Love, Lies, and Murder (4 page)

Perry and Janet’s second child, Tzipi, was born in 1994, and it was during that time frame that they were making plans to build the 5,300-square-foot Forest Hills French-style dream house, which Janet had designed. Even though they had known that it had been several years since Janet had been truly happy in her marriage, Janet’s parents once again put up the money to finance the deal for the house. At the time of Janet’s disappearance they continued to hold the note for the approximately $650,000 home. Janet had purportedly confided to her parents that she no longer trusted Perry, and alleged that he had “badly mismanaged their money.” In part, because her father was an attorney, the Levines thought it prudent that Janet keep all of her assets in her own name, and so advised her as such, just in case she decided to file for divorce at some point in the future.

Arthur March didn’t recall for certain the exact date that he arrived in Nashville, following Perry’s telephone call to him after Janet disappeared, but he believed he arrived on either August 21 or August 22. Since Perry had called him on the evening of August 18, a Sunday, the time frame of his recollection would fit. Even if he had left the very next day, it is an approximate four-day drive from the Lake Chapala area of Mexico to Nashville. At any rate, Perry and his father were seen driving around Nashville in Arthur’s Ford Escort station wagon during that time frame. Arthur had purportedly come to help Perry take care of the children, until Perry and his in-laws could decide what to do about reporting Janet’s disappearance to the police. Perry still insisted that he had recommended that the police should be informed, all the while claiming that the Levines did not wish to take that route just yet.

Meanwhile, Perry had been telling everyone that Janet had planned to return home so that she would not miss her son’s sixth birthday party on August 27. What Perry may have overlooked before the RSVPs for the birthday party started coming back was the fact that Janet had planned Sammy’s birthday party for Sunday, August 25, not for Tuesday, August 27, as Perry had been telling everyone. If Janet had planned to come back from her “vacation” in time for Sammy’s birthday party, she should have told Perry that she would be back in ten days, not twelve.

Nonetheless, Janet had planned Sammy’s birthday party for August 25, and Perry and the Levines were forced to deal with it. It was scheduled to be held at Fannie Mae Dees Park, located on Blakemore Avenue, and referred to by Vanderbilt area residents as the so-called “Dragon Park,” because of a sea serpent built there twenty years ago by Pedro Silva. The
Sea Serpent
is a structure that the children can climb on, and it depicts hundreds of various designs, such as birds, faces, aliens, flowers, and so forth, each made out of chipped tiles that were painted by area artists. Dolly Parton’s image can be found on one of the dragon’s tiles, as can local civic leader Fannie Mae Dees, the park’s namesake. Janet apparently chose that park because it was clean and suitable for children, and because it was not far from their Forest Hills home.

Due to the fact that many of Sammy’s friends, as well as their parents, had been invited, and the fact that so many had responded that they would attend, Perry and Janet’s parents knew that it would be difficult to call it off on such short notice. Instead, they agreed to tell everyone that Janet had remained in California visiting her brother, Mark, due to an ear infection that could cause her problems on the flight home. It was better, they said, if Janet waited until the infection had completely cleared up before attempting the flight back to Nashville. The invented story to explain away Janet’s absence apparently was believed by everyone in attendance that day, and the party went off without a hitch.

Finally, on Thursday, August 29, exactly two weeks to the day from when Janet disappeared, Perry and Janet’s parents went to the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department (MNPD) and reported that Janet Levine March was missing. Perry told the police officer who took the report basically the same account of the events of August 15 that he had been telling everyone else. He also provided details of Janet’s gray four-door 1996 Volvo 850, with Tennessee license plates numbered 844-CBD, which, he said, Janet had driven away on the night she left their home for her supposed twelve-day vacation.

David Miller, Metro’s veteran homicide/missing person detective, caught the assignment. Miller investigated 1,244 missing-person cases in all of Davidson County in 1996, and he solved all of them, except for that of Janet March. He didn’t know it at the time, of course, but he would be only one of several investigators who would work the Janet March case. Detective Tim Mason, of homicide, and forensic specialist Sergeant Johnny Hunter would assist him at the outset.

Among the first things that Miller did as he began his investigation of Janet March’s disappearance was to obtain her bank and credit card information. He needed it to determine whether Janet had withdrawn cash, written checks, or had made any charge card purchases during the two weeks that she had been missing. He learned within a short time that there had been no activity on any of Janet’s accounts—certainly not a good sign from a homicide investigator’s perspective.

As Miller and his coinvestigators began talking to Janet and Perry’s friends, of whom there were several, a picture of two highly intelligent—but very different—people began to emerge. Perry was described as a practical man who brimmed with self-confidence and possessed strong common sense. He was also arrogant and, at times, seemed boastful of his intelligence. Janet, on the other hand, was regarded as somewhat flighty, often late for appointments because she had either forgotten about them or had overslept—her attitude seemed to be “oh, well,” but her friends seemed to accept her quirks. They both enjoyed their work—Janet, with her paintings and sketches, and the jobs she took on as illustrator for children’s books; and Perry, with his legal work and his active involvement as a board member of the Jewish Community Center, for which he sometimes did legal favors pro bono. Janet could be enjoying the pool at the Jewish Community Center with her kids one moment, then dashing off to Chicago for a spur-of-the-moment shopping trip the next.

Janet had also been exhibiting traits that indicated to her friends that she might have been depressed in the weeks prior to her disappearance. Even though she had most everything that a person could want—a beautiful home that she designed, two beautiful children—Sammy had many of Perry’s features and Tzipi had Janet’s—her friends suggested that she may have felt that something was missing in her life. But no one really knew for sure what was bothering Janet. Even though she had a close circle of friends, she did not confide in them with many details about her personal life. Their friends suggested to the police that Perry had been spending more and more time away from home in recent months, and it seemed, at times, that he had become bored with Janet. Employees at the Jewish Community Center told
Nashville Scene
reporter Willy Stern that Perry had been showing up so often to take part in aerobic workouts and weight lifting that they thought he was single.

Several people told the police investigators that Perry had been seen around town with other women in the months prior to Janet’s disappearance. One person claimed to have seen him leaving a local cinema with an attractive blond woman, walking arm in arm. Another person reported seeing him enjoying dinner in an intimate setting at Bound’ry restaurant, on Twentieth Avenue, near Broadway and Division, with an attractive brunette. The Bound’ry has an alfresco setting when weather permits, and offers an unusually large menu that ranges from crayfish-stuffed trout to Australian ostrich marinated in sweet pomegranate molasses. It was a restaurant that both Perry and Janet favored—Janet was seen there in the company of several of her girlfriends two nights before she disappeared. Perry explained his sightings with other women as business-related socialization and that he was acting no differently than anyone else in his profession would behave.

In the early part of August, barely two weeks before Janet disappeared, Perry had begun spending nights away from home, without Janet. He had asked one of his clients if he could rent a spare condominium, which he knew the client owned, but it was not available for when he needed it. As a result, Perry ended up staying for a few nights at a Hampton Inn, located near Vanderbilt University, and a few nights at a Budgetel Inn, on Lenox Avenue. Detectives Miller and Mason questioned employees at the hotels, and even though Perry admitted to them that he had spent several nights at each of the hotels, they issued subpoenas to obtain the records from both hotels. Perry told the police that he did not leave home on the nights in question until after Sammy and Tzipi had gone to bed, and he always made sure that he returned home by 7:00
A.M.
Because of the fact that Perry had been spending nights away from home, it seemed to the detectives that his relationship with Janet had become worse. Perry explained that he was often unable to sleep at home, presumably because of his by-now poor relationship with Janet, and that he had gone to the hotels merely to be able to get some much-needed sleep.

Had Perry and Janet talked about getting a divorce? The detectives wanted to know.

Perry acknowledged their marital problems, and the fact that he and Janet had been seeing a local psychiatrist—occasionally together and sometimes separately—in an attempt to work out their problems. He also said that they had mentioned divorce as a possible solution, but that they had not talked about it seriously. A number of people, mostly friends, claimed that Perry and Janet had been working on a list of issues through the psychiatrist. According to the friends, Perry resented Janet for pressure that he received from her and others to change so that Janet would be happier. Janet had told friends that Perry had never fully gotten over his mother’s untimely death and that he had carried that issue into their marriage and it had caused problems for them. She had also complained that she had taken the greater share of responsibility for their children while Perry went out and wined and dined his clients. It was never clear, however, whether or not they had taken the subject of divorce to the next level; but one person, Deneane Beard, who cleaned the house for Perry and Janet two to three times per week, told the police that she had seen a book on the subject of divorce lying on Janet’s nightstand a few months before she disappeared.

Did Perry March have a propensity toward violence? It was a question that the detectives wanted an answer to as they delved into Perry’s past. As a result of their probing, they found a woman who claimed that Perry had assaulted her when they were both undergraduates at the University of Michigan. She claimed that he had struck her in the face with his fist during a sudden and unexpected moment of jealousy. The
Nashville Scene
interviewed the woman, as well as many other people during their search to learn the truth about Perry March. They interviewed Perry as well, and published his account of that situation.

“She was a slut,” Perry told the
Scene.
He denied that the incident had occurred. “I fucked her for a few months. Then she came back from vacation, told me she had the crabs, and I dumped her. . . . If anybody else had been subjected to the kind of scrutiny I’ve received . . . you’d find people to say unpleasant things about them as well.” The woman told Willy Stern that she and Perry had never had sex, and she had not reported the incident to the police or to campus security. She apparently had felt that it was important to come forward when news about Janet’s mysterious disappearance began hitting all of the area newspapers. Perry, on the other hand, told the reporter that he was contemplating suing the woman for slander.

Detective Miller, a soft-spoken man, asked Perry point-blank if he had killed his wife and disposed of her body. Perry adamantly denied having harmed Janet in any way. He admitted that he and Janet had argued on the night of August 15, but he said that he had not attacked her. She simply took the things that she had packed and drove away in her Volvo.

“Look at me,” Perry said at one point. “On August 15, 1996, I was a respected Jewish lawyer in Nashville. I had it all. A beautiful wife. Two wonderful kids. Gorgeous home. I was a go-to guy in the Jewish community and the business community. I was making good money. Now, my wife has left me.”

Later, Perry would go on-camera on CBS News’
48 Hours
and tell a national television audience: “Janet was a wonderful mother. Very doting.”

It seemed strange how he referred to her in the past tense.

On Saturday, September 7, 1996, just as the investigation into Janet March’s disappearance seemed like it wasn’t going anywhere fast, residents at Brixworth Apartments, after seeing news reports about the missing woman and her car, reported that Janet’s Volvo had been discovered in the parking lot at the large apartment complex. Brixworth Apartments is located on Brixworth Lane and Harding Road in the prestigious Belle Meade area of Nashville, not far from Vanderbilt and Belmont universities. The complex, only minutes from downtown, consisted of one- and two-bedroom apartments and townhomes, and was 6.6 miles from Perry and Janet’s Forest Hills home. The police later estimated that it was about a thirteen-minute drive from Blackberry Road to the location where Janet’s car had been found.

Detectives David Miller and Tim Mason wasted little time getting to the apartment complex. They brought along Sergeant Johnny Hunter for his forensic expertise, which would be needed as they began to process the car for possible clues that might shed some light on what had happened to Janet. It was obvious from the accumulation of weather-induced dirt on and around the car that it had not been moved recently. It actually looked abandoned, like it had been there for weeks.

Although there was no sign of thirty-three-year-old Janet March at the scene, several of her personal effects, including her purse, passport, and wallet with credit cards, were found inside the car. The investigators also found several articles of clothing that a person might take with them if they were going on a vacation: a bikini swimming suit, three sundresses, and two pairs of white socks. There didn’t appear to be anything, however, to positively indicate her fate.

It wasn’t so much what they found inside the car that interested them—it was the essential personal effects that should have been packed as part of the vacation scenario that were missing that bothered them. Janet’s toothbrush, her hairbrush, and even an extra bra were missing from her things. It didn’t take a sharp detective to know that these kinds of items would be essential to pack and bring along for an extended vacation. A person planning a trip just wouldn’t have left home without them, they reasoned. But what bothered the investigators most was a pair of Janet’s sandals they found in the front of the car. They were on the driver’s-side floorboard, lined up and neatly placed there, rather than simply dropped. It didn’t seem likely that a person who had taken off their shoes would go to the trouble of placing them there so neatly—they would instead likely have just kicked them off and let them fall where they may. The positioning of Janet’s sandals seemed like an important clue, and the detectives noted it as such. Miller ordered that the vehicle be impounded and towed to a secure location, where it could be gone over more thoroughly for clues.

Meanwhile, Miller and the other investigators became even more skeptical of why Perry and the Levines would wait so long before reporting Janet missing. Captain Mickey Miller, no relation to Detective David Miller, voiced his skepticism publicly at one point.

“Within two weeks, you got a lot of time to get rid of a body,” Captain Miller said. “A lot of crucial evidence is gone [by that time].”

At the investigation’s outset Perry remained cooperative and allowed Detectives Miller and Mason, as well as Sergeant Hunter, into his house so that they could search it, to perform at least a cursory examination of the house’s interior. They went through the labyrinth of concealed closets, cubbyholes, every nook and cranny that Janet had carefully designed that way for reasons that could only be explained by her quirkiness, but the house appeared spotless and there weren’t any obvious signs that an act of foul play had occurred there. The only clue seemed to be that there were no clues. Even the cleaning lady, Deneane Beard, told the police that the house seemed particularly spotless when she came to clean after Janet disappeared.

“It was almost as if somebody had already scrubbed the place and emptied the trash,” she said.

In a moment of idle speculation Detective Miller opined that there was not much of a chance that Janet’s body would ever be recovered. He stated that if her corpse had been placed inside a Dumpster two weeks before she was reported missing, it would have already been taken to a landfill by the time the detectives began their investigation. Spokespersons for the local garbage services confirmed what Miller had said, that many area Dumpsters, particularly those at restaurants and at construction sites, are emptied regularly, often daily, and that the chances of recovering a body after it had been deposited in a landfill, where refuse is sometimes burned, were practically nonexistent.

Approximately one week later, a group of construction workers that had been completing a project called Crater Hill, located in close proximity to the March residence, contacted Detective Miller to report that they had noticed a strong, foul odor in the area during the week of September 8. It was a very distinctive odor, like that of something or someone that had died and was decomposing. By that time they, like the residents at the Brixworth Apartments, had seen news reports about Janet March’s disappearance, and—given that the odor was in the area of her home—they had felt compelled to contact the police about it.

When the detectives returned and asked Perry if they could search his house and property again, he refused. They also asked him if he would be willing to take a polygraph examination and answer questions about his wife’s disappearance. On the advice of an attorney that he had retained, Perry refused that request as well. He stated through his attorney that his psychiatrist had prescribed Xanax and Zoloft for him to help relieve anxiety and that a polygraph examination wouldn’t be advisable under those conditions. Because any antianxiety medication had the potential to affect his heart rate, one of the measures used in a lie-detector test to determine whether a person is being truthful or not, the results of any such test would be invalidated. Again the investigators were skeptical. They didn’t know when Perry had started the regimen of medication, whether it coincided with him being scrutinized as a possible suspect in Janet’s disappearance or whether he had been taking the medications for some time. They also knew that because of doctor and patient confidentiality rules, it might be difficult to find out unless Perry was willing to tell them himself. It seemed plausible at that time that Perry had been taking the medication for a while, and they had no choice but to give him the benefit of the doubt. They didn’t know at that time, of course, that he would later tell other people that he did not take prescription medication.

It was at about that point in the investigation that detectives began scrutinizing the “to do” list that Perry had said that Janet left for him. They obtained written materials that Janet had typed, and compared them with the list that she purportedly left for Perry. The list, they immediately noticed, was written using a combination of uppercase and lower-case letters, like a person would normally write a document that required a capital letter at the beginning of a sentence. It was in a style that was not consistent with the way Janet typed—she normally used only lower-case letters, even at the start of a new sentence, like many people use when sending an e-mail. Janet’s “to do” list, on the other hand, was very consistent with the style that Perry used when he wrote out lists or correspondence. The detectives also noted that Perry normally dated his written material at the bottom of the page, like Janet’s “to do” list had been dated, whereas Janet normally dated her written material at the top of the page.

By this point in their investigation, Detective Miller and Detective Mason had learned about Marissa Moody’s visit to the March residence on the morning of August 16 to drop off her son to play with Sammy. In part, because Janet’s “to do” list had made no mention of the fact that she had made plans with Marissa that particular day, it was decided that Detective Mason would interview her. Mason conducted his interview with her on Saturday, September 14, 1996.

Marissa told the detective the details of her Friday-morning visit, and said that she had spoken to Janet the night before to make the plans—the night that Janet supposedly left after leaving the list for Perry.

Perry, on the other hand, claimed that it was he, not Janet, who had made the plans with Marissa to bring her son over to his house to play with Sammy, a statement that obviously conflicted with Marissa’s.

She reiterated the events that transpired that morning—how she spoke with Ella, the nanny, and had come inside the house to speak with Perry, but ended up only talking to Sammy as he bounced up and down on the dark-colored Oriental rug that was rolled up and lying in an area near Perry’s study and the children’s playroom. She stated that she didn’t think the rug seemed to belong there, and that when she returned to pick up her son a few hours later, the rug was gone.

It was a chilling thought, but after speaking with Marissa, the homicide detectives suspected that Janet’s 104-pound body might have been concealed inside the rolled-up rug, and that her five-year-old son may have been bouncing up and down on his mother’s corpse! They couldn’t prove it, but it seemed a distinct possibility based on what they were hearing.

Perry told the police investigators and a number of other people that the rug Marissa Moody claimed that she saw never existed. Perry said that she was mistaken, that she never even came inside the house that day. Similarly, Ella, the children’s nanny, said that she did not recall ever seeing the rug in question. Deneane Beard, who had come by to do her routine cleaning on the morning of Marissa’s visit, told the police that she was there for two hours doing her work and that she had not seen the rug, either. But Perry, she said, had told her not to clean the children’s playroom that morning, which was just behind the area where Marissa claimed that she had seen the rug. Since Deneane had left prior to Marissa’s arrival, the detectives considered that it was possible that the rug had been inside the children’s playroom all along and that Perry had moved it from there into the hallway prior to Marissa’s arrival. After all, according to Janet’s “to do” list, Perry hadn’t known that Marissa was coming over that day.

At one point the
National Enquirer
would report that it had learned of a secret witness who came forward with information claiming that she believed that she had seen Perry March disposing of his wife’s body. According to the article, the witness said that she believed she had seen Perry March “place a rolled-up rug with something inside it into a Dumpster.” The witness was purportedly told by the man to “leave it alone. My dead collie is inside. You will get sick.”

Astonishingly, the language that the secret witness had claimed that the man used was similar in nature to item number twenty-one on Janet’s “to do” list, which read: “Clean-up garbage area—children will get sick.”

Perry would later tell
48 Hours
that the only rug he owned that even remotely resembled an Oriental rug was a long, thin runner. He said on national television that if Janet’s body had been rolled up inside the runner, she would have looked like a small sausage or wiener, the type that can be found rolled up inside a wrapper on an appetizer tray.

Somebody was obviously lying about the rolled-up rug, but Miller, Mason, and Hunter didn’t believe it was Marissa Moody.