Perry March
"Buying a BMW"
At 8:00 a.m. on August 3, 2005, ten armed federal agents took Perry March by surprise and arrested him outside his restaurant in Ajijic. They had been watching him for several months. Eight months earlier a grand jury in Nashville had indicted him, charging him with second-degree murder, abuse of a corpse, and tampering with evidence. March did not put up a fight as he was driven to the airport in Guadalajara and flown to Los Angeles.
March chose not to fight extradition to Tennessee and was transferred to a cell at Nashville's Criminal Justice Center after entering a plea of not guilty. Judge Steve Dozier set his bond at $3 million, which forced March to await trial in jail.
March managed to make at least one friend in jail, Russell Nathaniel Farris, the inmate in the next cell, who was being held on charges of attempted murder and robbery. March and Farris communicated through an air shaft between their cells. March told Farris of his predicament, and as they got better acquainted, the two men came up with a mutually beneficial solution to their legal dilemmas.
March felt that the Levines were his biggest problem. He knew they were well connected in Nashville and assumed they were doing everything they possibly could to get him convicted. He figured that if Carolyn and Lawrence Levine were out of the picture, he might stand a chance of beating the murder rap.
Farris told March that all he wanted was a place were he could live in peace with his dog and maybe his mother. March said he had an idea that might get them what they both wanted. After two days of intense discussion, they came up with a plan. March would arrange to pay Farris's bond and eventually get him set up in Mexico if he would kill Lawrence and Carolyn Levine.
Farris agreed to do it and assured March he would do it right, spending some time getting to know the Levines "patterns" so that he could assassinate them together. March promised to hold up his end of the deal with the help of his father who would arrange things for Farris in Mexico. Farris even came up with an alias he would use once he got to Mexico: "Bobby Givings." As they discussed their plot, they used a code phrase for the double homicide, "buying a BMW."
