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In a rage, according to court documents, Kepler took a hammer to the man’s head. Instead of taking him to a hospital, as she promised, Kepler passed it by as she transported him in a vehicle after the bludgeoning.

She pulled a gun on the man and ditched him along a highway in Mohave, Arizona. Passersby spotted him, taking the man to the hospital.

He survived. Kepler went to prison in Arizona after pleading guilty to aggravated assault with a deadly weapon by domestic violence – down from the original charge of attempted murder. She received an eight-year prison sentence, leaving behind a secret 188-page journal with her daughter, Linda Moore.

In that journal, which Lee Enterprises has reviewed, Kepler makes serious allegations against her late brother, Donald Dean Studey. And she seems to back up what Studey’s daughter, Lucy McKiddy, has been claiming for much of her life – that Donald Studey was a murderer who killed dozens of people before dying in 2013 at age 75.

Now 78 and on parole in Arizona, Kepler spoke in an interview with Lee Enterprises about how life became “hell� after her parents kidnapped her when she was young and brought her into an extremely abusive home. But her brother looked out for her, always making sure Kepler had all she needed and that she was protected, she said.

“God, he was like a father to me,� Kepler said of Studey. “I mean, whatever I needed. He always did things for me. He taught me how to shoot a gun. He taught me how to hunt. He showed me how to look for mushrooms. … He was like my dad.�

Kepler recalled many stories about when Studey was by her side. But she also vividly remembers when her brother turned violent, she said.

“He didn't have any feelings,� she said of her brother. “I mean, to me, I was like his own daughter. But to other people, no, he was just like a shark. No human compassion whatsoever.�

But it was much earlier than that that Studey showed signs of his willingness to kill, she said, recounting a time when she was sexually assaulted and left for dead in a lake when she was a teenager. She confided in Studey, who allegedly took out his anger at the rape on one of the men she said was responsible.

“We had gone to the horse races that day at Ak-Sar-Ben in Omaha,� Kepler said. “On our way home, he took us to get some gas. … And he gave me $1 and told me to go to the watermelon stand across the street to get a watermelon. … I came back, and a (service attendant) was washing the windshield. I looked up at him (and said) ‘Oh sh-t.’ I looked down, and Don looked at me.�

Studey simply asked her “What’s wrong?� Kepler claims. “I said, ‘That man, right there, he is one of the guys that raped me.’ He said ‘Look at him really good and make damn sure. Look at him.’ I looked up at him. Don looked straight into my eyes, and I told him, ‘Yes, that’s one of the guys that raped me.’�

After the service attendant finished pumping gas, Studey followed him into the station, near the cash register and they got into a pushing match until Studey beat the man horribly, she said. “(Studey) opened the cash register, took the money, came out and got in the car. We drove off. He said, ‘He'll never rape anybody else.’�

On a second occasion, Kepler claims she was at home in Bakersfield, California, when Studey called her to a car repair shop where he worked. Inside, Kepler said, she saw the body of a man lying dead on the ground of the shop. He wanted help putting the body into a 50-gallon barrel, she said. Kepler says she refused to help him, but she claims Studey put the body into the container.

There are other bizarre recollections with violent twists as well, including a time in Phoenix, when she claims a trailer Studey was towing for organized crime figures was stolen. Suddenly, men showed up after it was located, and Studey and the trailer thief were taken to a construction site, Kepler said in interviews and wrote in her journal.

“They had the guy in the car, and Don got in the car,� Kepler said she recalls Studey telling her. “He said, first thing they did was they cut off the man's nose, then started cutting his ears off. ‘This is what happens to people who double-cross us,’� the men allegedly told Studey.

In her writings, she says bolt cutters were used to clip off the man’s fingers and other body parts before he was put in a ditch and buried.

From out West, Studey hustled back to Sidney, Nebraska, where Kepler was living, made her move all the cars out of the garage so he could hide his, and shut all curtains inside the home. No one in the house was allowed to pull the curtains back to look out the windows.

Studey, according to Kepler and McKiddy, moved around the country during his life, littering states including Colorado, California, Utah, South Dakota, Nebraska and others with bodies and beatings and tobbing other victims.

None of the claims have been proven, but much of what Kepler recalled in the interview exactly echoes what she wrote around 2020 and left to her daughter.

The journal by Kepler, a handwritten history of her family titled “The Hollow People,� tells of a horrendous life for the Studeys, filled with abuse, severe beatings of family members and random robbery victims and arsons. Among the victims of Donald Studey’s alleged arsons was Kepler, who claims Studey burned her home following a falling out Studey had with her husband. She and others claimed Studey would burn down homes to collect or steal insurance money.

The 188 pages paint a picture of Studey as a man who murdered with ease and would snap and kill those who upset him. The writings also talk about Studey, who allegedly carried a cut-off and cement-filled pipe with him, committing fatal hits and beatings on people around the country for organized crime.

‘Lucy was telling the truth’

In an interview with a Lee Enterprises investigative reporter, Kepler said “probably 100 or so� murders could have been traced to Studey if he had been or were to be thoroughly investigated.

She also remembers envelopes that Studey had hidden above a refrigerator, which contained photos of targets for hits, their home addresses, ages, phone numbers and where they worked, she says.

“They were hit papers, their information to look somebody up and kill them,� Kepler said, adding that another brother, the late Lou Studey, was nearly killed by Donald Studey because he peeked inside one.

Did he work for organized crime? “No doubt whatsoever. … No doubt,� Kepler said.

Kepler said Studey’s organized crime contact worked out of Sidney, Nebraska.

All of Kepler’s experiences with Donald Studey echo the long-voiced claims of Studey’s daughter, Lucy McKiddy, that Studey was a violent killer.

Those claims have led to excavations – both public and private – at an alleged victim burial site in Iowa, the exhumation of one of Studey’s ex-wives and the expenditure of hundreds of thousands of dollars by film production companies trying to spotlight and re-examine McKiddy’s claims.

Kepler backs up her niece’s accounts while also noting she personally detests the woman.

“Lucy was telling the truth,� Kepler said. “I think Lucy’s 100% right.�

One day, Kepler claims, she and Studey walked up into the hills of Green Hollow along the mushroom paths, and sat by a tree. The area, located on a rural Iowa hillside about 40 miles from Omaha, was allegedly used as a burial ground by Studey for his victims, his daughter McKiddy has claimed.

Kepler said she looked around and saw bottles littering the place during that walk with her brother.

“Jesus Christ, Don,� she said she told Studey. “This place looks like a graveyard. And he looked at me and said, ‘It is.’�

Kepler entered her plea in the aggravated assault case in October of 2021.

Her eight-year sentence was commuted by Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs on May 24 of this year.

According to a unanimous recommendation of the Arizona Board of Executive Clemency, the release to community supervision was “based on Ms. Kepler’s good behavior in prison, participation in programming aimed at personal development, lack of any other criminal history and significantly deteriorating physical health.�

‘Like a woman confessing before she passes’

The supposed graveyard on the rural Iowa hillside is getting a new look as two companies join forces to produce a documentary and attempt to dig back into the Studey case — literally.

One of the production company principals, who spoke with Lee Enterprises, is Paul Lima, head of Bullish Content. The teams did their own interview with Kepler, and Lima said the vividity of Kepler’s memory struck him.

“The thing that stood out was just her ability to recollect the specifics,� Lima said. “She's just very credible, and she has nothing to gain from doing this. She’s just released from prison, and she has a condition that she's going to likely die from, right? That's the reason she was let out early. … So to me, it's kind of the equivalent of a deathbed confession. She hates Lucy (McKiddy), so it's not like she's siding with Lucy or gaining anything from this. I felt like this was a woman confessing before she passes.�

Lima said “the brazenness� of Studey’s alleged crimes – including Kepler’s claims that Studey gunned down a police officer with whom he’d had a dispute – is what captivated the production companies and explains why they have invested hundreds of thousands of dollars to get the documentary completed.

It’s the largest sum of money the companies have spent on a production, said Aengus James, head of This Is Just A Test Media.

“Here’s this thing, this big headline (first published in Newsweek) where this man maybe killed dozens of women, and the next question is, is it true, right?� James told Lee Enterprises. “We just felt like we might not get this opportunity ever again, and it became a development that really turned into a production.�

James and Lima have been surprised by the volume of information that they were able to gather for their filmmaking.

“The access that we received, and the amount of information, from first-hand accounts, starting with Lucy, talking to Susan (McKiddy’s sister) and then going through family members that had stories, hearing from townspeople that Don was a murderer and everybody knew,� James said. “We were just following up on all these rumors, these urban legends and finding out that some of them – people could corroborate them.�

‘Can you help me move some stuff?’

One of those rumors was given some credence by a man known as Robert, who claims to have seen Studey with a dead body. Robert spoke to Lee Enterprises on condition that he not be fully identified because he’s in fear for his and his family’s safety.

The production companies toured Green Hollow with Robert, and Lee Enterprises spoke with him separately. He said his account is something that scarred him, dating back nearly 50 years.

Robert, who had previously never spoken about his dealing with Studey to law enforcement — or anyone — said he was approached by Studey in a bar Robert had stopped at while making his way across Iowa.

Studey was working in the bar, sweeping floors and other jobs, when Studey bought Robert a beer. They had never met, but Studey bought another, then another, before “he asked me if I’d help him move some stuff, do some work for 100 bucks. So hell yeah, I’ll do some moving of stuff for $100.�

It was about 1975, Robert said, and Studey seemed friendly enough. Robert, who was used to making a couple bucks an hour baling hay, agreed. They drove separately— Studey in an old pickup and Robert in his Dodge Charger—to Green Hollow.

He said Studey took him around to the back of his truck.

“The tailgate was up,� Robert said. “There was a tarp over a part of the bed (of the pickup), and when it came off, I looked over and there’s this body with tennis shoes sticking out. I just met this guy. … He was nice enough to me, but he lifted this tarp and there was a wrapped-up body in the back of the truck. If you can just imagine the trauma I felt. It was crazy, and the paranoia set in. If I didn’t do it, he could just kill me right there, right? That’s the only reason I did it.�

What he said he did was help Studey carry the body between two trailers on the property up to the tree line in Green Hollow. Robert said he carried the upper body while Studey carried the lower half. Robert said he distinctly remembers the tennis shoes sticking out.

“There's this body wrapped in white in the back of the truck, and he wants me to help move it back towards the woods,� Robert said in the interview with Lee Enterprises. “He mentioned that it was a female … and I think I saw black Converse-like tennis shoes.�

They started carrying the body up into the woods, when Robert, frightened and feeling ill, dropped the side of the body he was carrying.

“I told him, ‘This is too much for me. I'm not going to do this.’ He said, ‘That's all right. Just go wait back by your car. I'll take it from here, and I'll pay your money.’�

Figuring Studey would kill him for what he saw, Robert, after waiting a bit by his car, said he jumped in his Charger and sped off to the nearby town of Thurman, Iowa, trying to make sense of what he had witnessed.

“The way he was acting with the body, it was like he's done it before,� Robert said. “I think he had done it many times…�

Next up: An FBI file on Donald Dean Studey is 612 pages. What’s in it?