Authorities are investigating an Iowa woman's claim that her father was a prolific serial killer

Authorities in Iowa are investigating a woman’s claim that her late father was a prolific serial killer who murdered dozens of people over decades.

Fremont County Sheriff’s Sgt. Andrew Wake said his office is looking into allegations, first reported last week by Newsweek, that Donald Dean Studey buried the bodies around his property in Thurman, in southwest Iowa near the border with Nebraska.

“She’s made these claims to the office, and we’re looking into it,” Wake told NBC News on Tuesday. “We’re trying to gather information to establish credibility and see if we can get evidence if there are bodies buried there or not.”

A spokesman for Iowa's Division of Criminal Investigation said the agency is in the beginning stages of assisting the sheriff's office and has no timeline for the probe.

Source

Here's a little story out of Iowa that looks like it might be worth keeping an eye on.

Long story short, a woman in Iowa claims that her father was a prolific serial killer. She says that he killed five to six people, mainly sex workers and transients, a year for decades. She says she knows this because he would have her and her siblings help move the bodies.

Apparently these claims from her aren't new. She told her teachers while she was in school and she tried to make a police report in 2007. Nobody took her seriously at the time.

This time though it looks like police are going to do an actual investigation. Already they have brought cadaver dogs to the family property and they got a hit exactly where this woman said they would.

If her story ends up being true, Donald Dean Studey will go down in history as one of America's most prolific serial killers. That title currently belongs to Samuel Little who has a confirmed kill count of 60 but he claims 93 victims.

a reply to: Xcalibur254
I suppose there a whole lot of serial killers out there that the authorities will never know about.
Scary stuff.

a reply to: Xcalibur254

They need to take these people seriously when they come forward with something like this.

Can you imagine carrying this around half your life and no one believing you?

PTSD and a half..

They seem reluctant to dig the well because of costs, but even though the victims were prostitutes or transient people they are still people with family etc. that might want to know what happened to their relatives.
An easy way to confirm this is to drill the well and see if any human remains show up.

a reply to: butcherguy

Estimates say that at any given time there are between 25-50 active serial killers in the US.

DNA analysis has definitely cut down on things but as long as a person has no criminal record and their victims are random the only way investigators can catch a serial killer is luck.

a reply to: MykeNukem

No jurisdiction will willingly admit to having a serial killer. Until the killings spread to another jurisdiction it's just bad press. And once the killings spread it's no longer the original jurisdiction's problem.

a reply to: crayzeed

Look into the phrase "No Humans Involved." I believe it's a term first employed by the LAPD but it spread throughout the country. Essentially, it was a term used by investigators to describe victims that were undesirables (aka minorities, homeless, sex workers, etc) so the department didn't have to expend resources.

Those are the policies that created Ridgeway and, allegedly, Studey.

originally posted by: Xcalibur254
a reply to: MykeNukem

No jurisdiction will willingly admit to having a serial killer. Until the killings spread to another jurisdiction it's just bad press. And once the killings spread it's no longer the original jurisdiction's problem.

Yea, we have some experience with them in Canada, unfortunately.

The Highway of Tears and Robert Pickton immediately come to mind.

Years and years of passing the buck.

a reply to: Xcalibur254

plot twist the Daughter killed them and now that dad is gone is trying to put the blame on him.



Joking aside hopefully they confirm the validity of the claims one way or another and give whatever closure they can to the victims family if its true.