Police have made the first arrest in the 1981 disappearance of Deanie Peters.

On February 5th, 1981, 14-year-old Deanie Peters was attending her brother's wrestling match at Forest Hills Central Middle School with her mother. She left to go to the restroom and never returned.

Some 40 years later, an arrest has finally been made in the case. James Douglas Frisbie, age 61, was arrested on Friday, July 2nd.

Frisbie would have been in his early 20s at the time of Deanie's disappearance. He is charged with perjury. He is being accused of lying to police in connection to the Peters’ case. In addition, due to how he allegedly behaved when he was arrested, he has also been charged with resisting and obstructing police.

West Michigan residents have followed this case for decades. There has been very little progress made in finding Deanie over the years.

WOOD TV 8 reports that last February, a retired Michigan State Police Detective Sgt. Sally Wolter said that investigators have been looking at a Lowell man named Bruce Bunch. Their theory was that a then 17-year-old Bunch drove his car toward Deanie to scare her. His car then slid on ice and hit her. The theory is that Bunch then hid her body.

Over the years, Bunch had apparently told as many as 30 people that he killed Deanie. Investigators never could not clear Bunch, but they didn’t have enough evidence to charge him. Bunch died in February 2008, 27 years after Deanie's disappearance.

It was also in 2008 that the Kent Metro Cold Case team took up the case. They conducted several searches but never did find her body.

Here is the story that WOOD TV-8 did near the 40th anniversary of Deanie's disappearance...

And here is the WOOD TV report on the arrest of James Frisbie...

 

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