Jury trial set in Reer case

NORWALK — After another delay this week, the conclusion of the case against 42-year-old Fred Reer could be drawing closer. Reer's final pre-trial is slated for Dec. 2 at 10:30 a.m., with a jury trial scheduled to start on Jan. 5, 2026 at 12:30 p.m. Reer, of Collins, was indicted in early 2024 in connection with the 2017 death of Amanda Dean, a mother and Collins resident. The charges include murder, tampering with evidence and abuse of a corpse. He was jailed in February 2024 on a $1 million bond and remains in the Huron County Jail. Dean was reported missing by her family around July 11, 2017. The Huron County Sheriff's Office briefly investigated the case in the early years, but Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost took over the investigation in January 2023. According to his indictment, Reer allegedly killed Dean and "cleaned up a bloody scene with towels and rags, disposing of the bloody sheets from the bed near the shack Fred lived in with Amanda Dean."