Girl accuses her dead father of being America’s most prolific serial killer, killing up to 70 women and forcing her to dump their bodies in his 100ft well

Police are investigating allegations that a farmer in Iowa, US, murdered up to 70 women after his daughter told police authorities she knew where the bodies were buried.

 

Lucy Studey claims that her father Donald Dean Studey was a serial killer who forced her and her siblings to dump bodies of women he killed into a 100ft well.

 

 

She told authorities that she was forced by her dad to use a wheelbarrow in the warmer months and a toboggan in winter to move the corpses across the farmland in Thurman, Iowa.

 

His four children say they did their father’s bidding because they were terrified they ‘wouldn’t come back’ according to his daughter. 

 

 

Studey, who died in March 2013 aged 75,  is accused of killing anywhere between 50 to 70 women and at least two men – one in his 40s and one in his 20s.

 

 

According to his daughter, Studey was ‘routinely drunk’ and liked to kill women by smashing or kicking in the heads of the women inside a trailer. 

 

Confirming her allegations, Fremont County Sheriff’s office said that cadaver dogs alerted at least four spots on the property, with the last getting multiple ‘hits’.  

 

 

Both of his wives died before him, with police records saying one died after strangling herself with an electrical cord and the other shot herself. 

 

Investigators say his daughters claims, make Studey one of the most prolific serial killers in American history.   

 

Police suspect that he lured women, suspected to be sex workers from Omaha, Nebraska, to his five acres of land before murdering them.

 

Lucy claims that the women all had dark hair, were white and most were in their 20s and 30s except for a 15-year-old runaway – and two men.

 

They were all buried clothed and wearing jewelry, with Lucy claiming that her father kept the gold teeth as trophies.

 

Lucy told Newsweek: ‘He would just tell us we had to go to the well, and I knew what that meant.  

 

‘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.

 

‘I don’t feel anything for my father. Nothing at all. I wanted justice when my father was alive, but he’s gone. I just want for the families some closure and a proper burial.’

 

Studey alsk reportedly forced his children to pile dirt and chemical lye on top of the bodies after dumping them into the well. 

 

 

Fremont County Sheriff Kevin Aistrope confirmed the investigation, saying ‘I believe her 100 percent that there’s bodies in there’ and said if they do excavate the scene it 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.

 

As at press time, the property, on Green Hollow Road, is not an official crime scene because officers have not yet discovered any remains