Six days after authorities announced an excavation turned up no human remains, the woman claiming her father buried scores of people in the Green Hollow area in southwest Iowa is threatening to gather a private investigative team to explore the "right well," claiming authorities dug for remains in the wrong area last week.
A private search could involve cadaver dogs, drones mapping the vast and hilly area of the hollows, digging of the well and other measures in the coming months.
Sean Smith, whose property is adjacent to the land once owned by Lucy Studey's family, told Newsweek that he would participate in any future digging since some of the suspected sites are on his property. Smith dug out a section of the area to make a driveway so investigators could access the area.
Studey, 53, said she had spoken Tuesday with the FBI and the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation about the dig effort near the tiny town of Thurman, demanding that the investigation remain open and that authorities return to a dry well on the land – the one she claims was ignored by authorities but is actually the right well to be searched for bodies.
Investigators would not comment any further Wednesday, directing Newsweek to a brief release last week saying "no evidence" was found during an "exhaustive" search based on GPS coordinates provided by Studey to verify her claims that her father, Donald Dean Studey, was a killer who preyed mostly on transients and prostitutes.
In a statement released to Newsweek, Lucy Studey said she had given the FBI and DCI the right directions upon hearing from several witnesses who also shared photos that investigators were digging in the "wrong" area. She says she got no reply.
Read Lucy Studey's open letter here.
Her allegations, as well as those of other relatives who grew up with the family, suggest Donald Studey also could have been a low-level player in organized crime who used the vast property as a dumping ground for the bodies of men as well.
Investigators had previously said they were aware that Donald Studey, who died at 75 in 2013, had a violent past, which backed up his daughter's allegations and helped prompt last week's search. But another daughter, Susan Studey, told Newsweek that her father was no killer, but rather a caring man who at times was strict and had minor episodes of violence.
A law enforcement source close to the investigation told Newsweek last Friday "it's over," referring to the probe. On Tuesday, DCI told Rolling Stone, "The investigation is closed since nothing was discovered on the property and locations that Lucy led law enforcement to on two separate occasions."
Lucy Studey said the call from the FBI and DCI on Tuesday came after a suicide attempt, which was posted to a private Facebook group dedicated to her cause. At that time, she wrote on the site, "To all the law enforcement agencies, GO F--K YOURSELF. Especially the Iowa DCI and Mitch Mortvedt. You'll have one more dead body in the morning. Mine." Mortvedt is the DCI spokesman.
On Wednesday, in the statement she shared with Newsweek, she wrote: "It only took an attempted suicide by me on December 11, 2022 and a note posted on Facebook blaming them for my death in order for the FBI and Iowa DCI to finally contact me."
Studey told Newsweek – which could not confirm the conversation with authorities – that the Tuesday talk was heated, with the FBI and DCI blaming her for giving wrong information at the outset, and with investigators defending their efforts.
Witnesses to the search said the physical testing of the ground lasted two days, not three, with the third actually being clearing the site. The witnesses also said that one well was core-drilled three times for samples while one shallow grave was inspected. The witnesses, reached again by Newsweek, said it was in fact the wrong well that investigators searched.
Lucy Studey says she talked with Sean Smith earlier this week, which Newsweek confirmed.
"We talked," she said in the statement. "The FBI asked him to bulldoze a road and the area around the well to help get people and equipment to the well. Smith bulldozed the only area that HE knew had a wet and dry well. He bulldozed the area on the left hill between my dad's old trailer and Jeff Rice's trailer. Smith stated to me that he didn't know there was a wet and dry well on the right hill. I believe him. I confirmed with Smith that my DRY well on the RIGHT hill has been undisturbed."
Rice is another neighboring property owner, but Smith told Newsweek it was the sheriff who asked him to dig the drive, not the FBI.
Before the physical search last week, cadaver dogs had signaled potential human remains in the area of the wells, which are quite close on the land, but one is described as a wet well and the other a dry well. The dogs – three in total, going on two different occasions in October and November – also alerted along morel mushroom trails where Lucy Studey claims bodies were buried in shallow graves.
DCI told the Des Moines Register that it was unaware of the third dog, but Newsweek confirmed that a German Shepherd - the first two were Heelers - checked the area in November at the request of the Fremont County Sheriff's Department, which has jurisdiction of the area of the search and took part in the probe.
The sheriff's department has not returned calls and messages since the beginning of the search.
