrath put it a different way in interviews with police.

Wrath referred to Jacob’s mother as “Mrs. Meanie Badwitch.” Wrath said Jacob’s father was a drunk, his mother was lazy and his brother was a brat.

At this moment in the Jacob’s legal case, the top priority is to “decertify” him so he won’t stand trial as an adult, facing a potential lifein-prison sentence if convicted on dual counts of firstdegree murder. If he were tried as a juvenile, he could be held until he is 21.

In a lengthy interview Friday, Ms. Applegate said she believes that Jacob should be tried as a juvenile and should remain in a juvenile facility where he has been in treatment since the day of the killings. She said she believes he has demonstrated a great capacity for successful treatment.

The day of the killings, Jacob called 911 at 6:53 a.m. and expressed to the operator: “Why didn’t he kill me? I need help,” before the phone disconnected.

Ms. Applegate said the “he” to whom Jacob referred was “Wrath.”

She said she conducted a dozen interviews with family and friends and spent about nine hours with Jacob. The picture that emerged was of a boy whose personality had split as a result of pressure within his family led by a retired Army veteran who now works as a master plumber for the VA Hospital in Pittsburgh. Mrs. Remaley had been a parttime personal care aide at West Hempfield Middle School in the Hempfield Area School District. Caleb was a third-grader and Jacob was in high school.

Ms. Applegate said Jacob’s family had a history of mental illness. Jacob’s grandfather told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette at the time of the killings that his first wife had shot herself in 1997 and he remarried to a woman who had lost her husband to suicide as well.

Jacob’s stepgrandmother had recounted for the PostGazette how Jacob’s mom had never gotten over her mother’s death by a cancer a decade earlier.

Ms. Applegate said she believesDana Remaley suffered from depression and had become more and more focused on social media, pushing familyduties onto Jacob.

She said his therapy between the time of the killings and a year later have been very effective. When she first met Jacob on Dec. 27, 2016, she said he had four “alter” personalities: Wrath, Witch, Little Girl and Old Man. A year later, the alter egos were gone.

Inher 100-plus-page report, she said he began “falling apart, splitting” at about 12 years old, having suicidal thoughts and becoming more somberand depressed. His alter personalities became more predominent. “He wasn’t necessarily out of touch with reality. It was like being in a speeding car with a driver. You can watch what’s happening but you have no control over what’s going on.”

She said there were hints that a personality change was happening: Jacob would blink a lot, hold his head, complain of headaches. She said he would experience blackouts.

Ms. Applegate said Jacob is a “shy, highly intelligent, introverted, anxious, good kid who wanted to comply and cooperate to the point that he couldn’t rebel or be oppositional defiant as the pressure in his family continued to build.”

She said there were money issues, arguments between the parents, and deepening depression in Jacob’s mother.

“[The mom] was extremely demanding of Jacob. He became the family slave. The family robot,” Ms. Applegate said.

In the time after the killings, with therapy, Ms. Applegate said Jacob has stabilized.