'I would know if he was a serial killer': Dead Iowa man's other daughter says he was just 'strict father'
THURMAN, IOWA: A probe has been initiated after a woman claimed her late father was a ruthless serial killer who murdered dozens of women. However, her old sister has rebutted the claims adding that she wants to restore her father's name. Lucy Studey claimed her father Donald Dean Studey murdered 50 to 70 women over a span of three decades and buried them with the help of his children.
However, her older sister Susan Studey rejected the accusations and said her father was strict but certainly not a killer. "My father was not the man she makes him out to be," Susan Studey told Newsweek. "He was strict, but he was a protective parent who loved his children... Strict fathers don't just turn into serial killers."
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Donald Dean Studey, who died in March 2013 at age 75, is accused by his daughter Lucy of killing between 50 to 70 women and at least two men, one in his 40s and one in his 20s. Lucy has said she tried to tell people over the years, but no one would listen. After 45 years, police are now investigating allegations and claim that if her story turns out to be true, it would mean her father was one of the most prolific serial killers in US history. Lucy told the police, "I know where the bodies are buried." The Fremont County Sheriff’s Office confirmed that cadaver dogs alerted at least four spots on the property last week and they believe the remains are human as the dogs are trained to ignore animal bones.
But Susan believes the cadaver dogs that searched the property last weekend were fooled by the remains of Donald Studey's stillborn infant sister, who was buried in a shoebox on the property, as well as remains of a golden retriever, according to Daily Mail.
Lucy said that Donald lured women to his five acres of forested hills and farmland before ultimately killing them. Most of his alleged victims were sex workers or transients picked up in nearby Omaha, Nebraska. Lucy said all of the victims were white and most of them had darkish hair. She also guessed that most were in their 20s over 30s, except for a 15-year-old runaway and two men. She said that her father was "routinely drunk" and liked to kill women by smashing or kicking them in the heads, inside a trailer.
"He would just tell us we had to go to the well, and I knew what that meant," Studey recalled. "Every time I went to the well or into the hills, I didn't think I was coming down. I thought he would kill me because I wouldn't keep my mouth shut." After dumping the bodies into the well, the siblings would pile dirt and lye on top to prevent odor, she said. Fremont County Sheriff Kevin Aistrope, who was accompanied by two deputies, a dog handler, and his two dogs, said, "I believe her 100 percent that there's bodies in there" adding if they do excavate the scene will be a "big mission."
He added that the cost of boring the well would be around $25,000 while a full excavation would be more than $300,000, reported the source. The property on Green Hollow road is not an official crime scene as police have not discovered any remains. While Lucy told authorities that their father forced the siblings to use a wheelbarrow in the warmer months and a toboggan in winter to move the corpses across the farmland in Thurman, Iowa, her sister refuted this. Susan said that the first time she ever heard about any bodies being buried on the property was when she talked to Lucy about a year ago. "I'm two years older than Lucy. I think I would know if my father murdered," she said. "I would know if my dad was a serial killer. He was not, and I want my father's name restored."