Cold Case White-Hot 9 Years Later

Former Tennessee attorney Perry March, suspected of murdering his wife, is headed back to Nashville to face trial after waiving extradition in a Los Angeles County courthouse. It's the latest chapter in the epic story of a woman missing since 1996.

From the beginning, March has insisted his wife, Janet March, abandoned him and their two children.

He told the CBS News broadcast 48 Hours that, on Aug. 15, 1996, she packed a bag and refused to tell him where she was going: "She said, 'None of your business. See you in a couple of days. See how it is with the kids.' "

With that, Perry says, Janet walked out.

When she hadn't returned by midnight, he called her parents.

Recalls Janet's mother, Carolyn Levine: "I said, 'Perry, don't worry about it. I'm sure, if you had an argument, she's upset. She's probably driving around to cool off, and she'll be back. Call me when she comes home.' "

That call never came and, for a while, neither did a call to police.

"Perry insisted he didn't want to go to police," says Janet's father, Lawrence Levine. "He wanted to go see a private investigator."

Perry insists it was Janet's parents who kept him from going to the police.

When he and Janet's father finally did, two weeks later, police classified it as a missing person case.

Perry says he told their kids "the truth, that Mommy left home. We don't know what happened to her. It's very sad, but that's the truth."

Janet's friends had a hard time believing she would just up and leave.

Said one, "She would never, ever walk away from those children."And when Janet's car was found in the lot of an apartment complex, police stopped believing it as well.

They began to treat the case as a crime.

Their chief suspect: Perry, the last known person to see Janet alive.

A search of the March home came up empty, but police suspicions were enough to convince the Levines.

Lawrence Levine asserts Janet was killed the night of Aug. 15, 1996, by Perry.

There was little evidence, and there's still no body. So police couldn't arrest Perry.

Nor could they keep him from leaving Nashville. He took his two children and moved to Mexico, to live with his father, who'd retired there.

Frustrated by the lack of a criminal case, the Levines went after their son-in-law in civil court and won a startling judgment.

The judge ruled that Janet was dead, and Perry was "wrongfully responsible for causing her death."

But a civil judgment wouldn't put Perry behind bars.

He continued to live as a free man in Mexico.

Late last year, however, prosecutors presented their case to a grand jury.

The result: a three-count indictment.

Then, last Wednesday, Nashville Police Chief Ronal Serpas said, "After nearly nine years since the disappearance of Janet March, we today are announcing the arrest of her husband, Perry March, on several charges, including second degree murder."

On Friday, Perry waived extradition, and was returning to Nashville to stand trial for a crime he's always maintained he didn't commit.

He's adamant: "If anybody wants to sit back and look at the facts of this story, then I find it absolutely impossible for them to conclude I did anything wrong."

What evidence did prosecutors present to the grand jury?

They're not saying.

But along with murder, Perry is charged with abuse of a corpse, leading some to speculate that Janet's body may have been found, after all.

As for the March children, they're back in the United States, too, staying with an uncle in Illinois.

Colleagues of The Early Show at 48 Hours have followed the story closely, and continue to work on it as well.