NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Before he was the prime suspect in his wife's disappearance, former Nashville attorney Perry March proclaimed his innocence and attempted to implicate others in several videos that a jury viewed Friday.

In a television news interview that March gave in 1997, he vehemently denied that he was involved in the disappearance of his wife, Janet March, 33, who was last seen Aug. 15, 1996.

The jury of six men and six women watched intently as a younger, thinner March bristled at a reporter's suggestion that the couple argued the last time he saw his wife, and labeled their last evening together "relatively benign."

"We had plans for next week, we had plans for next month," March said on the video to WSMV reporter Annette Hall, who sat in the witness box Friday.

By the time he gave the television interview, however, he had already told police and his in-laws a different story, in which he claimed that Janet March stormed out of his house following a heated argument.

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She was never seen again and her body was never found. March is charged with second-degree murder and abuse of a corpse for killing the mother of two and disposing of her body.

March maintains his innocence today, as he did in 1996, when he attempted to implicate a painter named Ron and the main contractor who assisted in building Janet March's dream home, a French-style country house in a wooded area of West Nashville.

"I believe there are a number of people who were involved with the construction of our house that carry extreme animosity and feelings of hate toward Janet," March said in a November 1996 videotaped deposition that the jury also viewed Friday.

"What's that based on?" Jon Jones, a lawyer for Janet March's parents, Carolyn and Lawrence Levine, asked March in the deposition from off-camera.

"A disastrous work relationship," March responded in the deposition, which he gave in proceedings with his in-laws over his missing wife's estate. "My wife is very finicky and precise and demanding of workmen."

In the deposition, March conceded that the marriage had deteriorated to the point where he was staying in hotels at his psychiatrist's recommendation.

He attempted to minimize the gravity of the "general disquiet" in the relationship, and became evasive when asked about the events that had precipitated Janet's departure the night of Aug. 15.

"Would it be honest to say that you and Janet had an argument on Aug. 15th?" Jones asked.

"Mr. Jones, the truth is that I did not have an argument. The truth is that Janet did, but it's hard to dance with only one person," March responded. "The general tenor was, how was I going to make up to her for the period of time that she claimed I had deserted my duties to the household."

Davidson County prosecutors believe Janet March actually told her husband of her plans to divorce him, even though March denied any discussion of divorce that evening.

They contend that on the night March allegedly killed his wife, she confronted him about some sexually explicit letters that he had sent to a paralegal years before.

That woman, Leigh Reames, testified Friday that she sued March over the letters, and the two reached a $24,000 settlement that March was to pay over the course of four years.

Reames testified that on Aug. 16, 1996, she received a letter from March telling her that he would be sending her the final installment of their $24,000 settlement in the near future.

Prosecutors believe that Janet March found the letter about the settlement.

They believe she threatened to divorce him over the incident and he killed his wife in a rage and quickly disposed of her body.

Before Friday, March's letters to Reames have been a hotly contested subject outside the presence of the jury, as lawyers for March objected to their admission on the grounds that they were irrelevant and prejudicial.

But on Friday, Judge Steve Dozier ruled that the letters, along with the financial settlement that March was ordered to pay because of them, were relevant to the state's theory of motive.

Even with a motive, lawyers for March claim that the forensic evidence liking their client to a crime is weak.

Several witnesses have already testified about a rolled-up rug they saw in the March home the day after Janet March's disappearance. Prosecutors contend the rug played a role in the disposal of her body.

An FBI trace evidence analyst testified Friday that several fibers found in the trunk of March's Jeep were consistent with a carpet.