Chapter 8
On Wednesday, November 20, 1996, Perry March appeared in Davidson County Probate Court on behalf of himself and his children in which he provided a lengthy and often interesting deposition that, at times, revealed significant details about his character. Janet’s parents, along with their attorneys, were present. Perry’s brother, Ronald March, was present, along with Perry’s attorney, Lionel R. Barrett Jr. Jon E. Jones, attorney for the Levines, began the questioning after Perry had been sworn in. His deposition was, in part, a result of litigation that he had filed in a legal battle between himself and the Levines over Janet’s assets.
“Your brother, Ron March, is here today sitting beside you,” said Jones. “Is that correct?”
“That is correct,” Perry responded.
“In what capacity is he here?”
“He is my attorney.”
“Did he help you at any time move personal property from the residence at Blackberry Lane?”
“No.”
“Have you transferred any funds to him since August 15, 1996?”
“No.”
And so the questioning went. Jones wanted to know if Perry had given his brother any funds to hold for him for any period of time, and Perry responded that he had not.
“Have you deposited any checks written to you into his account since August 15, 1996?” Jones asked.
“No. Not to the best of my recollection,” Perry replied.
“Did you contact him on August 15, 1996?”
“Yes.”
“At what time?”
“To the best of my recollection, it was sometime around nine [
P.M.
].”
“Why did you contact him?”
“To let him know that my wife, Janet, had left.”
“When had you last talked to your brother before that conversation?”
“I do not remember. I speak to my brother daily, once or twice.”
“Had you told your brother that you and your wife had separated?”
“We hadn’t separated.”
“During the days before August 15, 1996, did you tell your brother, or had you told your brother, that you were not living in the house, were not staying there overnight?”
“I had not moved out of my house,” Perry responded. “I had stayed in hotels a few nights.”
“Was your brother aware of that before August 15, 1996?” Jones asked.
“I don’t remember.”
Jones asked Perry whether he had spoken to his brother during the two weeks prior to Janet’s disappearance to inform him that he and Janet were having marital problems at that time, and Perry told him that he had. In response to Jones’s questioning, Perry described their marital problems simply as routine, and that they had had such difficulties on and off throughout their marriage. Jones asked if their marital problems had become worse.
“There had been times in our marriage where they were equal degrees,” Perry responded.
“Had you spent other nights in a hotel rather than stay at home?” Jones asked. “Because of your marital difficulties.”
“Not at all.”
“Sir?”
“No.”
“So, immediately before August 15, 1996, is the first occasion where the problems in your marriage caused you to stay in local hotels, is that correct, rather than stay at home?”
“Correct.”
“Tell me what happened on August fifteenth leading up to your claim that Janet walked out or disappeared,” Jones asked.
Perry explained that he had arrived home from work at approximately 4:00 or 4:30
P.M.
that day, and that Janet was at home with their two children while the cabinet workers were completing the repair work that Janet had requested. Jones then wanted to know what Janet had been wearing when Perry arrived home that day.
“I don’t remember,” Perry responded.
“Was she wearing blue jeans? Was she wearing a dress? Was she dressed up?” Jones asked.
“Mr. Jones, I don’t remember.”
“Okay. You have no idea at all. Is that what you’re claiming?”
“That’s correct,” Perry responded. “As of today I don’t remember.”
“Did she ever change clothes before you claim she left on August fifteenth? From the time you arrived home that day.”
“I believe she did. I do remember that I noted that there was a change, but I don’t remember exactly what it was,” Perry said.
“So you don’t remember if she changed from a dress to casual clothes or from casual clothes to a dress? That’s just blocked out of your mind. Is that correct?”
“I don’t remember. I think she was wearing shorts and then—and then jeans or vice versa. But that’s about as good as I can remember at this time.”
“When do you think she changed clothes?”
“Prior to her leaving.”
“Immediately before she left?”
“I think pretty close to when she left, yes.”
“What time do you say she left?”
“Again, approximately, based on my recollection right now, sometime between eight-thirty and nine.”
“How long after she left was it until you called your brother?”
“Again, I know I called my brother sometime around the nine o’clock hour. It could have been nine-thirty, it could have been a quarter to nine. I don’t remember exactly.”
“Do you have a sense that she had been gone an hour or more before you called him?”
“I think she had been gone a relatively short period of time, but I don’t remember exactly.”
“What do you mean by ‘a relatively short period of time’?”
“I don’t have any way to give you an estimation of that—of that time period.”
“Okay. Was it dark when she left?”
“I don’t recall. I think it was dusky, or it could have been dark. I just—I don’t remember. I was inside. I wasn’t outside at all.”
“You didn’t follow her out?”
“No.”
“All right. You arrived home, you say, around four to four-thirty
P.M.
”
“Sometime in that time period.”
“Where did you arrive home from?”
“My office.”
“Did you go straight home from the office to your house?”
“I don’t remember.”
“In other words, you don’t know if you stopped somewhere for an hour or so before you went home?”
“That’s correct. I simply do not remember that day. A lot of things happened since then. I do not remember if I came directly home. It was a routine day to me.”
“Mr. March, how could you not remember the last day you saw your wife?”
“My testimony is I do not remember, Mr. Jones.”
“Well, do you have any explanation for your lapse of memory?”
“Yes. Lots of things have occurred since then and now, and it was not logged in my memory what happened.”
“What was the last thing Janet said to you?”
“Something to the effect, ‘It’s your turn. See ya.’”
“Do you have a memory of that?”
“Yeah, I definitely remember that.”
When Jones asked him what had happened after he came home, Perry responded that it was difficult to recall because it had been more than three months since the evening of August 15. He said that he had taken care of the children while Janet stayed with the cabinetmakers and oversaw their work. He explained how he had played with the kids outside, and later had prepared their dinner and gave them baths before putting them to bed. Afterward, he said that he had helped the workmen replace the faucet in the kitchen and later went out to a grocery store.
“Why did you go to the grocery store?” Jones asked.
“Pick up some dinner,” Perry replied in his sometimes fragmented manner of speaking.
“Who cooked dinner?”
“I did.”
“What did you cook?”
“I don’t remember. I’ve been trying to remember what I cooked. I have no idea.”
“What store did you go to?”
“I’m sure I went to the Com—Steven’s. That’s it. I’m sorry. Steven’s. Steven’s grocery store—near the split of highway one hundred and [highway] seventy.”
“You remember going.”
“Absolutely. Because I never go to the grocery store.”
“All right. What did you drive to the store?”
“I don’t remember. Probably my Jeep, but maybe her car. I just don’t remember what the situation was with the cars.”
Jones changed the course of his interrogation with his next question.
“Why did you have a roll of carpet in the house, or a partial roll?” Jones asked.
“Mr. Jones, I have no idea what you’re talking about. What roll of carpeting?”
“Was there any rolled-up carpet at any time in your house on August fifteenth?”
“Mr. Jones, I have no idea. My house is full of things. I have no idea if I had rolls of carpeting in my house. We have three rooms of carpeting. I have no idea what extra carpeting is in my house. None. My wife was completely in charge of the construction of that house. Whatever extra materials or excess materials were, she was in charge of putting wherever she put them.”
“When you lived in the house, did you see rolls of carpet or any rolled-up carpet anywhere in the living area of the house?”
“I don’t recall any rolled-up carpeting in the living area of the house. I’m certain it wouldn’t have been in the living areas of the house. Although it could have been. I just don’t recall it.”
“In other words, it might have been there and it might have been something that was there every day you were in the house or it might have been brought in just shortly before August fifteenth, but your mind’s completely blank about that; is that right?”
“No, sir. I think that you’re putting words in my mouth. My testimony here and my answer to you, my truthful answer to you, is I don’t recall any rolled-up carpeting in any living section of the house whatsoever. There may have been remnants of rolled-up carpeting somewhere in my house, either stored in my basement or in some closet, but certainly not in a traffic living area. That I can recall.”
Perry explained during the lengthy questioning that Janet had requested him to come home early that day. She had called him sometime during the day at the office, which she had often done. When asked if he had ever recorded Janet’s telephone conversations with him, Perry responded that he had, on two or three separate occasions when she had become hysterical or had been in a very upset frame of mind.
“I would record those conversations to—I would just record them,” Perry said.
“When you said you did them ‘to,’ and then you stopped. To do what?” Jones asked.
“At the time I did them, it was to play them back to her to analyze them and go over what it was that she was upset with. Or to—I think on one occasion when Janet was hysterical and I taped it, I gave that tape to Carolyn and Larry Levine to have them listen to it to see if they could help and shed some light on what was the font of her anger. But really that—it was only—I can only recall two occasions I have taped Janet at my office. Both of them for that purpose.”
“All right. Tell me about those two occasions.”
“I honestly don’t remember the significance, the substance, or the purpose of the times when Janet was upset on the phone on the two occasions that I taped her. Now, I will say to you it may have been three times, it may have been one time, but I do know that I did tape her on, I think, two occasions with my Dictaphone, standing like this in my office with my eyes rolled up because she was being hysterical on the phone with me.”
“Have you ever taped Larry Levine?”
“Never.”
“Have you ever taped anybody besides Janet?”
“To the best of my recollection, I have not taped anybody else.”
“All right. You got home. You said you gave the children a bath. You said you went out shopping. You cooked supper.”
“I think you have the order reversed, Mr. Jones. I said that I came home and I played with the children and I puttered around. I believe I had some conversations with the cabinet people. And then I went out to the grocery store. I made the children dinner, I gave them baths, and I put them to sleep.”
“Did Janet eat with you and the children that evening?”
“No, she did not.”
“Why?”
“She was working.”
“Where was she working?”
“In her studio.”
“What was she working on?”
“A painting.”
“Did you have any conversation with her about your marriage that evening?”
“Not until after the children were asleep.”
Jones grilled Perry repeatedly regarding the time of day that Perry claimed to have put the children to bed, and Perry responded that it was sometime around 7:00
P.M.
Jones continued to push Perry into being specific about the time on the evening of August 15, and Perry eventually told him that he took offense at Jones trying to find out the specific time periods of that evening.
“Why do you take offense to my trying to find out specific times?” Jones asked.
“I misspoke,” Perry responded. “I do not take offense, but I will correct you because it was not specific in my mind.”
“Okay. And you want to, in your testimony, keep time general. Is that correct?”
“No, I want it to be truthful. And I want to tell you that I do not have specific testimony about specific times. And it would be untruthful to do that.”
“So no time during the evening of August fifteenth did you look at the clock, or do you have any reliable time estimates? Is that correct?”
“That’s not correct.”
“What’s incorrect about that?”
Perry explained that he had a “reliable feel” regarding the time that Janet had left the house the evening she disappeared because he could remember that he had called his brother shortly after she had left. That had been sometime around the “nine-ish hour,” he said. Perry’s telephone records, according to the police, had shown that he had called his brother in Wilmette, Illinois, at 9:11
P.M.
Even though Perry’s time estimate of when he had called his brother was reasonable based on the telephone records, Jones kept hammering away at him about being more specific regarding time that evening. He wanted to know whether Perry looked at his watch that evening; whether he watched television; and if he had watched television, which shows had he watched. When Perry said that he didn’t recollect, Jones asked him if he had changed clothes anytime that evening.