Endgame

0:00Music

0:16There's actually a lot of people out there that think they got away with murder. This is an absolutely ideal place to live. But the beauty of a cold case unit is that in some cases, we're just one step behind you. We're never going to give up. As a detective, you can't do that. My name is Papastiglione. I'm a sergeant in Metro Nashville Homicide Cold Case Unit. My name is Bill Pridmore. I'm a detective assigned to the Homicide Cold Case Unit. And we're working on the Janet March case. Perry March was an attorney in Nashville. Janet was an aspiring artist. She had two children. She was reported missing to the police on August the 29th, 1996.

1:00At one point, they probably had a good marriage. She adored him. At one point, they were probably a loving family. Janet was really a wonderful mother. At one point, they probably had a pretty bright future. Things changed drastically in the blink of an eye. She was going to take a vacation. Initially, Perry's story made sense. His story was she went on a vacation, and she was going to be back. And she said, see ya. And she started her Volvo, and she drove off. The further along the investigation went, didn't make much sense. This was not a woman that would ever leave her children. Within days of her reported disappearance, his actions became suspicious.

1:43He would not consent to any police interview. We believe that Perry killed Janet March the 9 of August the 15th, 1996, between 8 and 9 p.m. With the kids upstairs. To sleep. There is no evidence that anything has happened to Janet. Metro police have searched high and low for Janet March. Prosecuting someone without a body is not an easy thing.

2:12Perry moved to Mexico with his children. He got married. I've told the children the truth, that mommy left home, we don't know what happened to her, it's very sad, but that's the truth. Perry believed that he outsmarted us. It was pretty clear that he thought he was sitting pretty. I love it here. His arrogance was almost like him laughing at us. I have a great family, I had a great dog. Every single day, we worked on it, every single day. And I think after nine years, we didn't feel like the information was going to get any better. And this attorney and ourselves decided, hey, this is as good as it gets.

2:53Let's go ahead and do it. Let's take a shot.

3:15After nearly nine years since the disappearance of Janet March, we today are announcing the arrest of her husband Perry March. Mr. March, how does it feel to be back in Nashville? Anything you want to say? As he walks into a Nashville courthouse to be booked on charges of murder, there's no telling what's going through the mind of Perry March. He might already be looking ahead to his next move, Or he might be looking back on the series of events stretching back 20 years that have led up to this moment. Back to the day he married Janet Levine. Hi. Back to the birth of his son Sammy. Who has the camera?

3:58And his daughter Zippy. Back to the night nine years ago when his wife Janet disappeared forever. back to the day he became the lead suspect in her murder. Mr. Marsh, do you understand that you do have two indictments here? Yes. And back to the day he fled with his children to Mexico to live happily ever after. And you do understand the charges on the indictment, is that correct? Fairly well. Thank you, ma 'am. Is it finally over for Perry March? Up to now, he's always managed to outmaneuver everyone. Now he's about to try again and make a move that will change everything. A move that will finally reveal the truth about what happened that summer evening in 1996 when his wife Janet disappeared.

4:51That night, did you kill your wife? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. Perry March, who first spoke with us in 2002, has never wavered in his account of that night. The worst I'm guilty of is letting my wife walk out of my house. March said after he put their two children to bed, he and Janet began to argue. You know, it's the kind of argument that you have when you're both tired of the arguments. His wife was going away, Perry March says, for 12 days. She'd be back on August 27th, just in time for their son Sammy's sixth birthday. And she had prepared a list for me of a lot of things that needed to be done.

5:32I changed the light bulbs, balanced my checkbook, cleaned the basement, you know, just a varied list of things that I had seemed to have dropped the ball on over the course of my ten years with her. And she made me sign her list that I would have these things done when she got back, and she said, see ya. As the last indication I've ever had of Janet was the driveway sensor beeping. He said she got angry, she packed some bags, and she left in the car. At midnight, March called Janet's parents, Larry and Carolyn Levine. What did you think? I said, Perry, don't worry about it. I'm sure if you had an argument, she's upset.

6:12She's probably driving around to cool off and she'll be back. Call me when she comes home. But Janet didn't come back in the morning. Did you become worried at that point? Yes. Was she the kind of woman who would disappear for a stretch at a time? Never in her life. Never. I mean, there's nothing that I've ever known in Janet to say that she would ever leave. When they found out, Janet's friends became worried as well. That's just not who she is. She wasn't a flighty person. I mean, she's the kind of person you say she was one of a kind. She had a wonderful sense of humor. She was very, very funny.

6:49And she was very, very talented. Shockingly talented. What kind of plans did she have for her life? Her kids. Marriage, a home, a family, an art career. The Levines had watched their daughter fulfill those plans one by one. In 1987, she married her college boyfriend, Perry March. Was she in love with him? Oh, yeah. Oh, absolutely. Janet and Perry began building a life together, settling just a few miles from her parents. I cared about him a lot, an awful lot. Janet loved him, and we wanted to do everything we could to help him. Janet's parents did help him. Larry Levine paid Perry March's way through law school and later hired him to work in his law firm.

7:35He treated me as a confidant and as a son. Meanwhile, Janet devoted herself to a promising art career and her two children, Sammy and Zippy. And she was very close to her children. This is Zippy's little soft tummy. Somehow, Janet also managed to find the time to build a new house for her family. She had designed it totally herself. This was her dream home. Janet was living the life she dreamed of. This was her home. This is where Janet was. This was her life. So for someone to say she chose to leave is ludicrous. This was so unusual. This was not anything Janet would have done. She didn't come back the next day?

8:19No. Were you worried? I felt that if she didn't make it back the first night, that maybe she was really at a hotel, you know, kind of luxuriating quietly. You thought this was just some... Stunt. Couple days. But after another day went by, Perry March says he became worried enough to call his father, Arthur, who was living in Mexico. He said, Dad, Janet's left. Would you come up and help me watch the kids until she gets back? A few days later, Arthur March arrived, and still no word. People then really got worried when she didn't show up for Sammy's birthday. At that point, I knew that Janet was dead.

9:00How did you know that? Because she would never, ever not come to her son's party. That's when I was panicked, because wild horses would not keep her from that birthday party. Yet for all their worrying, neither Perry March nor Janet's parents called the police until two weeks after Janet disappeared. Carolyn and Larry would not let me report it. They were very concerned that if we reported something to the authorities, it would end up embarrassing Janet. But Larry and Carolyn Levine say it was Perry March who didn't want to call the police. Perry insisted he didn't want to go to the police. He wanted to go see a private investigator.

9:42They say they wanted to go to the authorities, and you're the one who insisted that they not go to the authorities. Well, all I can say to you is that that's an outright lie. Why did it take you two weeks? That's my mistake. That's my mistake because I was living with these people. I love these people. It was the biggest mistake we ever made, but Perry kept telling us, you know, maybe she went here, maybe she went there. He told us a story. He told, you know, he said... And unfortunately, I believed him. We believed him. I believed him, but I guess I was suspicious. Carolyn Levine couldn't help thinking about the conversation she had with Janet on the day she disappeared.

10:21She asked me to go with her the next day to see a divorce lawyer. I was concerned for her marriage. It never occurred to me that I should be concerned for her life.

10:55Well, initially what we had was a case of a man saying that his wife had left and had not returned.

11:08At first, Nashville Detective Mickey Miller treated Janet March's disappearance like any other missing persons case. The first thing we did was start checking credit card accounts and things of that nature. Did Janet March leave any kind of trail at all? Nothing. Then, just a week into the investigation, police found Janet's car. It was in this area right here. Parked in an apartment complex just a few miles from the March house. Well, we found a lot of her personal effects, including her passport. This was no longer just a missing persons case. This morning the Levine family and their friends posted a$25 ,000 reward for information leading to the location of Ms.

11:53March or her body. Now it was a homicide investigation. We just don't believe that she left that house of her own accord. And the prime suspect was Perry March. Is there anyone else you're looking at as a suspect in this case sir? Not at this time. But the fact that Janet wasn't reported missing for two weeks was working against them. It gives somebody, whoever committed this crime, a chance to dispose of the body that would make it difficult to locate. And of course, you lose evidence with time. Police searched the March house from top to bottom. We vacuumed all the floors. We collected the vacuum bags out of the vacuums that belonged here.

12:31We even processed these hardwood floors for fingerprints and palm prints. But it was what police didn't find that bothered them the most. One of the items specified in the search warrant was a computer inside the home. Perry said that when Janet left that she had typed out a note, basically a contract between the two of them for him to sign. That list was practically the only piece of evidence that backed up Perry's story. But the police didn't believe him. In fact, they wanted to see the computer hard drive because they believed it would show that Perry, not Janet, had written the list. Problem was, the hard drive was missing.

13:12Someone else had gotten to it first. Did you remove the hard drive on your computer? Absolutely not. Did somebody you know remove it? Well, there's two people who are high on my list that could have removed it, people that I know. One of them is Larry Levine and the other one is my father. Perry March's father, Arthur, was staying at the March house shortly after Janet disappeared. Did you take the hard drive out of his computer? I don't even know what a hard drive is. As for Larry Levine, did you take the hard drive out of Perry March's computer? Absolutely not. I had nothing to gain by trying to get at it.

13:47Meanwhile, police were also concerned about something else they didn't find, the tires on Perry March's car. Six days after Janet disappeared, March replaced the tires with new ones. Did the tires need changing? Not according to the tire company. In fact, they questioned why the tires were being changed and Perry said that he just didn't like the type of tires that were on the car at the time. He wanted a different brand. As investigators struggled to come up with enough evidence to charge Perry March, he stopped cooperating with the police. They couldn't find some other reason to explain Janet's being missing.

14:24They couldn't find anything. And therefore, it must be me.

14:32Then he packed up and moved to Chicago, taking with him his two children, Sammy and Zippy. I'm worried about how they're going to be raised. I'm worried about the values that he's going to bring to these children. Would you folks like to comment on anything? The Levines immediately filed for visitation rights with their two grandchildren. Any comment, Perry? But March fought them for two years. I asked her how much visitation she wanted. I'm hoping this will be a great day. Carolyn Levine told me that she wanted my children 365 days a year, 24 hours a day. Watch yourself, Michael. Then, in 1999, once the Levines were granted visitation rights, Perry March was nowhere to be found.

15:23Why did you move to Mexico? I moved to Mexico because I needed to get the hell out of Dodge and start a new life and get out of their clutches. He and the children were already far away, in Ajijic, the Mexican town his father Arthur Arthur had retired two years earlier. What's not to love? Sky's blue, the beer's cold, and the Mexicans are warm. Can you ask for anything more? Arthur March, Perry March. Father and son living here in this Mexican paradise.

16:10One year later, Perry March and his children moved into this house, along with his new bride, Carmen Rojas, and her three kids. He's a great husband. He's sweet. He's perfect. He's perfect for me. Oh, you beat that. There were still no criminal charges against Perry March. Do you think your son is being unfairly accused? Oh. Is the Pope Catholic? But that's not what Janet's parents believed. How certain are you that he's the killer? One hundred percent. Unconditionally positive. No doubt. Not even the slightest. How far will you go in your pursuit of Perry March? As far as we have to go. The Levines won a wrongful death suit against their son-in-law, and then showed up in Mexico with legal papers, granting them visitation rights to see their grandchildren.

17:05How do you have children live with a man who took their mother away from them? But before Perry March showed up to try and stop them, the Levines took their grandchildren to Nashville and fought for permanent custody. My children had been kidnapped. Their victory was short-lived. Thanks to an international treaty, a federal judge forced the Levines to send the children back to Perry March.

17:34Do you ever feel like you're caught in the middle? A lot. It's no fun, is it? No. Reunited back in Mexico, Perry March and his family had a lot to celebrate. And with the birth of our daughter, Azul, it couldn't be better. It really couldn't be better. But Perry March and his family were totally unaware of what was brewing for him back in Nashville. What he didn't realize was that we were closing in on him.

18:27The truth though is that I love it here.

18:34My kids adore it here. I have a wonderful wife and a new family, and I have moved forward. Perry March may want to forget the past. It's all belief, absolutely, that he thought he got away with murder. But Pat Postiglione is determined to make sure he spends the rest of his life remembering it. And whether it's nine years, nine months, or nine days, it doesn't matter. We're just one step behind you. Sergeant Postiglione and his partner, Bill Pridemore, of Nashville's Cold Case Squad, took over the case six years after Janet disappeared. When we became involved in 2002, we had basically circumstantial evidence.

19:22Evidence such as the missing hard drive, Perry March changing his tires six days after Janet went missing. Those things and his lack of cooperation convinced detectives March had killed his wife. I haven't done anything and there's no evidence I've done anything. But detectives still had one major obstacle. Do we have a body? No, we don't have a body. Do we have anything that indicates she's dead? Blood, for example. We had nothing like that. Larry and Carolyn Levine had never given up. I'd like to rescue my grandchildren from a person who I believe killed my daughter. They have been relentless in trying to get custody of Sammy and Zippy and justice for Janet.

20:06I want to know where my daughter is. I don't even know where she's buried. I don't even know if he cut her up in pieces. Years go by and now the case is eight years old. The detectives decided it was time. We didn't want to wait too much longer. The leads are beginning to dwindle. Let's take a shot. And that's what they did. In December 2004, a secret grand jury indicted Perry March for murder.

20:36And as it turns out, the Mexican authorities were also building a case against him for visa fraud and they were eager to cooperate. They kicked him out, turning him over to the FBI, who transported him here to Los Angeles. Perry March was finally back on U.S. soil. We're here this afternoon to announce the arrest of Perry March in connection with the murder of Janet March. Detectives Pridemore and Postiglione escorted him back to Nashville. What was he like on that plane ride? You know, when we got out there, initially he was very timid, very meek. Then he began this conversation in earnest. He wanted to know what you had on him.

21:20Oh yeah. Thought we were just two country cops, country hit cops, going to pick him up, and he was going to find out all he could on that five-hour plane ride. Perry March is coming back, and he's coming back in handcuffs. Mr. March, how does it feel to be back in Nashville? Anything you want to say? Perry March was booked on murder charges. Mr. March, do you understand that you do have two indictments here? Yes. March pleaded not guilty. All right, bring it up, Mr. March. And in the hearing one month later, he was unable to make bond set at a whopping$3 million.

22:08He was then placed in an isolated unit at the county jail to await trial. He gets one hour out of sale time daily. He might not have had much time to socialize, but Perry March, seen here in this jailhouse security video, quickly made an unlikely friend. Russell Matanon Farris. Convicted felon that is not new to the criminal justice system, charged with four violent felonies. Perry March told Farris he had a plan that could solve both of their problems. He starts telling this person how good life is in Mexico, how you, fellow inmate, would enjoy life in Mexico. And then Perry March made one of the biggest mistakes of his life.

22:54He befriends Nate Ferris and solicits him to kill the Levines. That's right. Perry March made a deal with Ferris to kill his in-laws, Larry and Carolyn Levine. Ferris played along, but secretly went to the police. And I can tell you that when he told us that Perry wants me to kill the Levines, we were astounded. Facing attempted murder charges of his own, Ferris agreed to cooperate. This is a typical digital recorder. It's about four inches in length. Detectives gave Ferris a recorder like this one. He would cup it in his hand and he could turn his hand and hold it this way. Hoping to listen in on Perry March's plan to commit double murder.

23:42Over two days' time, Ferris recorded a number of conversations with March. One of the main things I'm worried about Perry is catching both of them together. You know, exactly. I think there's a ton of opportunities when the kids aren't there. When we heard him talk about make sure he do it when the kids are not there, we just found it incredible.

24:24Why would Perry March want the Levines killed? With his hatred of the Levines, he starts calculating how much better his case will be if they were gone. Because they're going to testify against him, obviously. What was Ferris supposed to get out of this? A one-way ticket to the good life in Mexico.

24:50So the deal he makes with Ferris is that if you kill the Levines for me, I'll get you taken care of down in Mexico. Treat you like a king, being on the beach drinking Coronas. And who was going to set him up with the good life? Ah, no tequila? Poquito, sí. Arthur March. Your amor me podría causar la muerte.