Donald Studey: Cops search land for remains AGAIN after daughter claims 'serial killer' dad murdered over 70 women
Warning: This article contains a recollection of crime and can be triggering to some readers. Discretion advised
THURMAN, IOWA: Law enforcement officials have reportedly begun their search for remains in suspected Iowa killings. On Tuesday, December 6, 2022, authorities arrived in Thurman, Iowa, and searched the land for a second time after a woman allegedly told the police that her father was a prolific serial killer who murdered up to 70 women and ordered his children to partake in covering up their bodies.
According to reports, the authorities are desperately probing area near a well and also the land around it to find a possible shallow grave along mushroom trails, where the accused Donald Dean Studey and his family lived. Bystanders, who witnessed the investigation, said about 15 vehicles with the Fremont County Sheriff's Office, the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, and the FBI drove up to the area and blocked it off mid-morning. They had a piece of heavy equipment with them.
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Both the FBI and the Iowa Division of Criminal Probe are assisting the local police after Studey’s daughter, Lucy Studey McKiddy, told investigators about her father allegedly murdering women "for years," including in 2007, which prompted cops to excavate a portion of the property, WHO-13 reported, according to Fox News.
According to Lucy, her father once made her and her brothers throw the remains of women he had killed into a 100-foot well on their Green Hollow Road farm.
However, Susan Studey, Lucy's older sister, refuted the allegations, claiming that although their father was harsh, he was in no way a murderer. “I'm two years older than Lucy. I think I would know if my father murdered,” Sussan said, adding “I would know if my dad was a serial killer. He was not, and I want my father's name restored.”
According to Lucy, the four siblings obeyed their father's orders to "go to the hills" because they were afraid they "wouldn't return back." She added that her father made the children transport the corpses using a toboggan in the winter and a wheelbarrow in the summer, but her sister denies these claims.
On October 25, 2022, the investigation was verified by Fremont County Sheriff Kevin Aistrope, who said, “I believe her 100 percent that there's bodies in there.”
Law enforcement reportedly suspects that Studey brought women, supposed to be sex workers from Omaha, Nebraska, to his five acres of land before murdering them. In a previous search, after cadaver dogs were released on the property, police found remains of Donald's stillborn little sister who was interred on the property in a shoebox, and those of a golden retriever, which according to Susan, may have deceived the cadaver dogs that searched the area.
Now, 45 years after Studey's death, if his daughter's statements are proven accurate, he would rank among one of the most prolific serial killers in American history.