Love, Lies, and Murder Page 10

  “When did you first talk to your father or see him after August fifteenth?” Jones asked.

  “I don’t recollect,” Perry responded. “Relatively soon thereafter (Janet’s disappearance), I would guess, probably within a few days.”

  “Was he in Mexico, to the best of your knowledge, on August fifteenth?”

  “Yes.”

  “When did he come into the United States?”

  “I don’t recollect. I think it was probably—I think he arrived a couple days before Sammy’s birthday party, which was on the twenty-fifth. So, my guess is, he came in sometime around the twentieth, maybe? Eighteenth? Twentieth? I don’t remember.”

  “Why did he come?” Jones asked.

  “Because I was distraught that my wife had run away, and he came up to help.”

  “Did you ask him to come?”

  “Yes. Well, actually, no, I would—I rephrase that. He called up, was very concerned, volunteered to come up, and asked me if I would like him to come up. And I said, ‘Yes. I really would like you to come up.’”

  “Were you involved in an ongoing sexual relationship with anybody besides Janet as of August 15, 1996 ?” Jones asked.

  “I refuse to answer your question,” Perry responded somewhat testily. “I decline to.”

  “On what basis?”

  “Again, none of your business. Irrelevant, intrusive, insensitive to the memory of my wife and to me. I decline to answer it. Take it to Judge Clement and we’ll see if he wants me to answer it.”

  “And how is that insensitive to the memory of Janet to ask you that question?”

  “None of your business.”

  “Are you presently involved in a sexual relationship on an ongoing basis with anyone?”

  “Again, I refuse to answer that question.”

  “Let me say this,” Jones said. “Such a person might well have information regarding his ongoing financial affairs and all the matters set out in relevance. . . . I’m entitled to know that—”

  “And, again,” Perry responded, “I really decline to answer it. I think you’re vulgar and insensitive, and I will not answer that question.”

  “On August fifteenth, did you have a discussion with Janet about any relationship on your part? Of a sexual nature?”

  “No.”

  “That subject never came up; is that correct?”

  “Correct.”

  “Did you ever execute a will?” Jones asked during a later segment of the deposition.

  “Yes, I have executed a will now,” Perry responded.

  “Okay. When did you execute a will?”

  “I executed a will probably late September, early October. Mid-October. I don’t remember exactly. I can find that out for you.”

  “Who prepared the will?”

  “I did.”

  “What does it say?”

  Lionel R. Barrett Jr., one of Perry’s attorneys, interjected at that point.

  “I am going to object,” Barrett said, “strongly, to the relevancy as to the provisions of the will.”

  “Well, I don’t mind answering it,” Perry said. “In that period of time, Janet had been gone for quite a while. I was very concerned that if something happened to Janet, she was without a will. I’m without a will. So, I prepared a will, leaving everything to my children. Naming my brother as administrator, my sister or my brother as trustee for the trusts of my children, and naming my brother and his wife and my sister as alternate guardians of the children.”

  “Where was that will typed?” Jones asked.

  “At my office.”

  “What office?”

  “At my former law firm. Of Levine, Mattson, Orr, and Geracioti.”

  “Who typed it?”

  “Me.”

  “On what computer did you type it?”

  “My computer at my office.”

  “The one in your particular office?”

  “Yeah, my computer.”

  “And where was it printed?”

  “In my computer at my office.”

  “Do you have copies of that?”

  “Yeah. I’ve got copies of my executed will. I believe Mr. Jackson has a copy of my executed will as administrator.”

  “Was that before September fifteenth?”

  “No.”

  “After September fifteenth?”

  “Yeah, I believe so. I had prepared multiple copies of wills for Janet and I both, prior to September fifteenth, but never was one executed.”

  “What credit cards do you have?” Jones asked a bit later.

  “I have no credit cards in my name,” Perry responded.

  “What credit cards do you have use of ?”

  “I have the use of one Citibank card that my brother has gotten for me.”

  “In whose name is that card?”

  “His.”

  “What do you mean your brother got it for you?”

  “It’s his. It’s his credit card.”

  “Did he get it for you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “When?”

  “I don’t know. Month ago.”

  “Why didn’t you get a credit card in your own name?”

  “Didn’t make application for one.”

  “I didn’t ask that. Why didn’t you get one in your own name?”

  “Chose not to.”

  “Mr. March,” Jones asked during further questioning, “what life insurance was there on Janet’s life, as of August 15, 1996?”

  “To the best of my recollection,” Perry replied, “there was a single term policy for two hundred fifty thousand dollars and that the agent is Janet’s first cousin Mark—Michael Levine.”

  “When was that policy purchased?”

  “Year, two years ago.”

  “Under what circumstances?”

  “Janet and I discussed the possibility of what would I do if something happened to her, and vice versa. It was done in connection with our overall estate plan. She and I both agreed that I would need money to pay for a nanny or support a nanny or some alternative child care. And that’s why we purchased the policy. Upon—also upon the recommendation of Mike Levine, who did the same for his wife.”

  “You said it was a part of your overall estate plan. Tell me what your overall estate plan was.”

  “We didn’t have much of an estate plan at all.”

  “Well, that wasn’t—”

  “But that was the major issue,” Perry interjected.

  “I didn’t ask if you had much,” Jones said. “Let’s try to get to the point today. What was your overall estate plan?”

  “It was still in discussion. We hadn’t firmly fixed on it.”

  “Tell me about the seven- or eight-hundred-thousand-dollar insurance on your life.”

  “Sure. I don’t know exactly the total amount. I have a one-hundred-fifty-thousand-dollar whole life policy with the Metropolitan Federal—I can’t remember the name of the policy. I bought it when I was at Bass, Berry, and Sims. Owen Kelley is the agent. It is a relatively expensive term policy. I mean whole life or universal life policy. I also had a term policy with them that I canceled when Mike Levine approached me to take over my insurance needs. I have two policies on my life, a—with Mike Levine, so I still have that policy with Mr.—no, it’s Northwestern. I’m sorry. It’s Northwestern. And I still have that policy on my life for one hundred fifty thousand dollars. I believe Janet is the beneficiary of that policy. I have a term policy with Mike Levine and Union Central, I believe, for one hundred fifty or one hundred seventy-five thousand dollars. Again—that might be—no, I’m sorry. That might be whole. That might be whole life as well. And I have about a—I think a five-hundred or a four-hundred-fifty-thousand-dollar term policy with him as well. So the aggregate number is in the seven-hundred-thousand-dollar range.”

  “Have you changed beneficiaries on those policies?” Jones asked.

  “Yes. I changed on I believe the Union Cen, I believe, on the Mike Levine policies to fi
fty percent Sammy and fifty percent Tzipi, once this whole situation with Janet came about. I did not want money to go into an absentee’s estate, since I’m currently in litigation over that right now, and I had no desire to have the Levines put their hooks into it. Or have—assert any control over it.”

  “Well, let me test a little of the truthfulness of that answer,” Jones said.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Did you change the beneficiaries before or after you filed this litigation?”

  “I don’t know. All I know is when in my mind—”

  “What do you mean you don’t know?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Well, you just testified the reason you made the change was because of this litigation and to keep the money from going to an absentee’s conservator.”

  “I think you heard incorrectly, or I spoke incorrectly,” Perry said. “What I meant to say is, when the situation with Janet developed and she failed to return, and the situation looked as if it might be one that would go into litigation over assets, I determined that rather than put that asset and those assets into dispute, that I would make it very clear in the event of my death that those particular assets, constituting approximately seven hundred thousand dollars, would be directed to the benefit of my two children. Placed into the trust that I have created by will for the care of my two children.”

  “All right. So you have changed all of that—the beneficiary on all of your insurance—”

  “I didn’t do the Northwest.”

  “Why?”

  “Janet is still the beneficiary there.”

  “Why haven’t you changed that one?”

  “I—I just didn’t get around to it. It’s a small policy in the back of my head. I don’t really—actually, I probably just forgot about it.”

  “Now, who is the beneficiary on the policy on Janet’s life?”

  “To the best of my recollection, I am. Just as she was the beneficiary on my policies.”

  Chapter 12

  Detective David Miller and his partner, Detective Tim Mason, continued running down lead after lead in their search to learn the truth about what had really happened to Janet March. Their investigation into the disappearance of Janet March had quickly become the most intensive and most talked-about case in nearly twenty years—since nine-year-old Marcia Trimble was abducted in February 1975 while selling Girl Scout cookies in Nashville’s Green Hills neighborhood. Marcia’s body had been found thirty-three days later in a garage, barely 150 yards from her home. She had been sexually assaulted by at least two people and strangled, and her killer(s) had robbed her of her cookie money. Although that case remains unsolved and still has a cold-case detective assigned to it, Miller and Mason were determined that the Janet March mystery would be solved.

  As with most investigations of a purported serious crime, the detectives naturally focused some of their attention on Perry March’s friends and acquaintances. Some of the people who knew Perry March characterized him as a man with high energy, a lawyer who was aggressive and determined to achieve his objectives. Almost everyone who knew him described him as highly intelligent and private, but those who did not think very highly of him described Perry as greedy, calculating, a schemer, and as someone not to be trusted.

  “When he first told me Janet was missing, he had tears in his eyes,” said former friend Elliot Greenberg. “Perry’s very reserved. Typically, he won’t exhibit that kind of behavior in public.” It was clear that Perry had given the appearance that he was really broken up over Janet’s disappearance, and Greenberg, as would many others, believed him.

  Meanwhile, Perry appeared prepared to accept the fact that he would likely never see his wife again, or so it seemed to the people who knew him in Nashville; yet at times it seemed like he continued to maintain hope that she would turn up alive. His children often wondered what had happened to their mother and, he said, would ask questions about her.

  “We don’t know what happened to Mommy,” Perry, by his own account, would tell his children. He said that no matter the outcome, whether she turned up alive or not, the children would survive.

  “The longer we go, the less likely we are to hear from her,” Perry was quoted as saying. “We can’t hold out false hopes. I have to tell them the truth. People live through worse.”

  At one point in the investigation, Detectives Miller and Mason learned that Perry had replaced the tires on his Jeep Cherokee. He purchased the brand-new set of tires, the detectives learned, from Universal Tire in Nashville in August 1996, after Janet disappeared. When asked about it, he claimed that he replaced the tires because they were worn out. Naturally, the detectives wanted to know more—they contacted the management and employees at Universal Tire.

  According to Robert Armstrong, the manager of the tire shop, the tires on Perry’s Jeep had considerable tread left on them, approximately 50 percent, and Armstrong said he advised Perry that he did not need new tires. Perry apparently responded that he wanted a different brand of tires on his car. The detectives agreed with Armstrong’s assessment that it seemed unusual for someone to replace perfectly good tires. The cops found themselves wondering whether Perry might have been concerned that tire impressions made in earth softened by the rainfall experienced in the Nashville area during the time of the massive search effort for Janet might prove incriminating, if found. Nonetheless, there was no law against purchasing a new set of tires, even when replacements weren’t needed.

  As Miller and Mason studied the evidence—what little there was—and again went over the details of the night Janet disappeared, they felt even more confident with the theory they had formulated regarding what had happened to Janet March on the evening of August 15, 1996. It was December, and nearly four months had elapsed since Janet had disappeared, and they needed to believe that they were making progress. Their theory and various scenarios that they had worked out earlier were, of course, discussed with writer Willy Stern, and would be reported in the Nashville Scene the following month as part of a major two-part series about the case.

  To recap their theory and the various plausible scenarios in perhaps a bit more detail, according to the Nashville Scene article, Miller and Mason hypothesized that Perry and Janet had become embroiled in an argument on the evening of August 15 and that it had escalated to the point that Perry had lost it and had killed her, likely accidentally, with a karate blow of some sort. After all, he held a black belt in the martial art, and a blow delivered to just the right spot could kill a person almost instantly and not necessarily leave behind any blood evidence. They believed that at some point during the argument Janet had said something that had caused Perry to snap. Perhaps, they theorized, Janet had said that she wanted a divorce and had threatened to cut him off monetarily. After all, she had her own source of income, and her family was wealthy, too.

  The cops also believed that Perry might have hidden his wife’s body in their home’s basement, or perhaps in the nearby woods that nearly encircled their property, only to retrieve it later, wrap it up in the rug that Marissa Moody claimed she had seen inside the March residence the following day, and then haul away the corpse and dispose of it—probably inside a Dumpster.

  Had he first hauled her body to the woods in his Jeep Cherokee, only to later haul it away for disposal? If so, had it been the fear of leaving tire tracks or impressions that had prompted him to change the tires on that vehicle, even though they hadn’t needed changing? Much of their theory was, of course, merely conjecture, and the only thing that had been confirmed at this point was the fact that Perry and Janet had had an argument—Perry had confirmed the argument while providing his deposition.

  Since Miller and Mason’s theories also looked at the telephone calls that Perry had made to his relatives and to the Levines the night of August 15, they realized only too late that they should have interviewed everyone he had called right away. As they went over that scenario again, the cops were even more adamant that the telephone call
s may have been Perry’s first attempts at covering up Janet’s death. Perry, of course, had claimed that he merely called his brother and his sister to inform them that Janet had left him. According to the Willy Stern article, the detectives did not conduct timely interviews with any of the people Perry called that night. That fact, when combined with the fact that they had divulged considerable information to Stern, would soon return to bite them.

  The detectives theorized that it was when Perry had finished talking to his sister, at 9:18 P.M., that he hid Janet’s body, either in the woods or in the basement. They believe he then packed travel bags for Janet and placed them in her Volvo, which he drove to the Brixworth Apartments a few miles away. After parking her car in one of the spaces in the complex’s parking lot, according to Miller and Mason’s theory, and carefully placing her footwear on the driver’s-side floor, he abandoned the Volvo and either jogged or rode a mountain bike back to his house on Blackberry Road, while Sammy and Tzipi continued to sleep in their upstairs bedrooms.

  A witness would later tell the police that he had seen a man walking alongside a bicycle at 1:00 A.M. through the Brixworth Apartments complex about two weeks before Janet’s car was found. The witness said that he hadn’t realized until later that the man he had seen was Perry March.

  The Nashville Scene reported that the local Volvo dealership that sold the car to Janet and Perry established that the Volvo 850 was designed to hold a typical mountain bike inside the vehicle. The detectives also believed that Perry created the so-called “to do” list on the home computer and printed it out before leaving for the Brixworth Apartments. They further believed that Perry had waited until around midnight to call the Levines so that he would have time to complete all of the aforementioned tasks in an attempt to cover up what had really happened that evening.