“I have no recollection of that,” Perry responded. “I’m sure I changed into my sleeping clothes.”
“When you came home wearing a coat and tie—”
“Oh, I certainly changed out of my suit. I would never have taken care of the kids and given them baths that evening—in my suit.”
“What did you change into?”
“No idea. That was the middle of summer. I don’t know what I put on.”
“Did you ever hit Janet?” The question seemed to have come out of nowhere, and took Perry somewhat by surprise, even though he knew that such a question would eventually be posed to him.
“No. I never struck Janet,” Perry responded.
“With a fist or open hand, you never struck Janet at any time in your life. Is that your testimony?”
“Mr. Jones, to the best of my recollection, I have never struck my wife. It has always been something that I am proud of. I have never struck my wife.”
“You said that to the best of your recollection you had never struck her. That’s not something that you could possibly forget, is it?”
“Mr. Jones, I don’t believe I ever struck my wife.”
“Do you know that?”
“As I sit here today, I tell you that my testimony is that I do not believe I ever struck my wife.”
“I didn’t ask you if you believed it. I asked you if you did. Do you know that you never struck her?”
“Yes, I think I believe I do know I never struck her.”
“Did you ever choke her?”
“No.”
“Did you ever physically hurt her or attempt to physically hurt Janet?”
“I’m just—I’m thinking because I’m just trying to separate—I can’t—I don’t know, but there is certainly a possibility that at times I grabbed Janet’s arm and moved her out of the way or I took something from her, which she was holding back from me, or where I, you know, held her harm—arm in a firm manner, which might be construed by some to be twisting. But certainly never with the intent of inflicting bodily harm on my wife.”
“Did you ever pull her hair?”
“Not to my recollection.”
“Is that something you have any question about?”
“Does that mean did I pull her hair in lovemaking?”
“Did you normally pull her hair in lovemaking?”
“No. What does that mean, ‘pull her hair’? Does that mean if I’m sitting on a chair and her hair is underneath my arm and she sits up and her hair is pulled, did I pull her hair? No, the answer is I never intentionally grabbed my wife’s head, pulled her hair with the intent of inflicting bodily harm on her.”
“Did Janet ever complain that during sexual relationships you would choke her or pull her hair?”
“Not to me.”
Chapter 9
As Perry March’s November 20, 1996, deposition continued, the questioning turned toward whether Perry was aware of anyone who might want to harm or kill Janet. Janet was known to have an unpleasant side to her personality, and it had surfaced regularly during the construction of her and Perry’s house. No less than seven subcontractors, who worked primarily on high-end-type projects, had said that she was difficult to work with and was never pleased until some of their work was redone, whether it was needed or not. Some of the subcontractors recalled that Perry often had to enter the picture to help smooth things out when Janet would become unreasonable in her demands. It didn’t seem likely that any of the subcontractors would want to harm Janet simply because of her occasional nasty disposition, but it did seem to be where Perry was trying to lead his inquisitor during questioning.
“Do you know of anybody who might have any motive to kill Janet?” Jones asked.
“Yes,” Perry responded.
“Who?”
“I believe there are a number of people involved with the construction of our house that carry extreme animosity and feelings of hate toward Janet.”
“Have any of those people ever threatened to kill her or do her bodily harm?”
“I have heard of intimations of such.”
“All right. Let’s go down the list, if you would. Give me their names and what you’ve heard.”
Perry responded that he believed the general contractor, as well as others, seemed to have extreme levels of “hate and animosity” toward Janet. Perry also mentioned a painter who did not particularly like Janet because he had not met Janet’s standards regarding the painting of their house. He said that the painter and Janet were battling constantly about what he should do and what he shouldn’t do. He said that Janet was often very demeaning to many of the workmen, and explained that he didn’t really remember all of them because of the enormous size of the job.
“You have to remember, Mr. Jones, this is a large construction job,” Perry stated. “I was on the site two, sometimes three, times a day talking to various people who had contact with various other subs who had contact with my wife who had contact with numerous people. It was a project that lasted over a year. . . . I know for a fact that I warned Janet on a number of occasions to attempt to modify her behavior and to attempt to modify her statements and interactions with the various subcontractors and contractors working on our job because she was creating a great degree of animosity, and it was counterproductive to the job. It was also dangerous to her.”
“How long has it been since you have seen the contractor. . . or the painter?” Jones asked.
“Over a year. Year and a half maybe.”
“During the year or year and a half, did they ever make any attempts to physically harm Janet or have any contact with her?”
“Certainly not to my knowledge, Mr. Jones.”
Perry said that Janet had apparently caught an employee of one of her subcontractors stealing chairs from their house, and she had apparently confronted him about it. She had also caught another employee stealing materials for his own personal use.
“I know that Janet caught a trim carpenter on our job one afternoon on a beautiful day making a birdhouse out of our materials, on our time, and she took the birdhouse away from him,” Perry said. “So, again, this is a process that lasted over a year. There were a great number of people flowing in and out that my wife had personal contact with. . . . So, I guess, I’m just trying to be honest with you. . . . There must have been over a hundred people in some aspect of [the] work, flowing in and out of our project that Janet had day-to-day contact with. Sometimes one shot and sometimes over a protracted period of time.”
“Do you think any of these people might have killed her?” Jones asked.
“Mr. Jones, I play with theories constantly about where my wife is,” Perry responded. “It is my fixation. It is all I think about. So, nothing is beyond the realm of speculation for me. My own situation is so bizarre that nothing appears bizarre to me.”
“My question was, do you think any of these people killed her?”
“I don’t know.”
A little later in the questioning, Jones again asked Perry if he and Janet argued on the night of August 15.
“It’s a matter of semantics, Mr. Jones,” Perry replied. “The answer to the question is Janet was upset. I did not argue, but I believe she was upset with me and she did argue.”
Jones wanted to know what the argument or confrontation had been about, and how it began.
“Janet wanted to discuss her continuing issues with our marriage,” Perry responded.
“Okay. You said that’s what she wanted. I’m asking what was said. How did the discussion or the argument get started?”
“Again, Mr. Jones, I don’t specifically recollect. My wife had—it was routine that Janet had lists of issues, things she wanted to discuss, recurrent themes, and she wanted to bring them up and talk about them. I sat at the kitchen table. She talked for a while, asked me what I was going to do, and left.”
“Did you ever tell the Levines that you had an argument with Janet on August fifteenth?”
“I—you know, I may have—matter of degree, Mr. Jones. And a matter of when I told the Levines that. You have to understand I was in an extremely upset frame of mind after my wife ran off. I could not find her. I did not know where she was. I missed her terribly and I was concerned for her safety. So, the specific time frames and what I said and who I said them to immediately following Janet’s leaving, very difficult for me to recollect.”
“Now, my question is, did you tell the Levines that you and Janet had an argument on August fifteenth?”
“Again, Mr. Jones, I don’t specifically recollect the statement, but I’m certain that it could have been said because I know that Janet was upset and I was not withholding anything.”
“Did you tell the police that you had an argument on August fifteenth?”
“Again, certainly a strong possibility.”
“Was that the truth?”
“Absolut—well, again, Mr. Jones, it’s a matter of degree of what you consider to be an argument. . . . The truth is that I did not have an argument. The truth is that Janet did, but it’s hard to dance with only one person. So, someone observing it may say it was an argument between a husband and a wife, but I can tell you that my demeanor was the exact same as it is here today with you, sir. If Janet was upset . . . she grew emotional and passionate. That was her nature. . . .”
“And it was your demeanor that night not to become upset and you didn’t become upset on August fifteenth. Is that correct?”
“That is absolutely correct.”
“You never lost your temper on August fifteenth. Is that correct?”
“Correct.”
“You never went into a rage or became emotionally upset and angry and lost control of yourself on August fifteenth. Is that correct?”
“Correct.”
“You did not do anything on August fifteenth in the heat of passion. Is that correct?”
“Correct.”
“Anything you did on August fifteenth in regard to Janet—”
“Let me say this to you, Mr. Jones.”
“Let me finish—you did with full control of your emotions and with full insight and knowledge into what you were doing. Is that correct?”
“That is actually not correct, Mr. Jones. As the evening wore on, and I became more and more concerned for my wife’s safety and her emotional stability, I did become ever increasingly distraught and I did become ever increasingly emotional in concern—in relation to her safety. . . . I started to call hotels. I called my brother. I called my sister. I became worried.”
“Before she left, at all times on August fifteenth . . . anything you did with her that evening was done by you with full control of your emotions and full insight and understanding of your actions and your thought processes and what was going on. Is that correct?”
“I—you know, I believe so,” Perry responded with much difficulty at finding what it was he was trying to say. “I mean, I don’t know if I—if—I can’t—I don’t—I think the only—I mean, we obviously were upset with each other during our conversation before she left. And I’m not sure if I was upset with her or she was upset with me about other issues when I came home. . . . But correct me if I’m wrong, the tenor of your question is was I upset or angry or was there anything of that nature going on that evening, and the answer is we were—we had a general disquiet, a general sense of upsetness between the two of us. Things weren’t right in our marriage, Mr. Jones.”
“Okay. . . . Would you read the question back, please?” Jones asked the court reporter. “And I’ll try to move on from this, but I really need an answer.”
“Before she left,” responded the court reporter as she read back the original question, “at all times on August fifteenth before Janet left, anything you did with her that evening was done by you with full control of your emotions and full insight and understanding of your actions and your thought process and what was going on. Is that correct?”
“I guess the only way I can answer that truthfully,” Perry responded, “is I don’t recollect. I don’t recollect every moment of the time when I came home. It was a routine day for me. It did not become unroutine until I started becoming worried about my wife’s safety.”
“After she left,” Jones added.
“After she left.”
“Up until the time she left, you had not become angry with her. Is that correct?”
“Well, again, I’m modifying my answer to make it more truthful, which is I probably was upset to some degree with her from the moment I even came home. But it was a general issue in our marriage at that time that we both had unresolved tensions with each other.”
“Before she left that night, had you become angry with her?”
“Again, a matter of degree of what someone would call angry and what someone else would call angry.”
“I’m asking you about what you would call it. Would you say, ‘I was angry with her,’ the way you use that term?”
“I don’t recollect. I may have been.”
“In other words, you can’t remember one way or the other?”
“That’s absolutely true. I cannot remember one way or the other.”
“Did you ever lose any consciousness that night or have any blackouts that night?”
“No.”
“Are you on any medications today?”
“No.”
“Is there anything going on that affects your memory here today or impairs your ability to give rational answers ?”
“Not at all. Other than the fact I just had the flu. But I’ve recovered, I think.”
“You don’t have any illness and you’re not under any medications that keep you from having normal ability and thought process [es]. Is that correct?”
“That is correct.”
“Now, because you’ve modified your answers as we’ve gone along, to use your words, I want to know where we are. Because where Janet is, or what happened to her, or what you know about it, may be affected by your view that night of what happened. . . . Do you claim at any time before Janet left, you did anything in any passionate state, or in any heat of passion, or in any emotional state, where your normal judgment and ability and control of your actions was impaired?”
“To the best of my recollection, no.”
“Can you remember one way or the other?”
“To the best of my recollection, no, sir. I say to the best of my recollection.”
“Could your recollection be wrong about that?”
“I don’t believe it is. I’ve given you an answer.”
“Okay. What were you and Janet arguing about that night? I used the term, ‘argument.’ Now, we’ve gone back and forth about it. Is it your position that you and Janet had an argument on August fifteenth or that you did not have an argument on August fifteenth?”
“Again, Mr. Jones, truly it’s a matter of degree. And I think that it’s fair to characterize it as an argument, but it’s also fair to characterize it as really not an argument. I don’t—I don’t know how to answer your question, but I think that a rational person listening would be able to answer it and understand what I’m talking about.”
“Did she yell at you?” Jones’s inflection displayed a degree of sudden irritation, and at times the interaction between Perry and Jones was almost comical—not unlike a scene from a Three Stooges short film in which the bailiff repeatedly tried to swear in Curly, who did not understand the question that was being asked of him.
“Yes.”
“Did you yell at her?”
“No, I did not yell back.”
“Did you throw anything at her?”
“Not at all.”
“Did she throw anything at you?”
“No, not that night.”
“Did she talk about divorce?”
“No. That night I don’t believe she did.”
“What was the subject of this discussion, which some people might fairly call an argument and what some people might not call an argument?”
“Again, I believe—the general tenor was how was I going to make up to her for the period of time that she claimed I had deserted my duties to the household.”
“Did you talk about money that night?”
“Not at all. I don’t believe so.”
“Were you under any financial pressure as of August 15, 1996?”
“No, I wasn’t.”
“Did you have any outstanding unpaid bill or debts at that time? Other than just routine monthly bills?”
“I had a ten-thousand-dollar payment due at some point in the near future, but I had planned on moving my offices, so it wasn’t—I mean, I don’t know what you want me to say about that. . . .”
“What was the ten-thousand-dollar payment for?”
“In settlement for a disputed claim of harassment when I was at Bass, Berry, and Sims.”
“Who was the debt to?”
“Leigh Biggs Reames.”
“Was that a pressing matter as of August 15, 1996?”