Find Amanda: $5K reward offered

NORWALK — An anonymous donor pledged up to $5,000 for a reward for information leading to the whereabouts of Amanda Dean, the Cleveland Family Center for Missing Children and Adults announced on Tuesday. The Register first reported about Amanda Dean's family's desperate search — stymied for years by the Huron County Sheriff's Office — in December. The center, also known as Cleveland Missing, picked up the story and publicized it garnering media attention from most, if not all the broadcast channels in Cleveland and others across the state. Dean, 41, has been missing for five years and seven months. Her family filed a missing persons report on July 11, 2017, but the search for her was called off less than 24 hours later after Sheriff Todd Corbin confirmed her whereabouts through a domestic violence advocacy agency. The agency told Corbin that Amanda was safe but did not want to be contacted by family. There were sheriff's reports, however, that indicate Dean had been the victim of domestic violence, and Dean, in a text to a friend, said she feared for her life. "I'm stuck in hell until the devil kills me," she texted the friend just weeks before she disappeared. The person she feared was never interviewed by sheriff's deputies, and it Is unknown whether he has been spoken with since Jan. 4, when the state Bureau of Criminal investigation agreed to conduct a search for Amanda. A special agent assigned to investigate did not respond to an inquiry sent to him Saturday. Anyone with information is asked to call the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation at 1-855-BCI-OHIO. Callers can remain anonymous. The Cleveland Family Center for Missing Children and Adults, also known as Cleveland Missing, was co-founded by Cleveland kidnap survivor Gina DeJesus and her cousin Sylvia Colon. Their mission is to help family members and loved ones of missing persons. Sylvia Colon can be reached at sylvia@clevelandmissing.org, or email Newburgh Heights police Chief John T. Majoy, president of the board of directors for Cleveland Missing and chairman of the Northeast Ohio AMBER Alert Committee at jmajoy@newburgh-oh.gov.