$25,000 COLD CASE REWARD

I’LL BE RIGHT BACK

 

In the quarter-century since 14-year-old Deanie Peters disappeared from her little brother’s wrestling practice at Forest Hills Central Middle School, the investigation has led detectives to a school incinerator, divers to a shallow pond and, as recently as last year, cadaver dogs to a mound of rocks.

Detectives locked up a school janitor overnight, interviewed a man on Florida’s death row and questioned suspects from the Lowell area.

More recently, a psychic provided GPS coordinates to look for Deanie’s body, while another drew a picture of a former camp where she might be.

But, no matter which direction the investigation has taken, it keeps circling back to where it started — Forest Hills Central Middle School, where the 14-year-old told her mother’s friend: “I’ll be right back.”

By some accounts, those were her last known words. And Deanie — the dark-haired eighth-grader who would have turned 42 in last September — hasn’t been heard from since.

Deanie’s disappearance on Feb. 5, 1981 — almost 29 years ago — is one of the most baffling mysteries Kent County sheriff’s detectives have faced in recent memory.

There is no body, no sign of foul play, no indication whether she’s alive or dead. Televised pleas by her mother and stepfather went unanswered.

At least two men interviewed as possible suspects in the case — former Central Middle School janitor Arthur Diaz, now 65, and former Lowell resident Bruce Bunch, now 42 and living in Kentucky, say they continue to live under suspicion.

Deanie was at the middle school with her mother to attend a wrestling clinic for youngsters, including her 4-year-old brother. At some point, she crossed the gym floor and exited a doorway. Stories differ as to whether she was headed to the restroom, sneaking out for a cigarette or bound for a friend’s nearby home.

What everyone agrees on is only this: She was never seen again.

It quickly became apparent she hadn’t run away. She left behind several hundred dollars in Christmas money, her purse, jewelry and clothing.

A woman interviewed by the local news said she was canoeing and drinking with friends on the Flat River in 1989 when a Lowell man in her canoe talked about how he and two others had struck a girl named Deanie with a car in a school parking lot. They got scared and hid her body in the trunk. They later buried her along the Flat River, the woman said she was told. That lead was followed up on with no results.

“There is now a $25,000 cash reward for information that leads us to the location of Deanie Peters’ body and information that leads us to those individuals that are responsible for her death,” Detective Sgt. Sally Wolter said.