Janet March was supposed to see a divorce lawyer with her mother on August 16, 1996. Shortly before that appointment could happen, her husband called her parents and said she had left after an argument.
Case brief
Nashville / Forest Hills, Tennessee · 1996
- Recorded outcome
- Perry March convicted in 2006; aggregate 56 years; federal relief denied in 2014
Key moments
People in this case
- Janet March
Murder victim
Photo at source · Oxygen · labeled case photograph - Perry March
Convicted of murdering Janet March
Photo at source · Oxygen · labeled case photograph
Janet did not return.
Years later, while awaiting prosecution in Nashville, Perry March became involved in a plan to kill her parents. The plot produced new evidence and brought his own father into the investigation.
The case against him ultimately succeeded without the recovery of Janet’s remains.
A departure that did not fit
Janet and Perry married in 1987. He attended Vanderbilt Law School with financial help from her parents and later worked as an attorney. Their marriage deteriorated, and Janet wanted him to find other accommodation.
The Sixth Circuit’s account of the evidence [1] describes a series of circumstances inconsistent with a planned, voluntary disappearance.
Janet had made arrangements involving the children’s schooling and a birthday. Her supposed departure lacked features relatives would have expected from her. Investigators examined financial activity, computer records and the circumstances surrounding her vehicle.
A witness placed Perry with a bicycle near the parking area where Janet’s car was later found. Other evidence concerned cleaning, a removed computer hard drive and statements attributed to him.
Perry later moved with the children to Mexico. He was arrested there in August 2005 and returned to Tennessee.
The father’s account
Arthur March, Perry’s father, gave testimony describing his role after Janet’s disappearance. The jury saw a recorded deposition.
Arthur said his son had described Janet’s death as an accident following an argument. He also said he helped dispose of a computer hard drive and Janet’s remains.
His account supplied evidence about concealment, but it did not produce a recovered body. Investigators searched a location he identified without finding the remains.
Arthur’s involvement required jurors to assess an implicated witness. A participant may possess crucial knowledge while also having reasons to minimize his own role. His testimony therefore belonged within the larger body of evidence rather than outside normal credibility testing.
A new plan inside the jail
While detained in Nashville, Perry spoke with another inmate, Russell Farris. According to the court’s account, Perry mistakenly believed Farris was jailed for first-degree murder.
He sought Farris’s help in killing Janet’s parents, the Levines.
The discussions continued over weeks. Farris eventually contacted his mother and lawyers, and information reached investigators. In October 2005, he agreed to cooperate.
A recording device was placed in his cell. The plan involved Arthur March helping facilitate the killings and providing a route to refuge in Mexico.
The conspiracy was a separate crime. It also supplied evidence in the prosecution concerning Janet’s disappearance because it concerned people with potentially damaging testimony.
Other inmates reported statements Perry made about Janet’s death. The use of those statements later raised questions about constitutional protections and the role of cooperating witnesses.
An absence contradicted by ordinary plans
Janet's disappearance had to be evaluated against the routines she had left behind. The trial evidence described school and birthday plans for her children, her habits involving money and communication, and the absence of the detailed arrangements that a planned departure would normally have entailed for her. This was evidence about Janet's established behavior. It did not require a claim that every person who leaves home behaves predictably. [1]
Other observations concerned Perry. A witness placed him walking a bicycle through the parking lot where Janet's car was later found. The court's account also describes the house having been cleaned before the housekeeper arrived, the removal of a computer hard drive, and changes made to his own vehicle. Any one observation might have invited another explanation. The prosecution presented them together with the testimony about his statements and the later evidence from his father. [1]
The father's evidence reached the jury on video
Arthur March's deposition was videotaped and played to the jury. He said Perry had described Janet's death as an accident following an argument and had asked him to dispose of the hard drive. He also described moving her remains. That was the father's testimony about what he had heard and done; the jury still had to evaluate his credibility. The body was not recovered to provide an independent examination that could settle every detail of the account. [1]
The distinction matters particularly because the evidence stretched across different proceedings. Arthur's account addressed the disappearance and concealment. The jail conversations concerned a later plan to kill Janet's parents. The second alleged crime supplied evidence of a new plot and became a prosecution of its own. It was not an eyewitness description of Janet's final moments. [1]
When the federal appeals court reviewed Perry's habeas challenge in 2014, it considered particular constitutional objections to statements and informant evidence. Its decision to leave the judgment intact did not mean every disputed police practice received an unconditional endorsement. The criminal outcomes and the reasoning for rejecting those specific challenges are both parts of the record. [1]
Convictions and a qualified appeal ruling
On August 17, 2006, a jury convicted Perry of second-degree murder, destruction of evidence and abuse of a corpse. A separate prosecution produced a conviction for conspiracy to commit first-degree murder.
The combined sentences described in the federal opinion totaled 56 years.
Perry challenged the admission of statements made during his return flight and while incarcerated. In 2014, the Sixth Circuit affirmed the denial of federal habeas relief.
The reasoning matters. On two claims, the court assumed constitutional error without deciding the question and concluded that any error was harmless in light of the other evidence. On another, it found that the state court’s decision did not meet the demanding standard for federal habeas intervention.
That is more qualified than saying the judges found every investigative step proper. It is also different from overturning the conviction.
What remained missing
The proceedings established a murder conviction and exposed a second plot. They did not return Janet’s remains to her family.
Her parents’ planned trip with her to a divorce lawyer places the disappearance in a concrete moment of her life. She was making arrangements to change her circumstances. The prosecution’s evidence described how those plans were cut short and how efforts to conceal the crime extended to the people seeking answers.
The absence of a body did not prevent a conviction. It did leave an important part of the family’s loss unresolved.
Look closer · 3 visuals
Inside the evidence.
Open a visual to explore what it contributed to the case—and the limits of what it shows. These original illustrations explain the record; they are not photographs of the actual evidence.
The removed hard drive
Original editorial illustration — not an actual evidence photograph or exhibit.
Read the evidence notes
Arthur testified that Perry asked him to dispose of the hard drive, part of the evidence concerning concealment.
No recovered drive or its contents are shown. This is an illustration of an item described in testimony.
A deposition on video
Original editorial illustration — not an actual evidence photograph or exhibit.
Read the evidence notes
Arthur’s recorded deposition described Perry’s admission of an accidental death after an argument and Arthur’s own actions.
This is not a still from the deposition. The account was witness testimony; Janet’s body was not recovered.
A second criminal plot
Original editorial illustration — not an actual evidence photograph or exhibit.
Read the evidence notes
The jail conversations concerned a plan to kill Janet’s parents and became evidence in a separate prosecution.
Evidence of the later plot is not an eyewitness account of Janet’s death.
★ Key evidence used in a conviction · ✓ Exclusion or reversal · ◇ Disputed evidence · ⊘ Excluded at retrial · ◆ Identity / investigative finding, not a conviction. A symbol does not mean one item proved the whole case.
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Follow the dated entries, then select an event to find its regional setting. Shared-location pins open a group of events. Evidence symbols identify important findings and their limitations.
Open the map in its own window ↗Sources & further reading
- March v. McAllister, No. 13-5870 — Sixth CircuitTrial evidence, separate conspiracy, sentence and qualified habeas ruling.
Editorial review: 2026-09-29 · 1068 words