NORWALK — Did Huron County Sheriff Todd Corbin conspire with Fred Reer Jr. to cover up the murder of Amanda Dean and Reer’s uncle, Douglas Reer Sr.?
That’s just one of several emerging questions readers are asking as the state prepares to turn over the findings of its 3½-year investigation of Corbin and the sheriff’s office into why Corbin refused to investigate Amanda Dean’s homicide.
Fred Reer, who was convicted late last year of killing Dean on July 9, 2017, was also the last person to see Douglas Reer Sr. alive. Reer Sr. was found dead April 22, 2021, in his bedroom at his home at 2126 Wells Road, which is adjacent to the property where Fred Reer’s parents live and where he and Dean cohabitated in a ramshackle shack on the property. That’s where he killed Dean, cut up her body and burned all the evidence, according to the bill of particulars filed with his indictment.
State investigators speculated as far back as 2019 that Corbin and Reer might have been acquainted, associated, or were otherwise working together to shield Reer from the investigation despite the overwhelming evidence there was that pointed to him as Amanda’s killer. There were witnesses who said they heard Fred say he would kill her. He brutally assaulted her six months earlier. But there’s no record of Corbin ever talking with Reer about either incident.
