Anish Vij
Police are baffled during their search of a property for over 70 bodies after a woman claimed her father was a serial killer and the man responsible.
Lucy Studey McKiddy, 53, alleges that her dad, Donald Studey, would regularly force his daughters to throw the bodies of the women he murdered into the well in Thurman, Fremont County.
She claims that her father, who died back in 2013, killed between 50 and 70 women over three decades.
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On Wednesday (7 December) the FBI, Fremont County Sheriff's Office and the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, all visited the area after cadaver dogs reportedly sniffed out possible human remains at a different well.
The daughter told Newsweek: "I know where the bodies are buried. He would just tell us we had to go to the well, and I knew what that meant.
"Every time I went to the well or into the hills, I didn't think I was coming down. I thought he would kill me because I wouldn't keep my mouth shut."
However, the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation Assistant Director, Mitch Mortvedt, says no evidence was found in the excavation.
"Over the past three days, state, local, and federal law enforcement assisted with an investigation in Fremont County," a statement reads.
"Authorities brought in an array of experts representing several disciplines and significant assets to excavate, collect and examine soil samples from a site identified by a reporting party.
"After exhaustive efforts, no evidence or other items of concern were recovered.
"Law enforcement agencies coordinating this effort included the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Division of Criminal Investigation and the Fremont County Sheriff’s Office.
"No further information will be released at this time."
The search doesn't support the statements of Fremont County Sheriff Kevin Aistrope, who previously claimed: "I believe her 100 percent that there's bodies in there."
"I really think there's bones there," Aistrope added. "It's hard for me to believe that two dogs would hit in the exact same places and be false. We don't know what it is.
"The settlers were up there. There was Indian Country up there as well, but I tend to believe Lucy.
"Right now, we don't even have a bone. According to the dogs, this is a very large burial site."
The daughter claims that Studey lured sex workers from the Omaha, Nebraska area up to his five acres of farmland, before brutally murdering them.