Ex charged with murder

COLLINS — A man accused years ago of assaulting Amanda Dean, but never arrested for it, was charged Friday with allegedly killing her in 2017. Fred Reer, who is accused of murdering Amanda Dean in 2017, was arrested on Friday, Feb. 9, 2023. Read update: Yost dodges questions, again Fred Reer, 40, is charged with murder, abuse of a corpse and three counts of tampering with evidence. He was booked into the Huron County jail late Friday, according to the jail roster. For more than 5½ years, Huron County Sheriff Todd Corbin refused to investigate Dean's disappearance, saying she was alive but did not want to talk with family members. As late as January 2023, Corbin was still insisting she was alive. Amanda Dean's family reported her missing on July 11, 2017, but Corbin closed the investigation into her disappearance after just one day, saying she had been located. Corbin told family members he spoke with the director of a women's shelter who told him she was safe. Corbin never confirmed Amanda was alive or spoke with her at that time. He also did not document the call from the shelter or the name of the shelter director with whom he spoke, according to available records. Dean was 36 when she disappeared and was the mother of four young sons. Look at record The Register obtained sheriff's reports related to the brief missing persons investigation after making public records requests to the sheriff in December 2022. Amanda Dean The same day he called off the search, a caller told the sheriff's office that Reer likely killed Dean. "The caller advised Freddy had made comments before involving harming Dean and stated that Freddy has threatened to kill Dean and stuff her in (one of the) blue barrel(s) (on the property)," a sheriff's report dated July 12, 2017, states. "Deputy (Shannon) Lyons was made aware of the recent information." There's no indication in that report, or any other report provided by the sheriff's office, that Corbin or Lyons ever interviewed Reer or contacted the caller who feared Reer killed Dean, or followed up on that information. It's not known why Corbin and Lyons, who are cousins, failed to talk with Reer in 2017. Neither man has been available to answer questions about Dean's disappearance or about why they never interviewed Reer back then or documented that they had spoken with him, if they did. One source told the Register that Reer had acted as a confidential informant for the sheriff's office in the past and may have worked with Corbin or Lyons in that role previous to Amanda's disappearance. But Corbin was well aware of the danger Dean faced living with Reer, according to a July 19, 2017, article in the Norwalk Reflector. She had been a victim of abuse before. "The issue with this lady is she's not missing, but she's involved in a tumultuous relationship with domestic violence and stuff like that. She is someplace safe," he told Reflector. Can't say Corbin did not immediately respond to questions sent to him Saturday about his failure to pursue Reer as a suspect in 2017 and Reer's arrest on Friday. He also has not responded to prior inquiries. Corbin reopened the investigation and turned it over to Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost's office in January 2023 after the Register reported about his refusal to help the Dean family and an angry confrontation he had with them in the sheriff's office a few weeks earlier. More recently, the Register received information in the last couple of weeks that there could be an arrest or a grand jury indictment soon and made inquiries to Yost and to staff members at the Ohio attorney general's office about that. Yost, the special prosecutor assigned to Dean's case, Dan Kasaris and Beverly McCorkle, Yost's communications director, all did not respond to questions and a request for a status update on the investigation earlier last week. They also did not provide a news release about Reer's arrest on Friday or provide any statement about why it took more than 6½ years to make an arrest. They also did not respond to questions sent to them on Saturday about Reer's arrest. There were no news releases about Reer's arrest posted on the attorney general's website until a day later, on Saturday, after the Register reported about it. TV news outlets late Friday were cryptically sourcing the Cleveland Missing Foundation for information about Reer's arrest. It's unknown why the attorney general provided the information to a foundation on Friday but not to media outlets. The attorney general's office also has refused to say if it is investigating the failure of the sheriff's office to interview Reer in 2017 or follow up on the caller's information about him threatening to kill Dean. It also is refusing to say if it's been determined who made the call to Corbin purported to be from the director of a women's shelter saying that Amanda Dean was safe and whether the initial investigation was obstructed. Right there, all along? State agents gather at a site on the property at 1744 Wells Road on Monday, Nov. 20, 2023 JOE CENTERS/Register/Reflector photo Amanda's family wanted Corbin to search the property at Wells Road where Amanda lived with Reer in an outbuilding when they reported her missing back in 2017, but Corbin refused. In November, a team of agents from the attorney general's office with a backhoe and mobile crime lab vans, executed a search warrant at the property. The search warrant filed in Norwalk Municipal Court was sealed, however, so it's unknown what agents were searching for on the property, and what, if anything, was removed. About a dozen agents were there for about 10 hours over two days, working at several dig sites on the property.