Dateline NBC - The Years of Living Dangerously

Episode Date: August 17, 2022

Barbara Bentley is swept off her feet by a retired naval officer. But she is also swept into the swirling tide of his mysterious and secretive life... and a world of subterfuge and intrigue from which it would take decades for her to surface. Dennis Murphy reports in this Dateline classic. Originally aired on NBC on June 7, 2009.

Just because John Wayne supposedly played a character based on your father in the movies, a World War II Admiral hero who whipped into shape the fighting Seabees, it doesn't mean you have to follow in his daunting footsteps. But John Perry, Admiral John Perry, did just that. A Navy man whose badges of honor earned him an enviable kind of all-access backstage pass to life. One that made doors open, sitting presidents salute, and certain women, one in particular, glow to simply be in his company. Barbara Bentley would be swept away by John's ease and command. But she'd also be swept into the swirling tide of his mysterious and secretive life.

A world of subterfuge and intrigue it would take her decades to surface from. Who could have guessed that Barbara's fate would change so utterly with a friend's invitation to drinks and dinner? A friend calls me at work and says, Oh, could you do me a favor? Could you do me a favor? Could you come for the dinner party tonight? I need a fourth for dinner. Barbara was 35 and recently separated from her husband. She'd been on her own for more than a year in California's Bay Area

and was growing more comfortably into the routines of a single woman. I had a good job. I was going to school. So you were really taking care of yourself. Right, right. Your life was in shape. Right, thinking I'm a very independent woman. So when her friend told her the other dinner guest would be a retired Rear Admiral from the Navy, even though Barbara was beat from analyzing samples at the chemical company lab where she worked, she decided to go to join her friend's dinner. Barbara, this is what we call blind dates when we were kids, right? Right. It was a blind date, and I had been warned that he was a little older than me, but that he was a very interesting person. The man she met, John Perry, was every bit of that.

So what did you think of this guy? Well, he was very interesting, a lot of stories. I was fascinated by them. He said his father was Admiral Perry that started the Seabees in World War II, and that his great-grandfather on his mother's side was Admiral Perry that went to the North Pole. Perry dazzled Barbara and the other dinner guests with stories about being shot down in combat as a naval aviator, missions as a Navy SEAL, flying with the Blue Angels, commanding the swift boats in Vietnam. So here's this man with a lot of pedigrees, so to say, and he was interested in me.

When the evening was over, John Perry walked her to her car. Within weeks, they'd made dinner plans, and pretty soon, Barbara and her admiral were a fast-track item. When he came to take me for the theater, he stayed for three days and he never left. You invited him into your life. Right. Barbara's friends could tell she was smitten. You could see the sparkle in her eye. You knew that he was very special to her. I thought, yeah, her ship came in finally. And John Perry's friend Jeff recalls that John was equally intrigued by Barbara. He would talk to me about this lady and I see her as being real in my life, and she was really very exciting to him.

Now with their relationship in full blossom, Barbara could tell that the man sharing her bed was a true war hero. She saw his scars and heard him wake from nightmares calling out the names of his fellow soldiers who'd fallen in combat. It only seemed natural that the man she wanted to spend time with, whose private pain she wanted to ease, would move in with her after a few months. And as John blended into Barbara's social circle, he made quite the impression. When he walked into the room, it's like everybody kind of stopped

because you knew somebody had come in the door. He had a charisma and a presence about him. He came across as someone who knew what he was talking about. He was very authoritative. With such a special man beside her, Barbara's life became richer and more adventurous than she'd ever hoped for. John Perry's work securing government contracts for clients often took him, and now Barbara, out of the country. To the Caribbean, where they soaked up the sun. To Mexico City, where they strolled the markets.

The distinguished retired officer was showing Barbara a new world. The good life of gourmet cuisine, vintage wines, fine art. And she was over the moon with it. You're going out to dinner and you're flying first class. I mean, anybody is going to be whisked off their feet. But, nagging problem, one getting worse. Back in California, the bills were piling up. Their five-star lifestyle was being funded on plastic,

and John's commission checks for his consulting work only trickled in. What's more, Barbara realized that her new companion wasn't just a big spender on the business trips. Fine crystal, rare whiskeys, collectibles were everyday indulgences. John assured her that the mounting bills would be paid off, and then some when he closed on his house. John was selling it to a cousin on a deferred payment plan that seemed unusually generous. He said, there's only one catch. And he was not going to pay me the money for seven years. Seven years? Seven years. And I thought, well, that's strange. I started to talk with him about it. You know, this isn't going to do. And then he would get into his very defensive mode of, well, if you don't like it, I'll just pack my bags and leave.

John's threats to split sent Barbara into a panic. If he left, she'd have to shoulder their debt alone and admit she was a two-time loser in love. So she quickly smoothed things over with John, just as he announced he'd come up with a new plan to solve their money problems. Barbara still owned half of a nice big house with a pool from her marriage. Her ex was living in it temporarily, but John suggested they buy him out and move back in, fix it up, then put it back on the market for a tidy profit.

The mortgage payments would make their budget squeak, but in the end, Barbara agreed. The couple had barely unpacked their boxes when John Perry popped a cork and popped the question. So how did you feel about becoming Mrs. Rear Admiral? Yeah, it had a nice ring to it. I was very, very proud to have him as my husband. Barbara Bentley had told all her friends that someday her prince would come, and he had. Only he turned out to be a retired Navy admiral, and he was asking her to marry. We talked about having maybe a church wedding at the base and having the swords crossed and walking out of the church under the swords.

But Barbara's fiancé, Rear Admiral John Perry, had another idea. He wanted to get married right away down in Tijuana. It would be cheaper for one thing. So Barbara changed mental scenery and envisioned a quaint Mexican chapel lit with candles. But once they got down south of the border, she realized her groom had cooked up something else. We start driving, and all of a sudden, now we're into the poorer part of town and pull up to this dilapidated storefront, and it was the justice of the peace. So I was...

What does the bride think about that? The bride was a little disappointed. You know, it was like, oh, my God, what is going on here? You're getting married in Shantytown, huh? Yeah. Kiss the bride? Very stiffly, yeah. There hadn't even been time to buy rings to slip on each other's fingers

during the dismal, fluorescent-lit quickie service. But Barbara tried to keep smiling through the ceremony and party afterwards. Later at their fancy hotel, it got better. A gilded suite befitting a two-star admiral and his wife. The new Mrs. John Perry posed in a bride's white negligee. But in the everyday reality of back home, something was amiss, and it had to do with John's family, those talented and wealthy people he'd proudly described to Barbara. His astronaut son, his musician daughter, his sister, and most of all, his reclusive grandmother, the matriarch and key to the Perry family fortune.

Funny, Barbara had always heard a lot about them, but never from them, almost as if John was keeping his relatives from her. They always would have telephone calls when I wasn't home, and telephone calls didn't show up on our bill. To reach out to John's family, Barbara sent out photos of the new Mr. and Mrs. Perry. We did some portraits, and I sent the portraits off, and we got the portraits back. No such person at this address. What kind of people would do that?

Why was John's family all but shunning her? His answer was like a slap. Because I was a gold digger. So what did you think about that? It hurt me that they wouldn't want to meet me, because I knew I was a nice person, and I wasn't a gold digger. It didn't matter what they thought, John said, because neither of them would see the Perry Millions anytime soon,

because he was considered the black sheep of the family. A black sheep, Barbara realized, who still spent like a wealthy heir. There was their honeymoon trip to Hawaii, when they wandered into an art gallery featuring paintings by Barbara's childhood fave from TV, the comic Red Skelton. We got involved with one $75,000 painting. How much? $75,000 and one. I thought you were having trouble making the mortgage notes. Right, but John had a story where the company that he was now consulting with, they could lease these paintings until we could get the money from his grandmother. The art purchase came with an invitation to meet the famous entertainer himself.

The experience was one of the highlights of Barbara's life. Doors are opening up to great world travel. You're meeting world-class celebrities, personalities. Yeah, from that I get to go to a reception for Anthony Quinn down in Marina del Rey. Just buy another print? No, that was a statue. But it wasn't long before the proverbial honeymoon was over. For one thing, there had been the slight issue of John's arrest for theft the month before they moved. He says, well, I have some bad news.

I was arrested today, and I owe $4,000 for these four Remington Rand typewriters. John said it was all a big misunderstanding and that he'd worked out a deal with the authorities. The whole matter could be disposed of for $8,000. But where would they get money like that? Why from Barbara's big house? They'd tack an additional loan onto the mortgage. John would co-sign the papers, eventually becoming co-owner of the property. The house turned out to be perfect for entertaining friends and family. Pool parties, barbecues, a photo album full of rich memories,

and John at the center, a model husband. This little puppy's hoping that your birthday will be fun. Playing ball with Barbara's nephew, pampering their beloved dogs, making dinner, giving romantic back rubs in the hot tub. But even those happy times could no longer sugarcoat the harsh reality. John and Barbara were up to their eyeballs in debt. Their cash machine of a house was mortgaged to the hilt, a pile of bills taller than ever. Barbara, growing disheartened, insisted they visit John's grandmother in Florida to try to soften her heart and loosen her purse strings.

But the trip turned out to be an unmitigated disaster. After a frustrating series of cross signals and near misses with the Perrys, Barbara returned home no closer to meeting John's grandmother. There was always this kind of a consternation and dangling, okay, we're going to meet the family. We're going to meet them tomorrow for dinner or they're coming over for coffee. It never happened, huh? No, never happened. The Perry's and their fortune were sounding more and more to Barbara like make-believe.

But she had no doubt about one thing. John was his father's son, top military brass through and through. Through the years, Barbara and her friends had grown accustomed to the perks that came with John Perry's rank. The special luncheons, private tours in roped-off areas that his Navy status allowed them access to. Like during Fleet Week in San Francisco, when, thanks to John, their group was whisked to the exclusive VIP seating area. How we got to sit there, I do not know. But I have never seen so much Navy brass in all my life. I had our own private escort around the ship, got to go into areas where the rest of the public wasn't going. And it's nice to be the Admiral's wife, isn't it? Right, right. Time and again, Barbara had seen doors open for her husband thanks to his military ID,

a document that in typical John Perry fashion was shrouded in mystery. It was not his picture and it was not his name, but he would open that and flash it and we had immediate entrance into any naval facility. What did he say when you said, what's the thing? That's not your photo, it's not your name. He said, that's something very, it's like a CIA thing, you know, and just don't ask about it. It's secret world, but you saw it works. After five years as a couple, Barbara had to accept there were closed off parts to the man she loved that she couldn't peer into. The mysterious military credentials, the elusive family always out of reach. Plus, John always had a plausible answer

for everything, which made Barbara feel foolish for even asking. But little by little, her trust in him was eroding. And now Barbara feared she'd be disappointed again. They were at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis to visit Admiral Perry's grave. Yet John seemed to be having trouble finding his father's headstone. I'm thinking to myself, hmm, is this another time when I'm not going to see the family? But eventually he spies the little hill and he says, I think that's it. And so we parked and we walk up there and sure enough, there's the grave of Rear Admiral Perry. I thought to myself, well, at least I met somebody in the family. Just happens to be dead.

And a year later, Barbara gratefully took it as more proof when John Perry told her he had a big surprise. He says, oh, oh, there's something that came in the mail today. He says, I want to show you. And he goes out and he comes back in with this bag and he dumps out all these little boxes onto the couch. Teary-eyed, John opened up each box and showed Barbara his war medals. The Navy Cross, the Purple Heart, the Distinguished Service Medal, and finally... The last one that he opened up was the Congressional Medal of Honor. And very impressive. Barbara would soon learn that those medals were part of a dangerous and secret game John Perry was playing.

And wives weren't invited. John Perry's medals, framed in a handsome case, now hung on the family room wall among all the other Navy memorabilia he'd taken to collecting. For weddings and special events, John would press his full Navy dress uniform and bring another gleaming medal out of the case to pin to his chest. And there was no grander reason to don his Congressional Medal of Honor than the VIP event John sprung on Barbara seven years into their relationship, an invitation to George Bush's 41st inauguration. We sat in the Congressional Medal of Honor stands, and everybody, including the president, stopped and saluted.

Your husband, among the others. Yes. The incoming president of the United States is saluting John Perry for service to the country. Right. Later, at one of the packed inaugural balls, the crowds parted to let John and his medal pass. Barbara, in her expensive gown and diamonds, never looked happier or more in love than she was that night on the arm of her decorated war hero. But John's medals would also become a

kind of early warning tripwire alarm for events that would place Barbara in acute peril. She calls it her crazy year, and it began with a knock. The most unsettling was that the FBI showed up at my door one day. John wasn't there. She told the agents looking for John to come back later. Closing the door behind them, she went into the family room and noticed a blank space on the wall. John's medals were gone. When John came in, I told him about the FBI and he said, oh, well, that just has to do with that case that

I've been subpoenaed for a grand jury. And then I mentioned the medals and he looked over and he says, oh, he says, well, something happened to the frame and I took it down to the frame shop. But the medals stayed missing. And not long after, John's consulting work mysteriously dried up. And whenever Barbara voiced her concerns, John would blow up, or sulk, or threaten to leave. So she willed herself to believe things were fine and put up a positive front to her friends, who'd started wondering amongst themselves about John Perry, all those stories of his. He said he was a jet pilot, and he was in the Blue Angels. started wondering amongst themselves about John Perry, all those stories of his. He said he was a jet pilot and he was in the Blue Angels.

And then my husband said, no way. Timeline's all wrong. He said what, you know, he was best man at Frank Sinatra's wedding. Well, I don't think so. He says, well, this was a pre-wedding, and I was the best man at that. He speaks five languages. Well, Spanish, French, German, I don't know, Italian maybe, okay. Then he comes to Swahili. John speaks Swahili, like I know what I'm going to hear.

He spoke something that could have been Swahili. John's bizarre behavior, his evasive maneuvering and outright stonewalling, left Barbara feeling as though the ground were falling away beneath her feet. More off balance than ever, Barbara struggled to pin her husband down. Barbara, many years into your marriage, you turn to your husband one day and ask a question not heard very often in these kinds of relationships. You say, John, who are you? Right. Where did that come from?

It came from inside, deep inside. It was a buildup of all these strange things happening. I just sensed something wasn't right. John didn't answer, which made Barbara more suspicious and bolder about asking more tough questions. John dodged each confrontation, each time becoming more brooding, more secretive. And now Barbara's growing wariness

couldn't keep pace with the acceleration of her crazy year into overdrive. John Perry stealthily began maneuvering her into the path of danger. Luck is coming your way. In April, John invited himself along on a business trip of Barbara's. When she told him she had an early call the next morning, he insisted she take a pill to help her sleep. I didn't really want to do it, but, you know, it was like, okay, okay, just to make you happy, I'll take a sleeping pill. So here, take some of these, huh? Yeah, yeah.

And so then he finds that he hasn't mailed the taxes. Now all of a sudden we've got to go mail the taxes because it's the 15th, and I get the keys, I'm ready to drive. He said, well, you can't drive because because it's the 15th. And I get the keys. I'm ready to drive. He said, well, you can't drive because you've had the sleeping pill. Okay, okay. So I put on my coat and off we go. It was raining and he was going too fast.

And I said, slow down, John, slow down. There's a 90-degree turn coming up ahead. You're not going to make it. And just as I said that, all of a sudden the car veers off to the right and missed the telephone pole. And we ended up out in a field and broken glass. The car is really banged up. Really banged up. And the next day you went back and looked at the skid marks. Yeah, it really was obvious that I had missed meeting my maker by about an inch or two.

But Barbara barely had time to recuperate from the car wreck, much less process what it was about. In August, John told her that he'd secured a $15,000 loan on a Perry family property in Florida. All they had to do was fly down there to pick up the check. You never did get the money that trip, did you? No, no. That's because on the way to the bank,

John slumped over and clutched his chest. A heart attack. I mean, scary? Oh, scary. Yeah, scary. I rushed him to Mercy Hospital. He was in intensive care for three days and then in a regular room for another three or four days. Back in the Florida hotel room, Barbara made a disturbing discovery. When I looked in his briefcase, I found a bunch of pill cases that were pills that John hadn't taken normally. But I also found this object wrapped in aluminum foil. And I opened it up and it was a gun. A gun? A gun. John assured her that the gun was for their protection in Miami. Barbara felt she had to believe him.

The alternative was unthinkable. But that voice of self-preservation inside her was getting stronger. Two months later, John told Barbara he'd finally found work. She knew he almost had his doctorate in psychology, and now the University of California was hiring him to teach while he finished his thesis. This time, Barbara demanded more proof than his psychology department contract. She wanted to see him lecture, but on the morning of his class, he woke up complaining. John's going, oh, I don't feel good. I said, oh, what? You're not going to go teach today? Well, I don't know. I said, you'll be fine. And we had

stairs, steep stairs in the house. And he says, I can't go down the stairs. And he says, help me, help me. And so against my better judgment, I let him lean on me. And we both went down the stairs all the way to the bottom. No broken bones for either, but Barbara was shaken and John canceled his class. In just a few months, she'd be pitched headlong into even greater chaos. Forced to wrestle her way out of the emotional and psychological stranglehold, John Perry had held her in for almost a decade. It would be the fight of her life for her life. It was now December of Barbara Bentley's crazy year, and the close-call car wreck,

the discovery that her husband John carried a gun, and their tumble-down-the-stair the staircase bizarre episodes had pushed Barbara to the edge. Nothing about life with John Perry was adding up anymore, and a part of her sense that if she didn't get to the bottom of it, it would be at her peril. Because this was the era before the internet, Barbara started her hunt for answers at the local library. So the question of your research was, who is this man I'm married to? Yes, just trying to find some proof, something tangible that I could hold on to. She found a biography of John's father, Admiral John Richard Perry. At least he checked out.

The old photo even looked a bit like John. But there was a glaring omission. John, the son son wasn't mentioned, not in Admiral Perry's obituary either. Barbara made a beeline for the war history stacks. I went and found a book on the Congressional Medal of Honor winners from Vietnam, and John wasn't in the book. Barbara then took her sleuthing to the streets, where she traced John to his teaching job at the university. But his car wasn't there, and the school said the name Perry wasn't on their roster of professors.

Barbara then tried to track down his children, but there was no astronaut's son, no musician daughter. One by one, John's stories weren't checking out. Barbara now held some powerful cards against John Perry, but she couldn't see how to play them. Was John sick? Was he a spy? Barbara desperately wanted to believe a logical explanation that could account for her husband's lies. But before she could see her next move, John came home with good news.

He comes home with this story that he's got another job with the government contract service and he was going to go to Egypt to be part of a peace mission. And it was a very good salary. You know, we calculated it out. We could be debt free in the six months that he would be over there. John may spin fishy stories about some topics, Barbara reasoned. But for years, she and John had been socializing with his military contacts and overseas clients. She decided the Egypt trip sounded legit and exciting. But before the dream visit to the pyramids, Barbara had to squeeze in a quick business

trip to Indianapolis. That's when odd tilted toward ominous. It started at the hotel restaurant, where after checking in, Barbara took a dinner table for one. I look up and here comes John Perry walking in and carrying a little toiletry bag, and I'm flabbergasted. With a broad smile, John told Barbara he'd taken a break from preparations with his peace mission team to come surprise her. And back in the hotel room, Barbara entered the bathroom where John was taking a shower and saw carefully laid out on the counter some surgical gloves and a strange amber bottle. And I said, what is that? Because there's no label on it. He says, oh, that's ether. The doctor told

me to put that on the owie I have on the back of my neck. I said, ether? I said, that stuff is lethal. It's only later you'd think about that trip differently, wouldn't you? Yes. And there was yet another warning sign that Barbara didn't, perhaps couldn't, see. On an outing to San Francisco's Japanese tea garden, John asked her to teach him how to use the video camera. Luck is coming your way. Let's hope so. He'd never expressed much interest in the gadget in the past,

but now he was acting like Barbara wasn't going to be around for much longer to operate it. Here comes Barbara. She's walking too fast, so I can't really pan on her. Barbara had no idea that the person awkwardly manning the camera, her husband of more than eight years, would soon attempt to snuff out her life. And now the Egyptian trip was finally underway. Or was it? Once again, Barbara sends John was up to something. But what?

Dragging Barbara all over San Francisco, then onto a plane headed to Washington, John explained they needed to rendezvous with an elusive admiral who held their travel documents. Five days into the mind-numbingly confusing ordeal, they checked into a D.C. area hotel. Barbara, exhausted and with nerves frayed to the breaking point, had finally, once and for all, had enough. I was just really crying. I said, I can't take this anymore. Either we're meeting with the admiral tomorrow morning or I'm going home, that's it. So I'm pushing John into a corner without realizing it.

Inside the hotel, down the end of the labyrinth of hallways set far away from everyone, Barbara made her way to their room. John had already headed up. Immediately when I walked in, I smelled ether. And what are you doing with the ether? I said, John, come out of there. And I got close enough to him that he could grab me. And he tried to put a washrag dma dowsed with ether on my face and it began a battle for my life barbara wrenched free and made it out of the room and into the deserted hallway to yell for help but john pulled her back in he gets me on the ground and he pins me down and i can see that the jar above me with the last drop of ether coming out, and now he throws it to the side

and he has me pinned down. And out of the depths of my soul, I looked at him. I'm looking in these eyes. I mean, these eyes are wild. They're a beast. I don't, you know. And I look in and I say,

John, if there's a problem, we can talk about this. Barbara's words broke the spell of John's rage. He rose off her chest and led her by the wrist to the bed. Lying there, John Perry wearily explained to her that he had cancer and had only wanted to knock Barbara out temporarily so he could end it all by jumping off a nearby bridge. This is a moment where you buy the story or you don't, Barbara.

I am so confused at this point. I don't know what the story is. I'm just kind of calming him down, and I finally realize, no, I need to leave this room or I won't leave this room alive. So when it seemed that John had drifted off to sleep, Barbara, frantic, quietly tiptoed out of the room. Ran as fast as I could to the main desk and told him, please call the police, my husband just tried to murder me with ether.

I get a phone call like 2 o'clock in the morning, and it's Barbara in hysterics. And the whole conversation, I'm saying, what? What? What? The story Barbara Bentley told Tony over the phone was jaw-dropping. That in a D.C. area hotel bathroom, her husband, John Perry, had tried to smother her to death with ether. John was now in jail being investigated for attempted murder. While Barbara flew home to California, Tony arrived at the airport to pick up a broken woman. Her face was so scarred and so scratched up, and she looked like she was going to pass out.

And so she just came running to us, we ran to her everybody's in tears back home and with raw wounds in her heart that ate worse than her face Barbara methodically dug through piles of paper and each item she found tore down the false edifice of the life she thought she'd had, and the man she thought she'd married. She found forged signatures, unauthorized withdrawals in the exact amount of John's supposed teaching salary, John's Department of Psychology contract, which she'd cobbled together from university stationery, doctored with whiteout, and something that put ice in her veins, John's plane tickets from his surprise appearance

on Barbara's Indianapolis business trip. What do you think was supposed to happen on that trip? I think he was going to try to kill me. He would kill me by ether asphyxiation. And he was always saying, now, if you died on a business trip, you'd get a lot more money from the company, right? And I said, yes, John, yeah. Barbara saw clearly for the first time those other strange events of the past year. That tumble down the stairs, the odd car crash, the gun stuffed into John's briefcase in Florida. Certainly three attempts, you believe, but maybe four, maybe five. Yes. There was no escaping it. There'd never been a diplomatic mission to Egypt.

And that ether attack had nothing to do with John having cancer or wanting to take his own life. Barbara's husband of eight years, the man she stood by, supported and loved, had ruthlessly tried to murder her. And now with everything in question, Barbara needed to know, was her husband really a rear admiral with the Navy? She placed a call to another admiral they once socialized with. When I called him, he says, well, don't you know about the FBI? I said, what do you mean? And he said, well, they're investigating him for impersonating an officer. He's not a retired rear admiral. So now this question that you've asked periodically in your marriage,

almost in a rhetorical kind of fashion, John, who are you? John, who are you? Becomes a very valid question. Right. Who are you, John Perry? Right. Not only that, the detective investigating the ether attack told Barbara that her husband had used several aliases in the past, including Calliot Delvin, Guy D. Delvin, Daniel F. Malley, Robert Lee Stewart, and Thomas John Mudge. He also told Barber that John Perry, whoever he was, had been arrested in the past for auto theft, passport fraud, and multiple counts of credit card fraud. Did you feel like you'd been an awful fool all these years? No. Why should I be a fool if the Navy was fooled, if friends were fooled,

if family was fooled? Nobody ever came and said, hey, this guy is crooked. This guy is evil. You shouldn't be with him. He's going to try to murder you. Nobody said that. In fact, Barbara's friends were as flabbergasted as she was. We were good friends, and so how could he do this? How could he do this to her? I just didn't think that he would be capable of something like that. There was no indication. And all of a sudden, it just totally came unraveled in a heartbeat. Now Barbara knew who her husband of more than eight years wasn't,

but she had nothing concrete to fill the void. And in typical fashion, the cipher once known as John Perry wasn't. But she had nothing concrete to fill the void. And in typical fashion, the cipher once known as John Perry wasn't talking. But he had one last card to play, one his defense attorney would use at his trial for attempted murder on her life. If he didn't get thrown behind bars, her life could once again be in danger. And now his defense attorney told the jury a sad tale of a man dying of cancer who wanted to simply knock his wife unconscious with ether just long enough to kill himself. The jury didn't buy it.

John Perry was found guilty. But Barber's victory was so short-lived that it only caused more anxiety. Was convicted of first-degree attempted murder. Sentenced to five years in jail and made parole in less than one year. So all of a sudden he's out. Yeah. She had a couple of panic attacks. She had nightmares that he would come back and get her, whether there was a restraining order or not.

Mr. Perry. And Barbara knew better than anyone what this man was capable of because she'd lived it. All those years that he'd bamboozled so many for so long. He'd rubbed shoulders with the country's top brass, traveled the world as a bon vivant. Why, he'd even been saluted by a president. And no one seemed to wise up to his fabrications. How did he do it? With a lot of cunning and a lot of planning. Decades spent spinning a life for himself. By the time he'd bought the war medals and uniforms, forged all of those documents and credentials,

even memorized combat histories that he told as his own, he'd built himself an armor-plated red, white, and blue persona. Most of all, he could sell his elaborate charade. All lies, of course, but not the kind of thing you'd want to call someone out on. Few who met John Perry didn't feel privileged to pipe the Admiral aboard into their lives. And funnily enough, at the heart of all those autobiographical whoppers, there was a kernel of truth. I found out he was the black sheep of the family. Still digging for answers, Barbara was able to track down Admiral John Richard Perry's widow,

who revealed that John was in fact Admiral Perry's true son from a previous marriage. The woman also told Barbara that unlike the father, John Jr., the son, never made it past the enlisted ranks. There had been an accident. John dove into a hotel swimming pool and hit his head. Once discharged from the military, John started acting erratically and getting into trouble with the law. He'd even spent time in a mental institution without improvement. His heartbroken father died prematurely, and the other Perrys never spoke much of John. But after the ether attack, what had happened to John Perry, the black sheep's son? For years, Barbara felt she needed to keep tabs on him for her own safety. Here's what she says she was able to piece together to the best of her knowledge.

Once out of prison, it appeared that John was soon at it again, impersonating variously an admiral, a Navy captain, a doctor of psychology, a director of a hospital, and a former undersecretary of commerce. And he quickly inserted himself into another woman's life. But things there soon turned sour. Over a fight about money, he barricaded himself into a bedroom, telling the woman he was going to shoot himself. She had been warned through a friend that I had talked to,

be careful because he is going to try to murder you. Perhaps heeding Barbara's warning, the woman didn't open the bedroom door. I believe if she had gone and touched that door that she would be dead today, that he would have shot through the door and said it was an accident cleaning the gun because they had already changed their wills and he was going to inherit all her money. The next morning, John was found dead on the kitchen floor. The autopsy revealed he died of an overdose of drugs. Barbara recognized the list of medications as some of the same ones she'd found in his briefcase in Florida, which she now thinks he took to fake the symptoms of his heart attack.

And this time he was too old or took the wrong concoction, but he died. What do you hear when the phone rings in Barbara? John Perry's dead. I cried. I cried again because there was that part of him

that seemed like a wonderful person beyond the evil part of him. And you were saying even with everything that's happened, you can look at his picture today and still feel a little twinge, a little bit of affection. Well, because I was in love with the man. And for me, there's two people there. There's this person that I loved, and then there's this evil person that lurked underneath. But how could he have his fingers in your brain and your emotional being even after all that time and everything he'd done? We had had a lot of good times together,

and you don't throw out all the good times because you've had some bad times. Maybe you do if it's attempted murder. He still was a human being. When we spoke to Barbara in 2009, Perry the con man was starting to recede from Barbara's life. But she did set down a memoir of her ordeal. The book is aptly titled A Dance with the Devil. Are you still back in that motel bathroom some nights in your sleep? They're dreams of him trying to take advantage of me again or chasing me. You know, unfortunately, those will be with me until the day I die.

But they're not that often. You know, it's a ghost from the past.