Frederick Robert Reer is escorted by law enforcement for his arraignment on Feb. 12, 2024. Prosecutors said he murdered his girlfriend, Amanda Dean, seen in the inset. (Screenshot: WKYC. Image: Ohio Attorney General’s Office)
Prosecutors now say that a missing mother of four has been dead since her disappearance on July 11, 2017, when her boyfriend allegedly killed her. The defendant, Frederick Robert Reer, 40, murdered and dismembered Amanda Dean, 36, and also burned the mattress on which she died, according to a Huron Count, Ohio, indictment viewed by Law&Crime.
“So many memories won’t include Amanda, as her killer robbed these children of a life with their mother,” Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost said in a statement published Saturday. “Her family deserves justice.”
The victim’s family spoke to Cleveland NBC affiliate WKYC in a March 3, 2020, report. They believed that her boyfriend, which the outlet did not name, had been physically and emotionally abusing Dean.
At the time, Huron County Sheriff Todd Corbin said that during the investigation, he learned from a domestic violence shelter that Dean was living there.
“They explained the protocol is that they don’t normally relay that information but for purposes of what you’re doing, we’ll just say that she’s fine, she’s in a good place and she’s being cared for,” he said in 2020.
He reportedly said his hands were tied but he believed Dean to be OK.
“It’s at her discretion if she wants to contact her family” he said. “She is not being held against her will.”
Dean’s mother, Caroline Tokar, did not buy it. Her daughter’s radio silence was out of character.
“I just don’t believe my daughter would go this long without contacting her boys, her sisters and her mom,” she said.
Prosecutors now say Dean was dead the entire time, with Reer allegedly killing her on or about the day of her disappearance.
He allegedly burned the mattress she died on. Reer dismembered the remains and moved the body, said documents, which did not elaborate on the whereabouts of Dean’s remains. He allegedly cleaned up the bloody crime scene by using towels and rags, and he got rid of the bloody sheets from the bed.
Reer pleaded not guilty in an arraignment held on Monday to murder, gross abuse of a corpse, and three counts of tampering with evidence. He remains at the Huron County Jail on a $1 million bond.
