Local, state and federal law enforcement officials made their way to the Green Hollow area of Iowa early Tuesday to begin collecting samples of dirt to test for human remains at the site where Lucy Studey says her father killed scores of women over three decades dating to at least the 1970s.
In the dark of morning, witnesses and law enforcement sources familiar with the probe said, about 15 or so marked and unmarked vehicles with the Fremont County Sheriff's Office, the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation and the FBI drove up to the vast area and began blocking it off about mid-morning. They also brought a piece of heavy equipment with them, according to people who saw the caravan arrive.
A source familiar with the investigation said the plan was to bore into the site of a well where bodies were suspected to be buried, as well as to dig and test a possible shallow grave along morel mushroom trails on the land.
Lucy Studey, 53, of Florida, said she and her siblings as children were told by their father, Donald Dean Studey, to dump lye and dirt on suspected graves in the well and on the trails. Of the three siblings, one has died, one has denied her father was a killer, and the third has not returned Newsweek's messages.
"Finally, finally, finally," Lucy Studey said Tuesday upon hearing the news. She has said she pushed for an investigation of her father, who died at 75 in 2013, for at least 45 years. "Thank you."
A witness on the hunting grounds abutting the properties where bodies are supposedly buried said the number of vehicles was too high to count as they sped by.
"Couldn't count all of them, some came in the dark," the witness said.
The FBI and DCI would not comment. And the sheriff's office could not be reached for comment.
Some of the heavy equipment could be used to dig out the well where Lucy Studey claims many bodies – including of two men – are buried. But they were also there to block any entrance to the site.
"I hope that the authorities dig in the right locations and find all the bodies," Lucy Studey said.
The witness said crates, apparently carrying dogs, were also seen at the site. But this could not be confirmed with authorities. Already, three cadaver dogs have signaled the potential presence of remains at the site of the well and the mushroom trails. Newsweek was on site in late October when the first two dogs alerted authorities to the possibility of remains.
In addition to women, mostly thought to be transients and what Donald Studey called "bar slushes" or prostitutes, men are believed by his daughter to be buried in the well and on property stretching some 400-plus acres in the Green Hollow area about 40 miles from Omaha.
In the late 1990s, Richard Heideman, a retired FBI special agent with 35 years of experience – 20 in the Omaha field office – told Newsweek the federal bureau received information that organized crime had disposed of bodies in a well using lye. Ultimately the search yielded no results. But he said the story is similar to what authorities are now looking for in the hollow.
The difference, he says, is that now you may have a witness to the disposal of bodies – something the bureau did not have at the time.
"I've talked to the FBI several times over the past decades - why didn't they do something then, when he was alive?" Lucy Studey said. "I look forward to the authorities digging up the bodies, identifying the people, giving their families closure and the victims a proper burial."
