HURON COUNTY, Ohio — After years of uncertainty, the arrest of Frederick Reer brought some movement at last in the case of Amanda Dean, more than six years after she was first reported missing in Huron County.
“It’s a very very challenging time to know that they’ve searching for so long for a loved one, now to find out that she is no longer living and that someone is being charged with that and that’s a lot,” said police chief John Majoy.
Majoy is the chief of the Newburgh Heights Police Department and the president of the board of directors for the nonprofit Cleveland Missing. On Friday night, he was with Amanda’s family when they learned about the arrest.
“There was a lot of tears. There were some hugs. But there was also some high fives,” he said. “They were very glad some indictments came down.”
Amanda, a 36-year-old mother of four, was first reported missing in July 2017. Her family told 3News in 2020 they believed her boyfriend—Frederick Reer—had abused her and that it was “out of character” for her to go so long without contact.
“They were just wandering aimlessly, hoping and praying they would hear from their loved one and they didn’t. And so, they weren’t really given good answers over the years and that part’s really sad,” said Majoy, who has gotten to know the family over the last year.
But Amanda’s family struggled to get help from the Huron County Sheriff’s Office. Sheriff Todd Corbin told 3News at the time that Amanda was “in a good place” and “being cared for” at a domestic violence shelter.
"It's at her discretion if she wants to contact her family," Corbin added at the time
“It just makes me sad because Amanda’s mom Caroline, she went to the sheriff’s department and dropped off a birthday card and said, ‘Can you give my daughter my phone number in case she’s forgotten it? It’s been so long’,” Majoy said.
In December 2022 Dean’s family turned to the nonprofit Cleveland Missing. Majoy said that same month he asked the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI) to look into it. The Huron County Sheriff’s Office added its request for the investigation and BCI has been investigating her case since then.
“They worked very hard on this case for a very long time and it was very challenging from the get go because it had already been over five years old by the time they received the case,” Majoy said.
Less than a year later in November 2023, investigators served a search warrant on a property connected to Reer. Now, just over two months later, authorities arrested Reer on charges of murder, abuse of a corpse and tampering with evidence.
“[The family] had suspected this individual for a very long time and now they have some indictments that’s just one step closer. I don’t think that they’ll ever have closure but this is just one step closer towards it,” Majoy said.
Reer is being held at the Huron county jail. He’s expected to be arraigned in the Huron County Common Pleas Court at 1 p.m. on Monday.