Steph Deschamps / October 27, 2022
An Iowa State woman claims her father was a serial killer and murdered up to 70 people. Lucy Studey says her late father Donald Dean Studey, 75, killed 50 to 70 women over three decades and she had to help him bury bodies.
Authorities are investigating allegations by a woman who says her late father killed dozens of women she helped bury on the family's Iowa property.
Speaking to Newsweek, Lucy Studey said her late father Donald Dean Studey, who died in 2013 at the age of 75, killed between 50 and 70 women, most of whom were sex workers. She alleges that as a child, she and her siblings were forced to help him dispose of the bodies in a well near Thurman, Iowa.
I know where the bodies are buried," Lucy said. "He would just tell us we had to go to the well, and I knew what that meant."
Lucy alleges that Donald would stab, shoot or bash his victims' heads in a trailer on their property. He would then transport the bodies with a wheelbarrow, People magazine reports.
"Every time I went to the well or into the hills, I thought I wasn't going to come back alive. I thought he would kill me because I refused to keep quiet," she said.
Speaking to KETV-TV on Monday, Fremont County Sheriff Kevin Aistrope said Lucy's allegations are under investigation.
"We are actively investigating this, and who wouldn't? I would hope that any sheriff's office in the state, would do the same thing we're doing...," he said.
"We have a scene, but we don't know if it's a crime scene," the sheriff said. "Right now, we have no victims, no bodies. Nothing."
However, on Friday, two cadaver dogs detected the smell of human remains at four different sites on the property, Newsweek reported.
Today I was told there was a smell of human decomposition in the area," said handler Jim Peters at the outlet.
"I definitely think there are bones there," added Kevin Aisotrope, according to the outlet. "It's hard for me to believe that two cadaver dogs would smell in the exact same places for bodies. We don't know what it is (...) , but I tend to believe Lucie."
"According to the dogs, this is a very large burial site," he said.
Lucy reportedly told authorities that her father, who died in 2013, hunted his victims within a 40-mile radius in the Omaha, Nebraska area and would murder "five or six" women a year before dumping their bodies in a dug well on their Iowa property.
Lucy has tried over the years to alert her teachers, church leaders and law enforcement. But her allegations were never investigated by authorities.
"No one listened to me," Lucy explained. "My teacher would tell me that family matters should be handled within the family, and law enforcement kept telling me that they couldn't trust a child's memory. I was just a kid at the time, but I remember everything. »