Going West: True Crime - Janet March // 152

Episode Date: November 27, 2021

In August of 1996, a 33-year-old artist and aspiring children’s book illustrator from Nashville vanished after allegedly heading off on a quick vacation. But as this supposed “getaway story” unraveled and law enforcement found her vehicle with all of her most important belongings, they started to look at her inner circle on suspicions that she was murdered. This is the story of Janet Levine March. BONUS EPISODES patreon.com/goingwestpodcast CASE SOURCES https://books.google.com/books?id=bA65yWDZrPEC&pg=PA11&lpg=PA11&dq=janet+levine+high+school+nashville&source=bl&ots=ExYxbILAm7&sig=ACfU3U1jICsKdZtG0xxrQFOdHo1faBNOAQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiLjIeeo6L0AhWjLTQIHY9yAPsQ6AF6BAgvEAM#v=onepage&q=janet%20levine%20high%20school%20nashville&f=false https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Janet_March https://www.nashvillescene.com/news/a-good-thing-gone-bad/article_9524cd0e-a771-5c13-a508-6890b8c34959.html https://charleyproject.org/case/janet-gail-levine-march https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/15202467/janet-gail-march https://caselaw.findlaw.com/tn-court-of-appeals/1450244.html Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What is going on through crime fans? I'm your host Teef and I'm your host Daphne and you're listening to Going West. For warning, I have this just feeling, this premonition, that heath is going to be extra feisty in this episode. Oh yeah, definitely. This is one of those stories where you're just going to be like, cursing in your car and that kind of thing, for sure. It's also a case out of Nashville, which I think we've done maybe one other case. I can't remember, but either way, it's been a while. So thank you guys for tuning in.

Hope everybody had a good holiday. I hope you got to see some family and friends. And if you didn't, I hope he and I can keep you company today. We can all have, you know, this conversation. We'll have a little hangout session. Absolutely. So let's do it. All right guys, this is episode 152 of Going West.

So let's get into it. In August of 1996, a 33-year-old artist and aspiring children's book illustrator from Nashville vanished after allegedly heading off on a quick vacation. But as this supposed getaway story unraveled, and law enforcement found her vehicle with all of her most important belongings, they started to look at her inner circle on suspicions that she was murdered. This is the story of Janet Levine March. Janet Gail Levine was born on February 20, 1963 to parents Carolyn and Lawrence Levine in Nashville, Tennessee alongside her younger brother Mark. Her father Lawrence, who's from New York, went on to become one of the most prominent lawyers in Nashville.

And with this, he became a very prominent social figure in Nashville's Jewish community. Janet was always incredibly creative, and she loved to illustrate, and actually her dreams from an early age included being an artist, and as a teenager, she had exhibited her work in various restaurants around the city, as well as in her Jewish community center. After graduating from her private, very prestigious independent high school in 1981, which was the University School of Nashville, where she was her class's vice president, Janet got accepted to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, which is actually where her father Lawrence went as well.

And there, she met a man named Perry March. Perry was born in 1961 in Chicago, so two years before Janet, and he spent some of his upbringing in Indiana and Michigan, where he was known to really excel in academics as well as athletics. In his free time when he wasn't studying, he started taking karate classes and eventually became a black belt, but he was also a wrestler and he played tennis, soccer, and other sports. His mother died when he was just 9 years old, and the circumstances of her death are a little bit fuzzy.

Perry's father Arthur, who was a pharmacist, has always said that she died by anaphylactic shock from a prescription drug that she had took to relieve pain after a head injury. But her death certificate states that she died by accidental overdose. Yet for whatever reason, many people in the community felt that Zipporora had taken her own life. But enough about Perry's upbringing. Perry had graduated with honors but even so because of his father's limited income, Perry had to choose an in-state college so he could pay lower tuition. And that's why he ended up attending the University of Michigan as well where he majored in Asian studies and he eventually became fluent in Chinese.

In college, Jinnit remained incredibly passionate about the arts, but she was also very clever when it came to her ideas, and at one point, she even created a prototype for and patented a collapsible baby chair, but she didn't end up following through with that idea. That was another thing about Jinnit, although she was very smart and creative. She could apparently be very forgetful, and she was always kind of fashionably late to things. And a good example of this is actually when Jynna studied art at the University of Michigan in her sophomore year, her roommate introduced her to Perry March, and their first date was supposed to be attending services at their campus's synagogue for Rosh Hashana, but she overslept and she didn't show up.

But they did make another date, and they felt very much in love. And since Perry was a couple years older, he of course graduated first and actually moved back to Chicago to become a broker at an investment bank and financial services company, Oppenheimer Holdings. Since he and Janet were so inseparable and their relationship had grown very serious, she moved to Chicago with him and instead started taking classes

at the Art Institute of Chicago. But she wanted out of Chicago fairly quickly because she just missed home so much and she wanted to be back in Nashville. After living in Michigan and then Indiana, she fully realized how much she just loved her home of Tennessee. So she asked her parents if they would be willing to pay for Perry's tuition at Vanderbilt University Law School in Nashville and they agreed to do it.

Of course Perry being the driven academic scholar that he was, he really excelled there. About four years into their relationship in 1987, Janet Levine became Janet March when she and Perry got married, and actually she proposed to him. She didn't like how they had been very serious for years and he wasn't asking, so 24-year-old Janet got down on one knee and Nashville's Percy Warner Park and asked him and he said yes. And of course I guess kind of as a wedding present Janet's parents bought them a house and a very affluent part of Nashville. Because at this point, you know, they're both still in school and Perry didn't graduate

from Vanderbilt until the following year and as soon as he did, he took a job at Bass Berry and Sims, which is a Tennessee-based law firm, and he worked in their Nashville office. So while Perry started his career as a lawyer in finances, Janet began working on illustrating a children's book. But within the next couple years, she became pregnant with she and Perry's first child, a son named Samson, who was born in 1990.

Then four years later, they named their newborn daughter after Perry's late mother, Zipporra. But around the time that Samson was born, so few years back, things in the family got a bit messy. So Arthur, whose Perry's father, went bankrupt, so Janet's parents actually helped him out for a while and they even let him live in their home before loaning him money so he could establish himself in the Nashville area and be close to his son and new grandson. This is like above and beyond type shit.

They're doing a lot from the marches. Yeah, they're sending Perry to school, they're taking in his dad like, yeah, it's honestly, it's crazy. And also the same year, so remember 1990, some very inappropriate things were unfolding at Perry's place of work. So one of the paralegals who worked at the same law firm began receiving anonymous letters, which were typewritten on her desk. The admirer will say, discuss how much they loved her body and how they wanted to perform oral sex on her for a long period of time. And the writer did admit

that he was married and that he loved his wife, but that quote, marriage has a way of making sex boring at times. I mean, this is a very forward letter here. Yeah, it's super deviant. He's this, whoever this person is. I'll say. Whoever it is. Whoever it is, they, yeah, they didn't just say. They are forward as F.

They didn't just say, hey, I think you're cute or I think you're beautiful. They're like, I wanna, you know. Well, that's what I'm saying. Like, did you think that this professional woman is going to have this... a good reaction to this very horny letter? Yeah, super weird.

And as you guys could probably imagine, this made this woman feel super uncomfortable, and they just kept coming. These letters just kept coming. So finally, she decided to take it up with her managers, hoping that they could handle it. And amazingly, the company went so far as to hire a private investigator to look into all this.

The writer had told the woman in a letter that if she was interested in having an affair, to leave a note in the firm's library in a particular spot. So the PI set up a hidden camera in view of this spot, and they caught none other than Perry March checking that very spot confirming that he was the writer. To so creepy, first of all, I love that the company did this, that they took it seriously, and they literally hired an investigator to figure out who was harassing this poor woman. I love that.

I think that that's the perfect response. So with that, the company gave Perry the opportunity to resign, or else he would be fired. And if he were to resign from the position, it would be contingent on him getting counseling. But this whole process of resign or be fired was taking longer than the female paralegal was happy with, so she actually quit. And not long after she did this, Perry was officially let go. Perry really didn't want Janet to find out about this, obviously, so he offered to pay the paralegal 25,000 dollars over the next four years so that she wouldn't sue him for sexual harassment.

She agreed to this, and these payments were made without Janet knowing a single thing, but Perry and Janet did begin seeing a marriage counselor. And then a couple years later, they had their second child in 1994, who again was their daughter's apura. And you know, they had been having issues anyway. I had read that they were both, they both could kind of be hotheads and they fought a lot, like verbally fought. So you know, things weren't going well anyways.

So with the marriage counseling, it's not like it came out of nowhere and Janice's like, why do we need counseling? You know, and little does she know he's trying to cheat on her? Right, they were already on the path. Do this. Yes, exactly. So then, of course, Perry got a job at Janice's father Lawrence's law firm. Of course. Of course. And Janice continued her artistic career of trying to illustrate a children's book.

And they moved into a beautiful country-french-style house on four acres in the affluent neighborhood of Forest Hills in Nashville. After this, things got worse between Janet and Perry. And Janet was allegedly quietly looking to get a divorce. But in the summer of 1996, they started seeing a marriage counselor yet again. However, because of how volatile their fights were in therapy, even the psychiatrist suggested that they separate. And because of this, Perry rented his own house in order to do that.

And by this time, Janet had found out about the letters that he wrote to the paralegal at his old job, but they hadn't talked about it yet. And it appeared she was finally in the place where she was prepared to end their marriage. Even her housekeeper actually found a book on divorce in her nightstand. So as the summer came to an end, Janet's friends as well as the children's nanny, noticed that Janet seemed very distracted and potentially even a little afraid of Perry. She was very withdrawn at this time and she didn't really want to talk to anybody, but she did make an appointment with her mom to see a divorce lawyer on August 16th. One day prior on Thursday, August 15th, 1996, Janet was seen in the afternoon at her own

home, while two workers installed cabinets as well as two countertops in their kitchen. And Janet was around for much of this construction like she was there that day, whereas Perry was seen playing with their five and 2-year-olds. The workers were only there for under 2 hours, and the rest of the evening's story is all from Perry's mouth. So according to him, after he and Janet put the kids to bed, he and Janet got into yet another verbal argument. He had spent most of the past 2 weeks in a nearby hotel, and so around 8pm that night

he offered to go back there. But according to him, Janet said that she was actually going on a mini vacation, but to where she wouldn't say. And with that, Janet grabbed a suitcase and two other bags packed them and then got into her grave Volvo 850 with $1,500 in cash, her passport, and a bag of marijuana. But before heading out, she wrote Perry a list of things to do while she was gone. And by the time 830 pm hit, she had driven away. 30 minutes later, at around 9 pm, Perry called his brother Ron and then his sister, who

were both living in Chicago, to tell them that Janet had just left him and their children. Around an hour later, at about 10 pm, he called one of Janet's closest friends who he also had a close relationship with, and said that Janet left. Then a couple hours after this, around midnight, he called Carolyn and Lawrence Levine, who remember our Janet's parents. And they felt like this was very unlike Janet, but they asked to have Janet call them whenever she did come home. So considering Janet was always the one to stay in the house and care for the kids while

Perry was in hotels, since he had not yet moved into that house that he rented. Many of the construction workers, as well as the housekeeper, noticed that she was gone. The following morning, the housekeeper arrived around 8 a.m. to a very clean house, and the only room that didn't seem to be cleaned was the kid's playroom, which for whatever reason, Perry had requested she not clean. Although Perry had allegedly not known where Janet was, he actually told the housekeeper that she was on a business trip in California. And he told this to the nanny as well, when she arrived about an hour later, except instead of saying she was there on business,

he told her that she was seeing her brother Mark who lived in Los Angeles. So this is like within one hour and he's already telling two different stories. Yeah, like what are you doing, man? You're coming up with all these different stories? And considering Ella, who's the nanny, always was given instructions from Janet since they saw each other pretty much every day, it stood out as odd to her that Janet didn't leave her with anything, you know, this time that she left, because even though Janet didn't go away often, when she did, she always would give Ella a heads up and also give her a list of important things to know for, you know, what was going on with her kids during that time.

But there was just nothing. That same morning at around 10 a.m., a woman named Marissa Moody had brought her son over for a pre-planned play date with Samson, who again is Perry and Janet's son. And she thought that it was strange that neither Janet nor Perry had come to the door, and that five-year-old Samson had been the one to open the door. During this play date, she remembers Samson playing on a rolled up rug that was on the floor outside of the kitchen and the playroom, which she didn't go in. To Marissa, the rug seemed out of place for the style of their home, but she didn't think

too much of it. Perry was surprised to see her at his home since he didn't know anything about the play date, but he agreed to have it anyway and told her to come back at 2pm. But when she did, Perry hadn't even been watching the kids. Instead he was at lunch with Laurel, who is the very close friend of Janet's that he called the night that she supposedly left, and Laurel recalls that during their conversation he mentioned needing new carpet for his office. She also recalled Perry being distracted and seemingly very upset that Janet had left.

Later that day, Perry and Lawrence Levine headed to the Nashville International Airport to see if they could spot Janet's Volvo to, you know, kind of help confirm whether or not she had gotten on a plane. But they didn't see her car in the lot. A couple days later, so on Sunday, August 17th, Carolyn Levine started to get really worried about her daughter, who she hadn't heard from in over three days. Because it was really not like Janet to just leave in this manner and not communicate with her because they were super close.

So she wanted to call the police and report her missing. Yet Perry and his brother told her that it was best not to jump to conclusions and instead they should just wait until the 12 days was up because apparently this list that Janet had left was for 12 days as if she was gonna be gone for that long. By August 23rd, so around eight days after Janet was last seen, Perry eerily and secretly began looking for a criminal defense attorney. And you know, this is before Janet is reported missing. I wonder why he would do that.

Oh, I know. He didn't do anything. Right. Oh my god, no. So as this 12-day period came to a close, Samson had his sixth birthday party, but Janet wasn't there. And at this party, Perry actually told some of their friends that Janet was in California visiting her brother,

and that she had contracted an ear infection, which prevented her from coming home. This is so weird because this would imply that you spoke to her. So if you spoke to her, then everything's fine, right? Yeah, exactly. And since they had no reason not to, they just believed this very random story. But Janet's absence at this party really solidified to her family that something was very wrong.

Especially after Carolyn Levine, heard Perry scream scream that fucking Janet has ruined my life. So four days later, on August 29th, two weeks after Janet was last seen, the Levine's finally reported her missing. Let's talk more about this list that Perry claimed Janet had given him before she left. So Janet's family did see this list, and they found it to be incredibly bizarre and concerning, because there were so many discrepancies. Janet was definitely the type of person to write lists, so her parents were familiar with how they typically looked. This one was printed, it had proper capitalization,

and the date was at the bottom of the page. However, Janet pretty exclusively wrote lists by hand and always fully in lower case. And lastly, she would always put the date at the top of the page, while Perry was the one to put the dates at the bottom. So this is obviously not a red flag at all. I mean yeah that's why they're looking at this they're like this does not seem like Janet wrote it in any way. Yeah and then you you it's it's typed up like that's so strange. Well right and that's the whole thing too is it's typed

up. She it's not only that she didn't usually type it but it's like now we really can't prove whether or not this is her because it is typed which anybody can do. But it wasn't just strange how it was written, but also what the contents of the list were. So the list said nothing about the play date with Samson, which Janet had been the one to schedule. And you know, maybe you could say, well, she probably just forgot about it since we mentioned earlier that she could be forgetful. But Carolyn also noticed other things.

The night after she went missing, Carolyn went over to their house to help Perry with the kids, and she noticed a yellow legal pad next to the home computer with a handwritten list of chores, which was at some point written by Janet, like it was definitely in her handwriting. And at the top of the page were the circled words two weeks in Perry's handwriting. The time stamp on the list document on the computer was for 817 PM on August 15th, which would line up with Perry's story

about Janet writing the list before leaving at 830 PM. But a strange thing regarding documents on their shared computer was that there was also a file on there that was a list of every time Perry had wronged Janet. And by the way, I don't think police ever found this because we're gonna talk about the computer and the hard drive later, but Janet's dad

saw this list on there. So he was like, she has this whole list, which he could have access to, like he could easily, you know, parakeet easily open that document and see what she had written about him. So let's get back to the investigation of her disappearance. So once Carolyn and Lawrence reported their 33-year-old daughter missing, investigators first began by checking with local hospitals to make sure that she wasn't incapacitated, which she wasn't. They also checked her credit card statements which showed no trace of any recent purchases. And by this time, Mark had come to Nashville to help in the search for his sister, and

he was at his parents' house when the local police came that evening. Perry was there as well, and Mark remembers him shaking uncontrollably as they pulled up, and even having an extremely hard time getting up from his chair because he was seemingly so nervous. So a few days went by and nothing was uncovered. But on September 7th, so around three weeks after Jan disappeared, her car was found. It was at an apartment complex around five miles from her own house, just backed into a space. And this was strange right off the bat.

But even more strange was the fact that most of the items that Perry said she had left with were just sitting in her car, which included her purse with her license, credit cards and passport, as well as just $11 in cash, plus her suitcase with a bunch of clothes, and one small canvas bag with toiletries. And not only that, but it appeared her car hadn't been moved in quite some time, because there were cobwebs around her tires and rust in her break-roaders. And this just gets even more suspicious, because the driver seated the car for some reason was pushed all the way up, like practically against the wheel, while the passenger seat

was pushed all the way back. When investigators took a look at the actual items that were in her suitcase, it gave them even more pause. Because most of the clothes packed were day dresses, like sun dresses, summer dresses kind of thing, with no bras, by the way, like no bras were packed, and even sandals, and it's now fall, like summer is over. It's time to change the wardrobe, you know,

but she was packed as if she was going somewhere, you know, maybe very hot and sunny, which she could have gone to absolutely, but also in her canvas that included toiletry, there wasn't any toothpaste nor a hairbrush packed. So there was definitely just a bunch of red flags regarding the stuff that was in the car. Now the Levines were really worried, so they went ahead and hired a private investigator right away, who started off by questioning Perry, of course. And she took note that he spoke about Janet in the past tense, but he stuck to his story that she had left after an argument. And after this, of course,

the PI wanted to speak to the people living in the Nashville apartment complex, where her car was found to see if they knew where she was or if they had seen anyone leaving the Volvo there. And oddly, when Perry found out that she was doing this, he called her enraged, insisting that whatever she found out, he wanted her to fax him a list of all the names of people and what they had said. So Perry was really not making himself look good here. And then five days after Janet's vulva was found, the Metropolitan Nashville police searched Perry's Jeep and all they found were some hair and fibers from the back seat.

Yet they also noticed that it smelled like a type of cleaner. But this was kind of odd though, because the car didn't appear to have been cleaned lately. Police also interviewed Perry and noticed that he seemed very nervous, yet he didn't say anything particularly incriminating. And again, he kept his story and even wrote out a statement of what happened the night the Janet left. Days later, Perry took the kids to Chicago for the weekend to spend Rosh Hashanah with family.

And during this time, police finally got a search warrant for the marches Nashville home, and they searched it. In the house, police noticed that the family computer's hard drive had been forcibly removed, and it was nowhere in the home. So, you know, this was very suspicious. So police decided to look further into what Perry did in the days following Janet's disappearance, and they found some things.

So just around a week after Janet went missing, Perry bought new tires for his Jeep at a local tire shop. And the strange thing is that according to the owner of the shop who helped him, the tires Perry had before were in perfect condition. But Perry's excuse was that he for whatever reason wanted a different brand. And since Janet had disappeared, Perry had been using the couple's Visa, which Perry typically didn't use.

He pretty much only used their Master card, whereas Janet always used the Visa. And you know, police took note of this because they're like, why is he using the visa when he never apparently uses it? She's always the one to use it. It's just, you know, it's worth kind of noting. Around the same time that police were looking into Perry further, he up and moved to a rental house in Chicago with the kids.

One of his friends there, a man named Andrew Sacks, offered to help him in the search for Janet, but Perry never said anything in response. Sounds really just like a grieving husband. Yeah, exactly. He's like, uh, nope, I don't need your help. And then Andrew also remembers Perry saying that he wanted to, quote, fuck the Levines and the Nashville police. His wife also noticed strange behavior from Perry, especially after his move to Chicago when he asked her if she thought he killed Janet. And before she could say anything, he asked what she'd think if he told her that he put

Janet's body in the back of her own car and drove away while the kids slept at their home alone. And then he came back like nothing happened. Diane, whose Andrew's wife, was so confused and concerned about this alleged comment, because Janet was her friend, so at this point, pretty much everyone in Perry's life was wondering if he did something to Janet. I don't know why Diane would make this up, so I'm just gonna assume it's true. And what a weird ass thing to say.

Yeah, you're like gloating. Why would you say, I mean, what a weird ass thing to say, I'll say it again. That makes no sense. I don't know why you would say that. It's almost like he wants to, he wants to have the, um, like the notoriety of the crime.

Yeah, yeah, like it's almost like he's trying to brag about it but with saying oh hypothetically you know if i did that what do you think or possibly that you know he's got so much guilt for doing this that like he has to talk about it has to say yeah he has to say it to somebody right and also can i just add that this year which is nineteen ninety seven now peri wrote a novel about a detective investigating the murder of a small, dark-haired woman, which is exactly what Janet was.

Oh my God, what a fucking weirdo. And this guy is a lawyer. Like, why is he just writing a murder novel? Yeah. And it wasn't published, he just wrote it, and I guess he kept it to himself. So just by the way, this didn't come out, but very bizarre. And especially because when Perry moved to Chicago, he completely stopped returning the

Levine's phone calls, he had no momentos or photos of Janet anywhere in the house, and because of the things that police were uncovering, they began to think that he killed Janet, and so did the Levines. So police officially began considering Janet's disappearance case as a homicide investigation. And Perry was the main person on their minds. And because police sadly did feel like she was deceased, they were determined to find her body, and they thought that it was potentially in the wooded areas near their home. So they gathered a team of canines, divers, helicopters, and even thermal imaging devices in hopes of either finding clues that would lead them to Janet or just finding Janet.

And by now, Perry had officially loyered up and was no longer cooperating with police at all. And he didn't even go to Janet's memorial service in November of that year by the way. So I'm kind of jumping around in time because, you know, like I said, when he had moved to Chicago, you know, this is a little bit before again, we're going back into the investigation, so just not to confuse you. So her memorial was in November, so just a few months after she disappeared, and he did not go. So of course, this only made him look way worse

in investigators eyes. And just before the memorial service in October of 1996, Perry filed a petition to have himself appointed as the administrator of Janet's assets. The Levine's outright objected this, and they even filed a motion of their own, and also won for visitation rights of their grandchildren, both of which Perry opposed as well.

What's interesting here to me is that he doesn't show up to her memorial, but he wants to obtain her assets. Oh my god, yeah. Come on, Guy. So weird. And also, what I don't understand here, and we're going to get into this throughout this whole case, is why Perry hates the Levine so much when they literally made him the person he is there was in this time.

They did everything for him and his family. I think the only reason why he's pissed at the Levines is because they know that he's guilty. Well, but it seems like he was mad, he didn't like them before, like as if he's always had issues with them, but again, I don't really understand why you're, why you have that perspective when they do literally everything for you and your dad.

So anyway, a whole three years went by and there was no movement in the case, but in 1999, the Levines were finally awarded visitation rights of their grandchildren. But get this. Perry, who had just been disbarred for misconduct, moved he and the kids to Mexico. Oh my god, this guy could not be more suspicious. I mean, it's unreal.

For a few years at this point, Perry's father Arthur had been living in a he-heak, which is a small town on the water in Helisco, Mexico. It's known to be a great place to retire, which is exactly what Arthur did. And according to Arthur, Perry moved to Mexico because he had, quote, nowhere else to go. I'm assuming he was kind of, like Perry was maybe kind of exiled by all of their friends

and everyone they knew and obviously the Levines were against him and everybody thought that he murdered his wife. So I think because of that as well as maybe just wanting to escape the United States is why he did it. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I mean like the other point is like, hey, Yeah. Yeah, I mean, like, the other point is like, hey, if I am guilty of murder, where's the best place I could go? You know, Mexico.

And that's what a lot of these guys think. So within just a week of moving there, Perry actually met a woman named Carmen, who he quickly married. So bizarre. Very bizarre. This guy's so weird. So the Levines were so furious about all of this

that they filed a wrongful death allegation against Perry, but they had to declare Janet legally dead first, which they did. Perry, or even a lawyer on his behalf, did not show up to court regarding the wrongful death allegation. He just completely ignored this and because of this the Levines actually won and Perry was ordered to pay the family 113.5 million dollars and once he found this out he obviously appealed it which is funny because he kept quiet He didn't show up to court He didn't have a lawyer show up on his behalf and then they're like oh you OS over a hundred million dollars And he's like wait no no no no no no no Yeah, I'm sure at that point. he's probably wishing that he did go to court.

Yeah, I mean, God, this guy is just unbelievable. So the following year in May of 2000, Carolyn and Lawrence Levine headed to a he heak to confront Perry regarding the visitation rights situation. And by this point, by the way, Samson was nearly 10 and Zaporo was 6, and they hadn't seen them in a few years. But even though they had gone all the way down there, both Perry and Arthur refused to let either of them even see the kids, and they had no choice but to go back home. But the Levins cared so much about these kids.

I mean, this is their daughter's children who they believe the father of the children murdered their daughter. You know what I'm saying? So they're like, we don't want the kids with this man. We know that we can take care of them. So they just weren't taking no for an answer. And they worked to get a Mexican court order, which they did. And the Mexican authorities arrested Perry for violating his visa terms. And before the charges were dropped, the Levines physically went to Samson and Zipporah's school and took them to the airport and back to Nashville as quickly as possible. These grandparents are amazing, by the way. They just care so much. I mean, throughout this whole episode, they have they helped Perry,

they helped his father, they're helping the kids, they really do care. And this was kind of messy though, because they could only legally have custody of the kids for 39 days. But within this time, they wanted to try to get full custody. But of course, Perry combated this saying that they had abducted his children. And there was this whole ass legal battle, and by the end of the 39 days, the kids had to go back to Mexico with Perry.

So after Perry got out of jail and had the kids back with him in Mexico, he began working there as a financial and business advisor and even opened up a cafe with his new wife. And in 2003, so seven years after Janet's death, the Tennessee Court of Appeals overturned the wrongful death suit against him. So somehow things just seemed to be going great for Perry.

And by this point, there was still no sign of Janet or what had happened to her. But in late 2004, investigators started to present evidence against Perry to a grand jury because they felt so strongly that he had killed Janet and they couldn't stand by while he was thriving in Mexico like she never even existed. They were able to collect 59 witnesses, 59 witnesses, who had a very suspicious thing to say about Perry that only made him seem like a murderer even further. And this brought forth an indictment.

Perry March was to be charged with second-degree murder, tampering with evidence, and abuse of a corpse. But they needed to work secretly to ensure that Perry wouldn't find this out until the Mexican government were ready to arrest him and extdied him back to the United States. So finally, nearly a year later, in August of 2005, so exactly nine years after Janet's disappearance, Mexican authorities arrested 44-year-old Perry March in his own restaurant. With this, the Levine's once again filed for full custody, and now that Perry was facing such serious charges and he was officially back in the US, they were awarded full custody,

which is amazing. On the plane to Nashville, Perry so callously told investigators that he would tell them everything and plead guilty if they ensured that he would spend no more than seven years in prison. So he was like admitting it without admitting it. Yeah. thing and plead guilty if they ensured that he would spend no more than seven years in prison. So he was like admitting it without admitting it. Yeah. And here's even more.

So he stated, prior to the Janet incident, I had not been involved in any other criminal type activity. So he also even flat out asked if they found her body or not, as well as saying that hypothetically, if he accidentally killed someone, would that be second-degree murder? Like, this is like, this is real. He's such a fucking idiot. And things get even more insane with this ass hat. So on Perry's very first night, we're talking very first night in county jail in Nashville.

He approached another inmate and offered to pay this man's bond if he would kill the Levines. You just can't make this stuff up. This guy doesn't know how to quit. Which by the way, if the Levines die, like what is that even going to do for you? You're in jail, you're going to prison man. Yeah, that's not going to do anything. I think he's just so mad at them.

Like, he hates them so much for taking the kids and he probably thinks that it's because of them that he's arrested for her murder. It's like, no, that's because of you, dude. That's because of what you did. Yeah, like, what is this gonna do for you? Is it just gonna make you feel so much better when you're laying on your bunk bed at night in jail?

Yes, I think it would actually, but carry on. So anyway, Perry tried to convince this man to murder them for the next few weeks, and finally, he told his attorney, and they went to the police together. To catch Perry in all of this, this man, whose name is Russell Ferris, started working with police. They transferred Russell to a different jail and had him call Perry and tell him that he had been released successfully and that he would kill the Levines. Perry wrote down the Levines address and then Russell actually worked with Perry's dad

Arthur on killing the Levines. Again, Russell was totally working with the police, so this was all just a farce. But Arthur's dad was in on it with Perry, trying to help him get the Levines murdered. And the calls between Arthur and Russell were all recorded, which is just the best part, because there's Arthur in Mexico

telling Russell on the phone, what time of day the Levines are typically there, where he should get a gun to carry out the phone, what time of day the Levines are typically there, where he should get a gun to carry out the hit, and that he should wear gloves when he does it. And then Arthur gave him instructions to come to a he-heak when it's all said and done. And when Russell, quote, finished the job, which of course he did not murder the Levines, he planned to meet Arthur at the airport in Guadalajara. But instead, an FBI to meet Arthur at the airport in Guadalajara, but instead an FBI agent

met Arthur. And Arthur was charged with conspiring to commit murder, and Perry was also charged with this as well as two counts of solicitation to commit murder. But before Perry was charged, he had made another buddy in jail, a man named Cornelius King. Another buddy in jail, a man named Cornelius King, and according to Cornelius, he told him about his life in Mexico, his kids, and even what he did to Janet. Cornelius later explained that Perry told him what really happened the night that Janet disappeared, and that it had nothing to do with her going on vacation.

Perry and Janet had been arguing about his harassment against the paralegal back in 1990, which she had only recently found out about without him knowing. And she told him that she was going to file for divorce and take everything. Of course Perry didn't want that to happen, because everything he had in his life was because of her and her family. I mean, let's remember, again, her parents put him through law school after Janet had asked them to help, and then Lawrence Levine even gave Perry a job after he sexually harassed a coworker. So Perry was given success, love, a family, a community through the Levines, and he just completely took it for granted. But knowing that he had nothing without

Janet and her family, the verbal argument became physical. Perry allegedly told Cornelius that he hit Janet in the head with a wrench, burned her body, and put her ashes in a lake. And he did this so that he would be later acquitted, so that her body would never be found and that he couldn't be charged. But jokes on him, because all of this was told to police. And another inmate named Reno Martin told police that one day, Perry returned to jail after a custody hearing and he was super pissed.

And according to Reno, you know, again, the custody hearing with the Levines, and Reno overheard Perry yelling, it should have been them that he had taken care of instead. And then he didn't say another word like he went silent. Like as if to imply that, he should have just killed Carolyn and Lawrence instead of Janet. And the charges against Perry just kept growing and growing, including a 2006 embezzlement charge when he was discovered to have embezzled $23,000 from Lawrence Levine's firm two years before Janet even disappeared. Like this guy is just such an ass.

He's a scumbag. He's such scum. And also in 2006, so 10 years after Janet's assumed murder, Perry was convicted on the murder charges. His trial began soon after and a slew of evidence was presented. And many witnesses spoke, including all the friends and family statements that we've discussed throughout this episode that shows the severe suspicions against Perry, and then some, including Janet's college roommate, you know, the one who introduced Janet and Perry.

She never knew Janet to back into a a parking space and also explained that Perry threatened her after she talked to the media when Janet went missing. People from the apartment complex where the Volvo was found spoke as well. One of them who identified Perry and allegedly saw him at 1am that night, looking very surprised to see her coming home from work. Marissa Moody spoke regarding the suspicious rug, and the prosecution as well as police believed that that very rug was used to transport Janet's body. In lab tests help prove this, because the back of Janet's vulvo had hair samples that were consistent with Janet's hairbrush, and then in the back

of Perry's Jeep, carpet fibers were found that were the same colors as the rug Marissa explained seeing, which of course was gone when police arrived with a search warrant a few weeks later. To help confirm the belief that Perry murdered Janet, his own father pretty much outed him. When Arthur was arrested on the murder conspiracy charges, he took a plea deal that included giving up information about evidence against Perry, his own son. Which although Arthur is a piece of shit too, I gotta commend him for doing this, I think

that's good. You know, like finally rolled over on his son. Yeah, yeah, but I mean, you know, cause we talk about a lot of parents who back their kids up even when they murder somebody, and I'm glad that Arthur was like, oh, I can get a lesser deal if I out him. Sure, I'll take that deal. Well, yeah, and Arthur seems like the same type

of person as Perry, obviously. They both are looking out for their own best interest. Oh, absolutely, good point. So the prosecution showed the jury a videotape of Arthur's deposition. And in it he explained that Perry had ordered him to dispose of his computer's hard drive in the woods after Janet disappeared, which just makes you wonder what exactly was on this hard drive. Yeah. And I don't know if it has to do with the list or that list of times that Perry wrong Janet,

like I'm sure there was just various documents on there that maybe he thought would incriminate him. There's just some evidence there. Right. So Arthur also explained that a few weeks later, Perry took him out to a wooded area in the northern outskirts of Nashville, and he showed him where he hid Janet's body, which was in a leaf bag.

Arthur helped Perry out by taking said bag, which he said was around 50-60 pounds, and brought it to the back of Perry's Jeep. Then they apparently drove to Bowling Green, Kentucky together, where Perry slept in a motel while Arthur took Janet's skeletal remains and her clothes and buried them in a large pile of brush. And by the way, Nashville is just a little bit over an hour away from Bowling Green. And this is a little bit confusing because Cornelia said that Perry told him that he burned her remains, whereas Arthur is saying that after just a few weeks of her being deceased, her remains were skeletal and he buried them.

But then Arthur said that he couldn't point police to the exact location of the remains because he couldn't remember where they were. And you know, I don't know why Arthur would essentially implicate himself as an accomplice just to lie. So it's possible that instead, either Perry told a bogus story to Cornelius or Cornelius was lying. Yeah, I mean, in my opinion, I, again, yeah, I don't see why Arthur would just make up this story.

Unless Perry went back and got the remains and then burned them and put them in the lake after. But, Perry never said, so we just don't know. 10 years and two days after Janet was last seen, on August 17, 2006, the jury found Perry guilty on all charges. He was sentenced to 56 years in prison, meaning that he could get out at the age of 101. That very same day, Arthur March was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison. But just three months later, Arthur died at the age of 78, at the Federal Prison Medical Center, in Fort Worth, Texas. Perry and his lawyers quickly worked to appeal his conviction, and he continued to appeal,

but they were continuously denied. So Perry remains imprisoned to this day, and Janet's children were raised by Lawrence and Carolyn Levine, who continued to fight for grandparent visitation rights and helped make positive change within Tennessee law. Although they sadly don't know exactly what happened to their daughter, since Perry never officially confessed, it's heavily believed that he did kill her over the conversation of divorce. But they continue to honor their daughter, and shortly after all of this, an art gallery Thank you so much everybody for listening to this episode of Going West. Yes, thank you guys so much for listening to this episode and next week we'll have two more

cases for you guys to dive into. Mayhan Perriest, such a dumbass. He's such a P.O.S. y'all. He really is. It's sad that he never, like, he clearly did murder her. And he had a roundabout way of saying that he did, but he never actually said what he did. It's like, it makes me crazy.

So thank you guys for listening to this very frustrating episode of Going West. Again, we hope you had a great holiday. We hope you continue to have a great holiday over the weekend, and again, if you're by yourself, Heath and I, we're here for you. We're here. Yes, we're here for you. And also, if you guys want some extra episodes of Going West, head on over to patreon.com slash going west podcast and get yourself some bonus episodes.

Yes, and we just released a brand new episode, Reasy Canadian Case about Russell Williams. Oh my God, guys, this one is gonna blow your minds. It's insane. So go listen to that and 53 other full length ad free bonus episodes on Patreon. Patreon.com slash going West Podcast. All right, we love y'all. So for everybody out there in the world, don't be a stranger. 1 tbh 1 tbh 1 tbh

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1 tbh 1 tbh 1 tbh 1 tbh Thank you. you