Father says former Nashville attorney killed wife with wrench
NASHVILLE — The father of a former Nashville attorney charged in the murder of his wife told investigators that his son killed her with a wrench in 1996 and he helped his son hide the body, attorneys said under terms of a plea deal discussed in court Monday.
Perry March is charged with second-degree murder and abuse of a corpse. Authorities have been looking for the body of his wife, Janet March, ever since her husband reported her missing in August 1996. Details of exactly where her body may be located were not discussed in court Monday.
“This means that the cases against March will proceed, and Arthur March has agreed to assist in the prosecution against Perry,” U.S. Attorney Jim Vines told reporters after the hearing.
Both Perry March and his father, Arthur March, were charged in October with conspiracy to murder Janet March’s parents, Lawrence and Carolyn Levine.
In court Monday, Arthur March pleaded guilty to conspiracy to murder and aiding and abetting his son. He agreed to serve 18 months in prison with three years of supervised release, a sentence that will be finalized May 1 in an agreement that could be revoked if his cooperation lags.
The father had recently been helping authorities in the murder investigation, and a WSMV-TV video crew filmed March as he traveled to a farm near Bowling Green, Ky., Friday with two Nashville detectives and Assistant District Attorney Tom Thurman.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul O’Brien gave the first details of what happened to Janet March from the witness stand in Monday’s hearing.
O’Brien said the father told prosecutors that his son confided in him in September 1996 that he struck his wife in the head with a wrench after an argument in August 1996 and that he helped his son hide the body.
Janet March, who was 33 when she disappeared, was declared dead in 2004.
The final unraveling of the nearly 10-year-old mystery happened after police had Perry March in custody. He was arrested last August almost exactly nine years after his wife disappeared from their Nashville home. Scheduled for trial in August 2006, O’Brien said that father and son solicited a hit man to kill Janet March’s parents.
O’Brien said the Marches offered promises of money and a place to live in Mexico. The would-be hit man was given a code name of Bobby Givens and told to refer the murders in code as buying or selling “a sports utility vehicle.”
Police moved the man to a different jail, and he told Perry March he had been released. Arthur March advised him to buy a shotgun and wear surgical gloves, according to O’Brien. Arthur March was recorded in a telephone conversation from Mexico saying, “Once you get here, you’ve got no problem.”
Police picked up Arthur March at the Guadalajara airport on Oct. 28, a day after the would-be hit man telephoned that the Levines had been killed. Arthur March told investigators he had been there to pick up Bobby Givens.
Nashville Police Chief Ronal Serpas said the plea agreement should make it clear to Nashville families that “cold cases don’t go away.”
The case has attracted heavy attention in the Nashville area, in part because Janet March, an artist, was active in the city’s arts community and her father is a well-known attorney.