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Her father, she alleges, was a murderous man who preyed on women and dumped their bodies in wells and along mushroom trails in the remote western Iowa area known as Green Hollow.

Claims made by McKiddy, now living in Council Bluffs, Iowa, were taken seriously enough by the FBI, the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation and the Fremont County, Iowa, Sheriff’s Department that the agencies spent parts of three days in December 2022 core-drilling at least 85 feet deep into a well on properties spanning some 420 acres. Finding only animal bones, the agencies closed the case.

With nothing found, Fremont County got stuck with the bill — about $40,000.

But the high-profile reports that her father, Donald Dean Studey, who died in 2013 at 75, used the property to conceal victims won’t go away quietly.

Since the agencies vacated the property, two Los Angeles-based production companies eying a documentary on the topic have invested hundreds of thousands of dollars and counting, believing that the law enforcement dig may not have gone far enough.

And following that abandoned law enforcement dig, other details in the case have come to light.

The journal of Studey’s sister, Marilyn Kepler — herself now on parole — has surfaced, alleging murders by Studey and ties to organized crime.

With her sentence having been commuted for battery against her boyfriend, Kepler also spoke with a Lee Public Service Journalism Team reporter. She said Studey was her “guardian angel� when they were younger. But as he grew older, she said, her brother grew to be “dead inside,� a “hitman� for the mafia who killed with ease and had “no human compassion whatsoever.�

The body count, Kepler said, could be as high as 100.

Meanwhile, the body of one of Studey’s four wives was exhumed Aug. 10, 2023 — paid for by the production companies — and re-autopsied, with the pathologist writing in her report that the initial findings of suicide didn’t add up.

Kepler says the death of the wife, Charlotte Studey, was a hit carried out by, or ordered by, Donald Studey, while McKiddy and her stepsisters say they’ve never doubted that Donald Studey fatally shot his wife in a car in Omaha.

“I was 15 at the time, and I’ve never believed (it was suicide),� said one of the late wife’s three daughters, Marie McGovern. “The minute I got the call, I'm like, ‘Oh my God, he finally succeeded’… He just didn't put her in a well.�

McGovern added she recalls frequent savage beatings of her mother by Studey, including one time during which she says she got in between them, prompting Studey to pull his rifle on McGovern as she raced from the home. Police were aware of domestic violence, responding to many calls at the Studey homes.

The FBI, which was part of the original 2022 dig, also has a file on Studey, which the agency confirms has 612 “responsive� pages from April 2021, after McKiddy’s allegations were reported to the FBI, through January of 2023 — a month after the failed dig ended Dec. 9, 2022. Additionally, the FBI has at least one hour, 42 minutes of audio interviews on Studey, the agency confirmed.

The contents of the file remain under review before being released to the public, but McKiddy and her sister, Susan Studey, were among those interviewed. It’s not known if there are older files on Studey maintained by the agency or later entries.

Files on FBI informants — something family members like Kepler and McKiddy believe Studey was — are not subject to freedom of information requests.

Studey had done time in jails across the country, including a stint in Leavenworth federal prison for going AWOL from the military. But he was never charged with any killings, so much of what is alleged against him remains a mystery.

Digging back into the case

With a flurry of new information, a private investigation has been launched, financed by the two Los Angeles production companies whose principals are consulting with forensic specialists and other experts in hopes of doing a wider, more thorough dig on the land and producing a multi-part documentary.

Principals for those companies — This Is Just A Test Media in collaboration with Bullish Content — said they have invested upward of $380,000 and filmed more than 200 hours of footage, including at least 50 hours of interviews.

McKiddy signed a no-money contract with the companies to tell her unscripted story and get them to look into the allegations, according to the companies and McKiddy.

Still, the question stands: Is McKiddy, 55, telling the truth about her father?

Susan Studey and some authorities have cast doubt on her account since initial news of the case broke in October 2022, and the agencies’ dig turned up nothing but a horse or cow bone and debris.

Allegations detail acts of ‘a lifelong criminal and a murderer’

McKiddy’s story — which has been told to teachers, pastors and law enforcement over 45-plus years — has grown over the nearly two years that she’s been telling it to reporters and on social media.

In initial police reports filed in Fremont County, she stated that there were about 15 bodies in a well. Most of the women, she says, were transients — some whom her father dubbed “bar slushes� — picked up by Studey in nearby Omaha.

She has alleged in subsequent news interviews that her father killed several women a year over many years, as well as a 15-year-old runaway. Most of the women, according to McKiddy, were invited to stay in the home and watch over his four kids, McKiddy said.

McKiddy also claims Studey killed a shop owner in a mechanic store where he worked in the 1960s, beating the man to death with a tool after the owner surprised him during a robbery attempt. She says she witnessed Studey stomp the head of a woman and that he robbed and killed people he followed from the former Ak-Sar-Ben Race Track and Coliseum in Omaha.

And she says that her dad was affiliated with organized crime, running guns and drugs in hollowed-out trees from a sawmill in Murray, Nebraska, owned by another of Studey’s sisters, the late Enid “Jean� Lawson. He also would keep the gold teeth or fillings of those he allegedly killed, McKiddy and other relatives told the Lee Enterprises investigative team.

“My dad was a lifelong criminal and a murderer, and I don't need to solve every goddamn thing he did,� McKiddy said. “But if I can get some bodies up out of a well, then I should. … My father is dead. I can only offer the victims' families closure and give the victims a proper burial."

So why are the wells in focus?

McKiddy says she recalls how she and her siblings would bring bags of lye, a chemical thought to help decompose remains, for their father to pour into the wells. She said the intent was to hide victims of her father’s killings, and she claims she vividly recalls seeing parts of four bodies — two women and two men — during those times.

After the investigation went quiet, McKiddy moved from Lakeland, Florida, to Council Bluffs, Iowa, to push for another probe at the site of the “correct� wells, some of which she never spoke about to authorities.

McKiddy claims those authorities dug in the wrong well by mistake.

But she said each attempt since she arrived to call the FBI, DCI or other authorities has been met with a hangup.

A separate dig done by property owner Sean Smith used bulldozers and radar to try to locate remains, according to Smith and McKiddy, who passed to Lee Enterprises footage of the failed excavation.

That second dig has changed the landscape of Green Hollow and emptied about 20 feet of land from where 90-foot deep wells are located. McKiddy said in an interview she fears the bulldozers may have pushed out remains.

Smith, who spoke with Lee Enterprises, said the dig was done with a Fremont County sheriff’s deputy present in case any human remains were located.

“We all believed her, I always did,� Smith said, who added that Donald Studey oddly called him out of the blue before Studey died, saying he wanted piping in one of the wells and that Smith might “find bones� because he buried animals in them.

Smith didn’t buy the story.

“I always did believe there was a body in that one,� he said. “I still believe it. I don't believe there's 70 bodies, but I do believe there's something up there,� referring to his land and its 14 wells. McKiddy says records show 28 wells, four of them that no one knows about.

McKiddy is pushing for a more thorough search of the vast property and its wells, which the documentary companies are now planning with Smith on board to access his land. When a new dig would take place is not clear, depending on when the Los Angeles companies can line up the needed experts, including forensic anthropologists. As it stands, they are aiming for winter or sometime in the new year.

'There are no bodies in those hills'

To her detractors, McKiddy’s swelling story is indicative of a mind that took shape during the abuse that she and others suffered at Studey’s hands during childhood.

One of those detractors is her sister, Susan Studey. Another sister has never commented publicly on the case or the attention it has received. A fourth sibling, a son, died by suicide at age 39.

Susan’s story also has shifted. She originally told reporters when the story broke that the only time she saw her father upset was when a man nearly ran over the family’s dog. Her father promptly beat the man in a fight, she said.

Now, Susan acknowledges her father was a kind and loving but struggling man who could snap with anger, was overly strict – particularly when his kids were teenagers – and that he got into fights. But she insists “he was no killer…�

“My dad was an abusive prick, but he was no murderer,� Susan, 57, said, recalling that she had to throw her body over her stepmother to protect her “because he was beating her to a pulp…He beat everybody that he knew. But there are no bodies in those hills. He was not a serial killer; there’s nothing there.�

McGovern echoed that Studey’s mood could turn to rage in an instant.

“It was like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,� she said. “There was a lot of terrible. And when the terrible came in, it was bad.�

A law enforcement official who was present at the 2022 dig cast some doubt on the credibility of the alleged witnesses who have come forward.

“It’s hard to put a lot of credit to what they say just because they've told so many variations of the stories over the years,� the investigator told Lee Enterprises.

“I won't name names, but there's several people that we talked to — all offering different accounts over the years. There's really no consistent, steady story from witness to witness to witness to give us any legs to stand on and any credibility for us to go do anything further than what we've already done.�

So what would it take to reopen a case?

“Credible witnesses, physical evidence,� he said.

McKiddy said she has heard the allegations that she is a sick woman and a liar — from coworkers, old friends, family and strangers on the street — or on social media, where the family fights over which side is true.

“I don't care,� McKiddy said. “I'm not here to convince total strangers that are not involved in my investigation whether or not I'm telling the truth. I'm here to recover bodies and provide the victims' families with closure. If I can heal from my childhood and be able to live peacefully in my own skin, then that's a bonus."

Vivid account finds some believers

Earlier this month and two years since her claims initially made global news, McKiddy toured the vast and hilly landscape with a Lee Enterprises reporter and a photographer.

As she walked along the gravel road leading to her family’s former property, stretching about five acres but looking onto Smith’s more sprawling 420 acres, McKiddy said good and bad memories and emotions flooded her.

She would point to a bridge or an empty lot where fond memories occurred. Just as quickly she would spot scenes where she said terrible crimes happened, including one area off the road where she claims her father’s associate burned a body before Studey put it in a well. Or another where she says she recalled her father terribly beating her after he was called to her school when McKiddy, then a child, told school leaders about her father’s alleged crimes.

And McKiddy laughed as she told the story of the Goat of Green Hollow, a legend that scared nearby residents away from the land — a fear that Studey allegedly took advantage of by dressing up as a goat-human hybrid, armed, to frighten away strangers.

The story of a goatman terrorizing people who came upon the land became both fascinating and frightening to locals, according to a law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity after the DCI shut down all communication with the media.

Another law enforcement official put it this way: “I wish there was some credibility to her or it. When it was four or five bodies, I thought, ‘well, that’s possible.’ When it got to be 70-some bodies, I knew better.�

People around town, according to an official who grew up in the area and with the story, “said there was a monster in there. And of course, there was the Goat of Green Hollow. In Green Hollow, they had all kinds of freaky, and of course we went there (as teenagers) because we were stupid.�

One of the officials said people in law enforcement believe parts of McKiddy’s account.

“We all believed it was probably partially true,� he said, also expressing reservation about how McKiddy’s story has grown over the years.

Others believe her too.

‘I don’t think she’s a pathological liar’

McKiddy’s psychotherapist and hypnotherapist, Lisa Parisien, spoke with a Lee Enterprises reporter with McKiddy’s approval.

Parisien said McKiddy suffers from PTSD but also noted she believes McKiddy’s account of Donald Studey.

“Considering her childhood, she's incredibly stable,� Parisien said. “She has suffered a lot of trauma. … For people who don’t really know her or understand her, her stories can sound outlandish. (But) I don't think she's a pathological liar. She's very consistent. And she has no motive to make these kinds of stories up because who would want to make these stories up about themselves or their family?�

Parisien also questioned those who think McKiddy is doing all of this to gain fame or cash in.

“It's been important to her since she was a very young child that those bodies in that well — if there are, which I do believe — be put to rest, that they finally have a proper burial. I think it's really important for people to realize that she has no motive,� since she’s not making money off the documentary and has been threatened or lost work since the allegations became public two years ago.

Parisien noted that, as a child, McKiddy would dig into her arms with her fingernails, leaving scars to remember those she claims her father murdered.

“She would grab her arm and tell herself, ‘You have to remember this,’� Parisien said. “She has imprinted her memory so clearly and vividly … I believe that's why her memory is so clear. She made an agreement with herself to never forget so she could finally someday tell the story.�

‘I found her credible’

Stewart Fillmore, a 29-year veteran of the FBI who has interviewed McKiddy at length on many occasions, agrees with Parisien and others about the consistency of McKiddy’s story.

“I’ve had numerous conversations with Lucy. … When I first started talking to her, just the stories, it just seemed outrageous, really,� Fillmore, who is consulting with the production companies, said in an interview with Lee Enterprises. “But the more that I kind of dug into it, I just started, I found her credible, to be quite honest. The more I listened to her and got more of the details of it, just the way that she could recall things, she was consistent.�

Fillmore has never officially investigated the Studey case. But in his experience, he said, he couldn’t understand what kept the 2022 investigation at the Green Hollow scene so narrow, with the investigators’ chief witness — McKiddy — not even present to direct authorities to the exact well where she claims bodies were buried.

At the time, the Iowa DCI, which handled communications for the investigation, said they precisely followed McKiddy’s directions to a well that she had led them to before. But McKiddy insisted, then and now, that it was the wrong well that was drilled.

“I still think it's a valid case to look into,� Fillmore said. “As many times as I've heard the overall story and asked some probing questions about it, she’s remained consistent, and she admits to things that she doesn’t know.�

A worry for Fillmore is that the allegations, if not taken seriously, could blow up on authorities including the FBI.

A body unearthed, conflicting autopsies

McKiddy’s hold on her allegations only solidified with the exhumation of her stepmother and the change of the autopsy findings.

The body was exhumed in August 2023, paid for by the production companies. And, at the family’s urging, an Omaha pathologist did a second autopsy, changing the findings from suicide to undetermined — an unusual move 40 years after her death on Feb. 8, 1984.

The death of Charlotte Studey, 42, initially had been ruled a self-inflicted gunshot wound, saying she was shot at point-blank range. But the August 2023 autopsy showed she suffered the gunshot wound from some distance.

The second autopsy, which the Lee Enterprises Public Service Journalism Team has reviewed, suggests it would have been impossible for Charlotte Studey to fire the single shot at herself from a rifle while sitting in the driver’s side of Donald Studey’s car outside her apartment in Omaha. She was 5-feet-2 with arms not long enough to fire the shot, and nothing was found suggesting she used an instrument to trigger the .22 caliber Marlin 60 rifle.

The August 2023 autopsy, done by Dr. Erin Linde at the Douglas County Medical Examiner’s Office in Omaha, also noted a history of abuse between Charlotte and Donald Studey and that she had moved out of the residence the couple shared prior to her death. And it noted a possible defensive wound on her right arm, indicating she may have raised it to defend herself.

In her 2023 autopsy conclusions, Linde wrote: “While the reported circumstances of death described in the investigative reports and findings described in the original (1984) autopsy would support a manner of suicide; the discrepant verbally provided circumstances, the reported history of domestic violence, the findings from the second autopsy including the indeterminate-range gunshot wound and punctate red-discoloration suggestive of possible stippling on the right arm, and lack of scene and original autopsy photographs raise multiple additional questions regarding the circumstances of death and original autopsy findings …Therefore, the manner of death in this case would be best classified as undetermined.�

The change to “undetermined� stops short of classifying the death as a homicide, and Linde notes in her report that she was at a disadvantage in reviewing the case because key police documents, including original autopsy and crime scene photos, from the case have gone missing. Linde could not be reached by Lee Enterprises for comment despite several messages.

Charlotte Studey’s daughters claim a coverup by Omaha investigators, and are fighting in court to get access to the files. But Omaha police say the Studey evidence was likely purged after so many decades and changes to how they catalog evidence.

“She never got the justice she should have gotten since he never went to jail (for this) like he should have,� said another of Charlotte Studey’s daughters, Dawn Schultz. “We don't understand how he was so untouchable.�

Recalling their life with Donald Studey, the sisters said the beatings of their mom and of the children were brutal. Punches to the face, kicks with boots to the gut and belt-buckle lashings.

The third daughter, Charlotte Harris, who said she remembers the gold teeth kept in a jewelry box, added: “I don't see why they can't give the family the answers that they need,� by releasing investigative and original autopsy details to the family.

‘One of the lucky ones’

Charlotte Studey was one of two wives of Donald Studey who allegedly died by suicide. Lucy Studey, McKiddy’s mother and namesake, died of a hanging in a small closet off the family home’s kitchen outside of Denver on Jan. 17, 1970.

But investigators found a bloodied scene and evidence of a beating when they showed up at the home. The closet was so small that her knees could touch the ground, according to reports from family members, including Kepler, who saw the house at the time — a year after McKiddy was born.

Now, an investigator with a Colorado coroner’s office has agreed to review all new material and put fresh eyes on the Lucy Studey case to see if it was, in fact, a suicide. That second look, which could reopen the case — or simply confirm the original ruling of suicide — has not been completed.

Barbara Rich was another past wife of Donald Studey. Their daughter echoed that Studey was a violent man whose rage could turn on in an instant.

“He was a very scary man and he exuded that,� said Rich’s daughter, Marilyn Hill, McKiddy’s half-sister. “I just felt like he was evil personified.�

Among other things, Hill said her mother suffered terrible beatings and was sexually assaulted by Donald Studey in front of Hill and other children.

A fourth woman, Donald Studey’s girlfriend Anna Tordoff, died in July 2006 after reportedly overdosing on medication, but Kepler and McKiddy believe something more sinister occurred.

“She called me and said if anything happened to me, it was Donnie,� McKiddy claims Tordoff told her. “She said, ‘It was not suicide. You don’t really know your dad.’�

Donald Studey had four wives, and he talked about marriage with one of his girlfriends, a woman named Beth who gave birth to Donald Studey’s first-known child when they were teenagers, Beth said.

Beth, who asked not to be fully identified, alleged that Donald Studey tried on at least one occasion to kill her, chasing her while she was pregnant and on foot through lawns in his speeding car. As Beth ran and tried to evade the car, Studey would throw the car into reverse and try again, she said.

Another time, Donald Studey allegedly walked up with a gun to the driver’s side of Beth’s car, with the former couple’s son next to her and threatened to harm her.

“I guess I was one of the lucky ones,� Beth said in the interview, saying Studey stalked her after the relationship ended. “I probably would have been No. 1 in that mess.�

Up next: Witnesses to Donald Studey’s allegedly murderous life have come forward. They include his sister and a man who says he carried a body for Studey up toward a well on the sprawling property.