She had an appointment with a divorce lawyer on August 16, 1996. She never made it.
The night before that appointment, Janet Levine March told her mother about it. By midnight, her husband Perry had called the Levines to report that Janet had simply... left. Packed her bags, he said. Gone on vacation. Didn't say where.
He waited two weeks to call the police.
Janet and Perry had seemed like a Nashville success story. She was a painter and children's book illustrator — smart, warm, beloved in Nashville's close-knit Jewish community. He was a Vanderbilt Law grad, an attorney. Her parents had helped finance their dream home in Forest Hills, helped pay for law school, even brought Perry into the family law firm after he lost a previous job. They were invested in this marriage. Deeply.
But something had gone wrong. And on the night of August 15, it went very wrong.
When investigators finally searched the house, they found the hard drive had been ripped clean out of the home computer. Perry claimed someone must have broken in and stolen just the hard drive. They also noticed that Perry had replaced the tires on Janet's car after it turned up abandoned at a nearby apartment complex — perfectly good tires, the tire company said. When asked why, Perry told them he just wanted a different brand.
Then came the phone call. After Perry moved to Chicago, he was speaking with Janet's family when he suddenly asked whether they thought he had killed her. Before they could answer, he elaborated — asking what they might say if he told them he had put her body in the back of her car, driven away while the children slept alone in the house, and come back like nothing had happened.
They never spoke to him again.
Perry eventually fled to Mexico with the couple's two children. It took nearly a decade — legal battles, a civil wrongful death suit, a $113 million jury verdict, a secret grand jury proceeding with 59 witnesses — before an indictment finally came down. Perry was arrested, deported, and flown back to Nashville. Within days of arriving at Davidson County Jail, he approached a fellow inmate about having Janet's parents killed. The inmate went straight to his attorney.
At trial, Perry's own father testified against him. Arthur March told the court that Perry had killed Janet with a wrench during an argument. Weeks later, the two men had driven her body to Bowling Green, Kentucky, where Arthur disposed of it in some brush. Investigators took Arthur back to Bowling Green to search. He couldn't remember exactly where.
Perry March was convicted and sentenced to 56 years. Arthur died in federal prison.
Janet's body has never been found.
(Source: The Nashville Scene)
