It took Larry and Carolyn Levine 10 years to get justice for their daughter: a conviction for her murder. It all started on August 29, 1996, when Larry and his son-in-law, Perry March, reported 33-year-old Janet March missing in Nashville, Tennessee.

“Perry told police that they had had a fight, and she took off,” said Nick Beres, anchor for Newschannel 5 Nashville, on Fatal Family Feuds, airing Sundays at 7/6c on Oxygen. Perry added that he believed his wife to be on a vacation.

But that fight happened on August 15 — two weeks prior to the missing person’s report. After Janet missed her son’s sixth birthday on August 25, her parents became alarmed.

“Now all the sudden she misses [the party],” said ret. detective Pat Postiglione with Metropolitan Nashville Police Department on Fatal Family Feuds. “Not a phone call. Nothing from her. Zero communication.”

It didn’t take long for Perry March to become the prime suspect in his wife’s disappearance. And what followed was a decade of custody battles, lawsuits, and pain and suffering for Janet’s family.

Janet and Perry March’s deteriorating marriage ends with her disappearance

Janet Levine and Perry March met while attending the University of Michigan. They soon moved to Nashville to be near Janet’s family, and Perry attended Vanderbilt Law School with financial help from Janet’s father, a successful and wealthy lawyer. Janet’s parents helped the couple build their dream home, but the title was in Janet’s name only. They also gifted the couple and their two children $20,000 a year, and eventually Perry joined Larry Levine’s law firm. Despite the family’s support alleviating stress on their relationship, Janet and Perry ended up in marriage counseling.

“We learned that Janet was actually getting set to go see an attorney in reference to filing for divorce against Perry,” Postiglione said. “And that was supposed to occur on August 16, 1996. The day after she was reported to have left on ‘vacation.’”

There was no activity on Janet’s credit card accounts, and no friends or family had heard from her. Three weeks after she was last seen, her car was discovered parked at a nearby apartment complex. Police got a call from a man who lived in that apartment complex.

“He was coming home on the night Janet went missing and he notices a male pushing a bicycle [around] 1:30, 2 a.m. And they locked eyes for a few seconds,” Postiglione said. “He said there’s no doubt in his mind it was Perry March.”

Perry’s father, Arthur, who had also been helped financially by the Levine family, came back from Mexico to be with his son.

“Janet is missing and presumed to have been murdered,” Postiglione said. “Arthur didn’t seem to be very concerned.”

Perry had provided to police a typed “to-do” list he claimed his wife left for him while she was away. Police would’ve been able to figure out when it was typed by looking at the family computer — but ran into a problem.

“We discovered that the hard drive on the home computer was literally ripped out of the computer,” Postiglione said. “Perry said that someone must have broken in and stole just the hard drive. Which we found very hard to believe.”

Police also found other damning evidence against Perry while searching the family home: unsigned letters from 1991 addressed to a female paralegal at the law firm where Perry worked before joining his family firm.

“They were part sexually graphic, part lovesick school boy,” said Phyllis Gobbell, author of An Unfinished Canvas, on Fatal Family Feuds. “When investigators look into it, they found that the paralegal told the people at the law firm. They put in some surveillance. And caught Perry leaving the letters.”

The Levines were unaware that this caused Perry to be fired from his previous law firm.

“We suspect that Janet found these sexually explicit letters and that she confronted Perry on the night of the 15^th,” Postiglione said. “Told him that she was set to see a divorce attorney. And he decided you’re not going to leave me, you’re not going to divorce me, and in a moment of anger, he killed her.”

The Levine family goes to war against Perry March

Four weeks after the investigation into Janet March’s disappearance began, her husband stopped working for the family law firm, moved with their two children to Chicago, and stopped letting the Levines see their grandchildren.

“That was really the beginning of the feud between the Levines and Perry,” Gobbell said.

Perry March petitioned the probate court to get control of Janet’s assets, including the home. In Spring 1997, the court gave him $60,000 from the sale of the home. On May 28, 1999, an Illinois court granted the Levines bimonthly visitations of their grandchildren, but Perry had taken the children and moved to Mexico with his father.

Three and a half years after Janet March disappeared, a Tennessee court declared her legally dead. Two months later, Perry March married a woman in Mexico.

“If he believes that maybe Janet’s still out there somewhere, what’s he doing moving down to Mexico and getting married?” Beres said.

Because an Illinois court gave them visitation rights, and they’d been denied access to their grandchildren in Mexico, the Levines took more action against Perry.

“They went to Mexico and with the help of the Mexican authorities, they took the children back to Nashville,” Gobbell said.

The Levines continued their legal pursuit of justice and sued Perry in civil court for wrongful death of Janet. A jury awarded them $113.5 million dollars in damages. They used that ruling to file for full custody of the children — but lost to Perry. In Spring 2003, the wrongful death ruling was also overturned on appeal.

Eight years after Janet March’s disappearance, a new witness comes forward

Eight years after Janet March vanished, a business associate of Perry March in Mexico called police with a tip that Perry was threatening him.

“He said, ‘I’ll kill you like I killed my wife,’” Tom Thurman, ret. deputy district attorney for Davidson County, Tennessee said on Fatal Family Feuds.

In December 2004, a grand jury indicted Perry March for his wife Janet’s murder. He was arrested in Mexico and extradited back to the U.S., and Larry and Carolyn Levine were awarded custody of their grandchildren. That’s when another inmate at the jail came forward to police.

“He said, ‘Perry March, he’s trying to recruit me. He wants me to get out of jail and go kill his in-laws,’” Postiglione said. “We suspect strongly that he already killed their daughter. Now he wants to kill them. I think he was looking for retribution against the Levines. Because they fought him so hard on the kids.”

Police placed recording devices in the jail, and recorded Perry telling the inmate, “I can’t tell you how excited I am” for the inmate to kill his in-laws.

“That was a huge break in the case,” Thurman said. “That’s a clear indication that he’s guilty.”

Perry also said his father could provide refuge and compensation for the hit on the Levines. Police recorded the inmate calling Arthur March and making plans to come to Mexico after the hit, leading to Arthur March’s arrest just three months after his son. As part of a deal, Arthur March confessed.

“He told me they’d had, I think he said, an argument. There was an accident. And Janet had died,” Arthur said during a police interview. “He asked me to help him dispose of Janet’s body.”

Arthur also confessed to getting rid of the missing computer hard drive for his son, as well as Janet’s remains. He said he and his son drove up to Kentucky with Janet’s body, which they put in a big brush pile, hoping it’d get burned by someone. Police searched that area, but Janet’s body has never been found.

“The assumption was Janet’s body was in fact burned [in a brush fire],” Postiglione said.

On August 7, 2006, Perry March’s murder trial began.

“Ten years and two days to the day she disappeared, they came back with guilty on all counts,” Beres said.

Perry was sentenced to 56 years in prison for the second-degree murder of Janet March, and conspiracy to commit the murders of Larry and Carolyn March. Arthur March died in prison in December 2006.

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