NORWALK, Ohio — The man arrested last week in connection with the disappearance of a Huron County woman in 2017 was arraigned in court Monday on murder and other charges and given a bond of $1 million.
Frederick Reer, 40, was also ordered to have no contact with the family of Amanda Dean, his former girlfriend who has been missing since July 2017. Reer is scheduled to be back in court on March 11 for a pre-trial hearing.
Reer was indicted last week on charges of murder, gross abuse of a corpse and tampering with evidence.
According to the indictment, Reer killed Dean on or about the day she last talked to her family, July 11, 2017. Her family did not want to be photographed in court. They were emotional while in the courtroom with Reer.
Her family said previously that the mother of four was in a violent relationship with Reer and her last text message to her sister was a plan to leave him.
"It's my understanding that the suspect was the last one to be with her," said Chief John Majoy, Newburgh Heights Police Department & President Board of Directors Cleveland Missing. Cleveland Missing helped put this case back in the spotlight in late 2022.
The Huron County Sheriff's Office had been handling the case until BCI took it over in December 2022.
Reer was arrested shortly after the indictment was returned on Friday.
"He was told there was a warrant for his arrest, and he did not ask what the warrant was for, which I find very unusual," said Majoy. "Most people, in my 33-years, when you go to place them under arrest for something, they really want to know what for. He did not ask, and I find that highly unusual and suspect,"
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Dean, 36 at the time, was last heard from on July 11, 2017, in a text to her sister. Dean had sent a text to her about a plan to leave Reer, her live-in boyfriend.
Her family filed a missing persons report after not hearing from Dean; however, it was canceled a day later because Huron County Sheriff Todd Corbin told the family she was "in a safe house."
In late 2022, the family demanded answers from Corbin, and the case was reopened.
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In November of 2023, a search warrant was executed at a home outside a small Huron County town in connection to the case.
Reer was arrested Friday following his indictment and transported to the Huron County jail, where he remains in custody, authorities said.
