GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — The only person charged in connection with the 1981 disappearance of Deanie Peters won a key victory after an appeals court this week ruled evidence used to charge him with lying to investigators was off limits.
In 2021, James Frisbie was charged with perjury, but the case has been on hold while various appeals have played out.
In a 12-page ruling, a divided Court of Appeals found the search and seizure of Frisbie’s phone was improper. Justices also said the prosecution’s assertion that it was investigating a homicide crossed the line because there wasn’t sufficient supporting evidence.
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The case against Frisbie will now return to Kent County Circuit Court “for further proceedings consistent with this order.’’
Peters was 14 in February 1981 when she left her brother’s wrestling practice at Forest Hills Central Middle School to use the bathroom.
She never returned. Her remains have never been found.
“However, the disappearance of a teenager does not automatically equate with an allegation that they were murdered,” Justices Noah P. Hood and Kathleen A. Feeney wrote in the majority opinion. “In this case, the only evidence of Peters’s death was a presumptive death certificate.”
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Under that backdrop, the perjury charge against Frisbie with its enhanced penalties should not advance “when no facts were presented to support the victim’s murder or death,” the two justices wrote.
Frisbie, in June 2021, testified under an investigative subpoena about the girl’s disappearance. A criminal perjury charge was filed a month later.
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In his dissent, Judge Mark T. Boonstra wrote that the trial court was correct in denying Frisbie’s motion to suppress because the initial seizure of his cellphone was a valid seizure and he consented to the search.
Boonstra also wrote that the prosecution presented sufficient evidence that Frisbie committed the crime of perjury during an investigative subpoena examination.
The felony charge against Frisbie is punishable by a term of years up to life in prison. He remains free on bond.
