Janet Levine March was a 33-year-old children's book illustrator living in Forest Hills with her husband and two children when she vanished in August 1996 and was never seen again. Her husband, Perry March, reported her missing on Aug. 29, 1996, claiming he had last seen her on the night of Aug. 15 after the two argued. Thirty years later, Perry March is serving a 56-year sentence for her murder, but Janet's body has never been recovered.
A Disappearance With No Trace
According to WKRN News 2, Janet March's purse and personal items were left behind in her gray Volvo, which was later found at an apartment complex on Brixworth Lane. Investigators also discovered that the hard drive had been ripped out of the family's home computer. Perry March claimed at the time that Janet had simply packed her bags and driven away, but he offered no explanation for why she would leave her belongings behind.
On Sept. 17, 1996, more than 50 officers and cadets searched the Forest Hills area in a grid formation, and search crews also combed Radnor Lake with divers and cadaver dogs, per the station's report. No trace of Janet was found. Metro Nashville Police Department Public Affairs Manager Don Aaron said Perry had stopped cooperating with the investigation and had become the primary suspect, the outlet reported.
A Father Flees With the Children
In the months after Janet disappeared, Perry March moved with the children to Chicago, and a Cook County judge ordered him to return them there after he failed to do so. Instead, he moved the children from Chicago to Mexico, where he was later awarded permanent custody. Janet's parents, Lawrence and Carolyn Levine, who had once paid Perry's tuition at Vanderbilt University law school, filed a $20 million wrongful death lawsuit against him and also sued under the Hague treaty to bring the children home.
Perry March, in turn, sued his father-in-law Lawrence Levine over alleged professional and financial harm and sought $350,000 in damages. Investigators searched Perry's apartment and Lawrence Levine's law firm as part of the ongoing homicide investigation, which Metro Nashville Police had by then formally ruled a homicide. A court later found that the children were happy and well-adjusted and had not been abused by their father, and Perry March said he was grateful to regain custody of his children and confidence in the judicial system. Janet was declared legally dead in 1999, and her parents were awarded visitation rights by a judge. Janet missed her son's birthday and her children's first day of school in the years that followed.
The Murder-for-Hire Plot
While the custody battle played out, Perry March's father, Arthur March, brought the children back from Mexico to visit their grandparents. But Arthur March would later become a central figure in the criminal case against his own son. According to WKRN News 2, Perry March offered to help a man named Russell Ferris post bond if Ferris would kill the Levines, giving Ferris the couple's address. Arthur March, for his part, told Ferris where to get a gun and how to reach the Levines' home in Mexico.
Ferris wore a wire during the plot, which fell apart before anyone was harmed. Arthur March was detained by an FBI agent at the airport, while his son remained in Mexico as a fugitive. Detective Pat Postiglione presented murder evidence against Perry to a grand jury in 2004, according to the Nashville Scene, and the grand jury indicted him on charges of second-degree murder, tampering with evidence, and abuse of a corpse. Postiglione later escorted Perry March from Mexico back to the United States to face trial.
An Admission Mid-Flight
During that August 2005 extradition flight from Los Angeles to Nashville, Perry March told Postiglione he was open to a plea bargain of five to seven years for what he called “the Janet incident,” and repeatedly pressed detectives about whether they had direct or physical evidence against him, the Nashville Scene reported. The remark stood in stark contrast to March's long-held public claim that his wife had simply left.
Court and law enforcement records reviewed by the Tennessee Bar Association show Janet had scheduled an Aug. 16, 1996 consultation with a divorce attorney, the day after she was last seen, after discovering Perry had attempted to seduce a married paralegal at a previous law firm and was making settlement payments tied to the matter. Perry March had already been disbarred by the Tennessee Supreme Court in July 2000 over complaints that he pocketed legal fees owed to his firm, filed false court statements, and failed to turn over client records, and in April 2006 he was separately convicted in Davidson County of grand larceny for stealing at least $10,000 from Lawrence Levine's law firm.
Father Testifies Against Son
Perry March's murder trial began a decade after Janet's disappearance, in 2006. Arthur March, who had taken a plea deal on murder-conspiracy charges and was sentenced to five years in prison, testified that his son killed Janet and disposed of her body in a bag. According to a 2006 deposition cited by the Nashville Scene, Arthur March said Perry beat Janet to death with a wrench, wrapped her body in an oriental rug, and placed her in a 50-to-60-pound leaf bag. Arthur said he helped move Janet's body to Bowling Green, Kentucky and bury it with her clothes near Interstate 65.
Arthur March died just three months into his prison sentence. Perry March was convicted on all charges connected to Janet's death and was sentenced to 56 years, a term structured as 30 years for second-degree murder and 24 years for two counts of solicitation to commit first-degree murder, plus two years for evidence tampering and abuse of a corpse, all to be served consecutively, according to the Tennessee Bar Association. The Levines were later awarded $113,500,000 in damages in a related civil judgment.
Decades of Appeals, No Remains
Perry March filed multiple appeals of his convictions, but all were denied. The Tennessee Supreme Court denied his final request to appeal in July 2011, exhausting his state-level options. He is serving his sentence at Morgan County Correctional Complex. Janet March's remains have never been found.
March has continued to file legal challenges from behind bars. In February 2017, he filed a pro se federal lawsuit exceeding 200 pages against the Tennessee Department of Correction and food provider Aramark, alleging his kosher prison diet violated his religious rights, according to WBIR-TV. Corrections officials also transferred March to a different facility in August 2015 following internal security investigations into rumors of an alleged escape plot, per a report cited by Wikipedia. Thirty years after Janet March walked out of her Forest Hills home for the last time, her family still has no grave to visit.
