Corbin makes statement

NORWALK — Huron County Sheriff Todd Corbin commented Wednesday about the arrest last week of a man for allegedly murdering Amanda Dean, a woman whose disappearance Corbin refused to investigate for more than 5½ years. Corbin "There are a lot of rumors, conjectures and speculations about the facts of this case," Corbin wrote at one of his Facebook pages. "Through the coming months, the truth will come out. We will not have any further comment while this case is being adjudicated." Dean was allegedly killed by Fred Reer, 40, of the 1700 block of Wells Road in Collins on or about July 11, 2017, according to an indictment filed Friday in Huron County Common Pleas Court. It's the same day her family reported her missing. The next day, family members and friends gathered at Reer's home and wanted to search for Amanda on the property, but Corbin prevented them from doing it. He told the family he had located Amanda and she was safe. But, according to the indictment, Reer had already killed Amanda and dismembered her body, cleaning up a bloody mess and burning evidence right outside a shack on the property where he lived with Amanda before her death. Corbin got it wrong Through the years, her family repeatedly asked Corbin for help finding Amanda, but he always refused. In December 2022, her family demanded that Corbin provide them "proof of life" or reopen the investigation, but he again refused, leading to an angry confrontation with Corbin at the sheriff's office. Dean Corbin continued to claim that Amanda was alive. She just didn't want to talk to her family or her young sons, he said. The sheriff bowed to public pressure in late 2022 to reopen the search for Amanda, however, after the Register, in a series of news stories, wrote about his refusal to help the family. Corbin asked the Ohio Attorney General's Bureau of Criminal Investigation to take over the investigation into what happened to Amanda. In November, about a dozen state agents using a backhoe and mobile crime lab vans, spent about 10 hours over two days executing a search warrant at the Wells Road property. The indictment filed Feb. 9 suggests they recovered evidence that Amanda was killed there and that some body parts or other evidence might have been recovered during the search. It's still not known what evidence was collected. The search warrant and related documents were sealed for 90 days by Norwalk Municipal Court Judge Eric Weisenburger in November. "The search warrant was part of an ongoing criminal investigation into the disappearance of Amanda Dean and the circumstances surrounding it and conduct of various persons after she disappeared," Huron County prosecutor James Sitterly wrote in a motion to the court requesting the warrant continue to be sealed. On Tuesday, the judge extended the seal for another 90 days. The sheriff's office, in response to a public records request from the Register earlier, released just two reports — both dated July 12 — about its efforts after Amanda's family reported her missing: • One report, written by Deputy Shannon Lyons, states that Corbin told him Amanda was located, and she was safe. • The other report states that an anonymous caller told a sheriff's dispatcher that Reer threatened to kill Amanda, and the caller feared he did kill her. Nobody recontacted the caller or followed up on that information, according to the records that were released. The sheriff has refused to say why nobody followed up with the caller, and he's refused to address a number of other questions. Corbin stopped responding to questions in early 2023 and hasn't provided any comment about the Dean case until now. He complained in an email and at one of his Facebook pages that news coverage has been inaccurate and "sensationalized," but he's never requested a correction or cited any specific information in the news coverage that he finds objectionable. Everything's secret Reer Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, his prosecutors, communications director and spokesman all have refused to address questions about the case or say whether Corbin and Lyons were spoken to about their alleged mishandling of it. The records released by the sheriff's office suggest they failed to follow the department's own guidelines for how to respond to a missing persons complaint. The arrest of Reer on Friday prompted many readers to call for Corbin to resign. Corbin has refused to say how he could have been so wrong about what happened to Amanda, or say if he is considering resigning. In his post Wednesday at Facebook, the sheriff thanked state agents for thoroughly investigating Dean's disappearance and arresting Reer. "We hope this will give Amanda's family some closure," he said. Corbin prohibited people from commenting at his post. Almost 600 votes were cast in response to a poll at sanduskyregister.com over the last two days, asking if Corbin should resign. About 80% responded that he should. The poll will remain at the home page at sanduskyregister.com through Sunday.