Chapter 32
The deposition of Colonel Arthur Wayne March, as it came to be known, was taken over two days—April 10 to 11, 2006, a Monday and a Tuesday. Arthur’s attorney, Fletcher Long, was present, as was his son Perry March. Tom Thurman and Katie Miller were present for the state, and attorneys William A. Massey, Lorna McClusky, and John Herbison appeared on behalf of Perry March. Following introductory remarks and the swearing in of Arthur March, the questioning began.
“State your name for the record, please, sir,” Thurman instructed.
“Arthur Wayne March.”
“And how old are you?”
“Seventy-eight.”
“Do you go by Colonel, Mr., what do you like to be called?” Thurman asked.
“Well, I prefer to be called Colonel, except sometimes they call me Dr.,” Arthur replied.
Thurman asked him if he was on any medication, and Arthur said that he was on “lots of it,” taking seventeen pills each day for a medical condition that he thought had been congestive heart failure—except all the tests had come back negative. He failed to provide any other information about his medical condition at that time except to say that he had lost twenty-four pounds of excess fluid from his body. Thurman took him through a series of questions that established that Arthur was being held in a federal facility in Kentucky. Details of his family, children, educational background, and retirement from the army also were provided. After discussing the terms of his guilty plea, Thurman transitioned his questioning to the night that Janet disappeared.
“Do you recall when your daughter-in-law Janet March disappeared on August 15, 1996?” Thurman asked.
“Yes. I was in Mexico.”
“Did you come to Nashville shortly after that?”
“I did.”
“And why did you come to Nashville?”
“My son asked me to come up and help him with the children. He needed help.”
“Do you know how many days after she disappeared before you were able to arrive here in Nashville?”
“I think it was three or four. I really don’t—”
“Do you recall the day of September 17, 1996, when a search warrant was served on your apartment, as well as . . . the home of your son, Mr. March?” Thurman asked.
“Yes.”
“Prior to that search warrant being served . . . did your son Perry March ask you to dispose of any items for him?”
“Yes, two items for the computer. One, I don’t know what it was, and the other was the hard drive.”
“And, did you do that for him?”
“Yes, I did.”
“And how did you obtain these items?”
“Perry gave them to me.”
“And what did you do with those items?”
“I—one that I don’t know what the name on it was, I put into a disposable garbage box in a strip mall in front of a drugstore. And the other was the hard drive—I disposed of it by throwing it . . . in a wooded area relatively near the house.”
In response to the questions being asked him, Arthur explained that he had disposed of the computer hard drive and the second computer item, which he wasn’t familiar with, on two separate occasions because Perry had given the items to him on separate occasions. Arthur also explained how he had driven a rental truck loaded with furniture from Perry and Janet’s house to the Chicago area the day after the search warrant had been served, September 18, which he had placed into storage in Hammond, Indiana, just outside of Chicago. He said that he had made the trip alone, and had taken a flight back to Nashville.
“Okay, did you ever travel back with your son Perry March?” Thurman asked.
“Yes.”
“When was that?”
“That was . . . later.”
“Later in September?”
“It could have been, yes.”
“Now, how did you return from Chicago with your son Perry March?”
“Uh—we came back in his Volvo.”
“On a trip back to Nashville . . . that time, did . . . you and your son stop and purchase anything?”
“Uh—we stopped . . . we bought . . . a shovel and I think the other item was Clorox, but I’m not sure.”
Although Arthur said that he could not recall which state they were in when they stopped to purchase the shovel and the bleach, he said that the purchase had been made at a hardware store.
“When you arrived back in Nashville, did your son ask you to do something for him, to assist him in a—in a matter?” Thurman asked.
“A little later on, he asked me to help—uh, dispose of Janet’s body.”
“And how was he acting when he asked you to do that?”
“Little nervous.”
“Did he say . . . why he wanted you . . . to help him dispose of her body?”
“Yes. He said where he placed the body was now being turned into a construction site and her body was placed right near the road that they were using to get to the construction site.”
“Did you agree to assist him in disposing of the body?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Where did you go from there, once you agreed to assist him?”
“Uh—we went in his car . . . up the highway . . . a fairly large, two-lane highway.”
Arthur explained that it was perhaps a ten-minute drive to the location where the body was buried. He said that they parked the car, and Arthur got out of the car to retrieve the body.
“He told me where the body would be and I . . . got out of the car and went to get the body and he drove around.”
“What instructions did he give you . . . about where the body was located?”
“Told me it was up this little road, ten to fifteen yards, and turn left and go in. It would be in the wooded section and I had a flashlight. He told me I should look on the ground and I would see where the body was.”
“Did you follow his instructions?”
“Yes.”
“Were you able to find—”
“Yes, with no problem.”
Thurman asked Arthur to describe his observations when he found the body regarding its appearance.
“It was in this black . . . plastic bag. We call it a leaf bag up north . . . a large bag.”
“Did it appear to have . . . any disturbance around where the body was located?”
“Yes, it looked . . . like there was some digging around . . . what proved to be the grave.”
“Was the body buried to any extent?”
“It had dirt on top.”
“And were you able to get the body in the trash bag, the leaf bag, out without digging yourself?”
“Yeah, but I pushed a little bit of the dirt off the top with my hands and then closed up the bag and pulled it down the hill. It was a slight hill where she had been placed. And I took it to the other side of the road that we came in on and I waited for Perry to come with his car. And then he stopped in front of me and took the bag and pulled it back into . . . the road. He opened the trunk to the car. We took . . . the body and put [it] in back of the Volvo.”
“Now, you say you closed the bag back. Was the bag open?”
Arthur said that the bag had been partially open when he retrieved it.
“Did you actually look in it at the time?” Thurman asked.
“Not really. I saw some bones and I didn’t really want to know what was going on.”
“Okay. So, you secured the bag, took it down the hill. . . . Was it heavy for you to carry?”
“It was heavy, but it . . . was less than . . . somewhere between fifty and sixty, seventy pounds. It was under a hundred pounds.”
“Okay. But you don’t know the exact weight, obviously.”
“No.”
“But . . . you were able to . . . handle it . . . yourself?”
“Yes, I pulled it down, and it was a down slope.”
“After the body was . . . put in the trunk . . . what did you do next?”
“We closed the trunk, got into the car, and went down to the highway. Perry was driving and we drove up north toward Chicago.”
“Did you go all the way to Chicago after that?”
“No. When we got up past the Kentucky line . . . we found a motel . . . I don’t know the name. It was Blue something or it was blue in color. That’s all that sticks in my mind.”
“What happened when you got to the hotel?”
“I got out of the car. Perry gave me some cash, went in and paid for the room, and that was it.”
“Did you use your real name?”
“No.”
“What happened after you got the room?”
“Uh, we went to the room, Perry laid down and said he was very tired. He gave me the keys to the car. I went back and got in the car, went back out to the highway, turned left, which was north, again, and started . . . to the other side of . . . Bowling Green.”
“Do you recall what name you used when you registered?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Okay. So, you headed north to Bowling Green and then . . . describe what happened.”
“After I got past where they made the . . . Corvette, I went . . . looking for a stream. We call it a creek. We [sic] found one. I turned. . . and I looked—had to stop a few times to see how deep the creek was. It wasn’t very deep and I could not put the body in the creek. So, I got back in the car, turned around. . . went a little farther north, where I found another creek and it was the same thing. The creek was so low that there wasn’t enough water to deposit the . . . the body. So, I started—I turned around, came back. It was just getting light at that time. And I drove up . . . pulled over to the side of the road, was parked on the left-hand side of the road. There was a big . . . pile of brush, I would call it. . . . I went and cleared away three . . . you might say they were holes (made in the brush pile). . . . In the first one I put the clothes that were in there on the top. That’s when I saw the bones. I knew it was a body. In the next hole, I put Janet. I flipped out the—the body from the, uh, bag, the leaf bag, took the leaf bag and saw the clothes and put it in the third hole, closed all the holes up, went back, and that’s when I saw a . . . car . . . not really a car—it was a school bus. And they came up to the crossroads, turned right and . . . went down. . . . I got into my car, went out to the highway to Sixty-Five, and turned right and went back to the motel, where Perry was.”
“When you were disposing of the body, did you smell anything at that time?”
“No, I did not.”
“Was the Clorox or the shovel ever used that was purchased. . . ?”
“Not to my knowledge.”
“So . . . that same morning, did you then leave the hotel, and where did you go from there?”
“We went up north to Chicago.”
“Did you tell Perry how you disposed of the body?”
“Well, I told him I put it in a creek with some water and nobody was to get to it. It was under the water, ’cause I didn’t want to go through the whole thing with him. And to my knowledge, that’s where he thought I put it.”
“Did you ever discuss this again after that day?”
“Never.”
“Did . . . you ever tell anybody about this prior to telling the police and prosecutors earlier this year?”
“No.”
Arthur then explained under continued questioning how he helped the police in an attempt to find Janet’s remains after nearly a decade had passed. Despite the earlier specificity when he explained where he had taken Janet’s remains, he now explained that sometime during the last nine years or so, the highway had been widened by two additional lanes, making it impossible for him to locate the exact spot where he claimed he placed the body into the brush pile.
“Why did you agree to help your son . . . get rid of Janet March’s body?”
“He’s my son! He’s my son.”