State to search for missing woman

NORWALK — The state's crime lab has agreed to investigate a local missing persons case, according to a Sandusky woman whose daughter vanished 5½ years ago. Amanda Dean Provided "We did get our missing person report after all," Caroline Tokar told the Register. Amanda D. Dean, 41, was first reported missing in July 2017. At that time, Huron County Sheriff Todd Corbin said Dean was located through an advocacy agency that told him Dean did not want to be contacted by family. Tokar told the Register earlier this month she accepted what Corbin told her back then, reluctantly, but she never imagined she would not see her daughter again. She asked Corbin last week to provide "proof of life" or reopen the investigation into Dean's disappearance. Corbin asked the state Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI) to help. The Ohio Attorney General's Office, which supervises BCI, confirmed that its Special Victims Unit has started an investigation. "The first steps are to submit/update case information in the National Crime Information Center, review the case file to determine next steps and begin conducting any interviews," Steven Irwin, a spokesman for Attorney General Dave Yost told the Register. Tokar said she also met with representatives from the Cleveland Family Center for Missing Children & Adults on Wednesday. "They agreed to help find Amanda," she said. The center and family members are handing out a missing persons flyer that asks anyone with information to contact 855-BCI-OHIO, the Huron County Sheriff Office at 419-668-6912 or sylvia@clevelandmissing.org at the Cleveland Family Center for Missing Children & Adults. A January 2017 sheriff's report shows a deputy responded to the home on Wells Road in Collins, Ohio, Amanda's last known address where she was living with the on-again, off-again boyfriend. Shannon Dean, Amanda Dean's sister, reported that Amanda told her the man gave her a black eye and later threatened to kill Amanda. But the man wasn't charged after Amanda, at first, told a deputy she hurt herself when a hammer fell and hit her in the eye. She later admitted the man assaulted her but said she didn't want charges filed, according to the deputy's report. With a visible injury and credible information about what happened, the man could have been charged anyway, but a prosecutor decided against filing charges, the report states.