Was Donald Dean Studey, Fremont County, Iowa man a serial killer? Deceased man’s daughter, Lucy, claims dad killed 50-70 women over 30 year period.
A probe is underway after a Fremont County, Iowa woman claimed that her late father was a ruthless serial killer who murdered anywhere from 50 to 70 women prior to his death about 10 years ago.
Lucy Studey said her father, Donald Dean Studey, in a startling revelation killed his victims over a 30 year time span, according to Newsweek. The woman even told of her father enlisting her and her sibling to help him move the bodies of the young female victims that were allegedly buried near a well on his property. The well is estimated at being 90-100 feet deep.
‘I know where the bodies are buried,’ the daughter told Newsweek.
‘He would just tell us we had to go to the well, and I knew what that meant,’ Studey told the periodical.
‘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.’
Will authorities find proof of alleged crimes?
Fremont County Sheriff Kevin Aistrope told the Des Moines Register two cadaver dogs sniffed around the site and got ‘hits’ which could indicate the existence of decomposing bodies in the area.
‘She’s got a hell of a story but we don’t have any proof of anything other than we had a cadaver dog hit,’ Aistrope told the Register. ‘We’ve got to have more proof than that.’
Nevertheless Aistrope acknowledged the ‘hits’ from the dogs lends credibility to the daughter’s assertion and authorities would ‘get a game plan here together’ with the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation.
Deputy Michael Wake speaking to KMTV told of living in Tabor his whole life and having several dealings with Donald. The deputy told the outlet that something seemed off about the man.
‘One time he held himself hostage with a gun, was threatening to do self-harm. We talked him out of that,’ Wake told KMTV.
Sheriff deputies began looking into Studey’s story in 2021, but needed to locate the well and get the OK from the current owners of the property and neighboring properties to conduct searches, Aistrope said, according to the newspaper.
Donald Studey is suspected by law enforcement of luring women, who were mostly sex workers or transients, from nearby Omaha, Nebraska and bringing them to his five-acre farmland before killing them, according to Newsweek.
‘No one would listen to me…’
Studey told the publication her angry and regularly drunk dad would typically smash or kick the heads of his victims inside a trailer where the family lived.
The father reportedly died at 75 in 2013.
She also said he made sure his children knew what he was doing, though it is unknown if her other siblings have talked with authorities, Newsweek reported. Her brother reportedly killed himself at 39.
Studey claims she told teachers and priests, as well as law enforcement across Iowa and Nebraska, but ‘no one would listen to me.’
Donald Studey had a criminal history as a drug and gun runner, his daughter said, and had stints serving jail time for at least petty larceny and drunken driving, according to records obtained by Newsweek.
