New documentary explores possibility of serial killer near Omaha
The bizarre mystery of whether Donald Dean Studey killed dozens of people — or no one — and whether he buried them in wells on a rural Iowa hillside near Omaha is the subject of a new documentary airing later this month on Paramount’s streaming channel.
Allegations long made by Studey’s daughter, Lucy Studey-McKiddy, 57, of Council Bluffs, Iowa, were detailed in a late 2024 investigative series by the Lee Enterprises Public Service Journalism Team.
An Iowa woman claims her father was a killer and dozens of victims are buried outside Omaha. Will renewed interest from Hollywood filmmakers r…
Studey-McKiddy’s allegations contributed in leading to to local, state and federal law enforcement investigations, a private forensic dig paid for by the production team and the exhumation and re-autopsy of one of Donald Studey’s former wives, whose death had been ruled a suicide. After the second autopsy, it was listed as "undetermined."
Interviews with the filmmakers and the trailer suggest that the three-episode documentary will reveal new evidence and witnesses saying Studey, who died in 2013 at 75, was “the personification of evil.” It is scheduled to air April 28 and is titled “My Killer Father: The Green Hollow Murders.”
In this photo taken on Oct. 12, 2024, Lucy Studey-McKiddy stands next to an area in rural Fremont County near Thurman, Iowa, where she says bones of her father's alleged slaying victims were buried.
“We set out to solve a mystery, and you hope when you do these things that you make real progress. And we did,” said director Aengus James, a co-founder and CEO of Los Angeles-based This is Just a Test media. “We’re proud of how much relief we’ve been able to bring those who came forward with their testimony or confession, or what they saw and what they were told.”
James said his company and Paul Lima’s Bullish Content production company worked 3½ years and “went to the end of our rope” spending hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to make sense of a riddle that many people have tried to solve.
And while closure for alleged victims’ families is a goal, the filmmakers are hoping that law enforcement, including the FBI and local officials in various agencies where alleged murders occurred, will be prompted to reinvestigate Studey’s life and take seriously the gravity of the allegations despite the passage of time.
“We're walking away with a belief that we've helped to solve an absolutely fascinating and terrifying murder mystery effectively,” James said. “And at the same time there are still questions out there.”
A rural Fremont County highway near Thurman, Iowa, is seen on Oct. 12, 2024. Lucy Studey-McKiddy has long claimed her father, Donald Studey, killed multiple people and buried their bodies on his property near Thurman.
Was Donald Studey a killer?
The documentary centers on the long-running question of whether Studey-McKiddy was ever telling the truth. Over the years, she and relatives have claimed that her father murdered transient women and random men, including the mob-connected, dumping many of their remains in wells around the rural Iowa area known as Green Hollow, about 50 miles from Omaha, Nebraska.
“My dad was a lifelong criminal and murderer,” Studey-McKiddy said again Friday, estimating the number of bodies in the wells on the property — some killed by her dad, and some killed by others and disposed of by him, “has to be 50. The lowest number possible would be about 30. He murdered my moms, he murdered some of the women that watched us, and he put bodies in the well.”
There are those who firmly believe Lucy McKiddy's allegations that her father killed scores of people. Then there are those calling her a ramp…
“The entire Studey family used to say it was the worst kept secret in the family,” said Studey-McKiddy, who claims she, as a child, would tell the allegations to schoolteachers, principals, law enforcement — really anyone who would listen.
She alleges she personally saw two dead women dumped in one well on the property and two men buried in another well.
Since the story of Donald Studey first broke almost four years ago, Studey-McKiddy said she has received plenty of messages from people saying they grew up around the Studeys and were warned to stay out of Green Hollow, and specifically to keep away from Donald Studey.
“We always had a saying,” Studey-McKiddy said. “You didn't need enemies when you had family like ours.”
Lucy McKiddy drives on Saturday, Oct. 12, 2024, in rural Fremont County near Thurman, Iowa.
Mysterious circumstances
Two other wives of Studey, who had been married five times, died under mysterious circumstances. Studey-McKiddy is hoping the documentary will spur new investigations into those deaths.
Studey-McKiddy’s sister Susan has told Lee Enterprises repeatedly that her father was prone to anger but denied that he was a murderer, especially a serial killer or someone who randomly killed people throughout the U.S.
“Don’t you think I would know if my dad was a serial killer?” she told Lee Enterprises in a prior interview, describing a mostly nurturing father.
But others, including cousins of Studey-McKiddy and her three stepsisters, claim that while most of the alleged victims were dumped in wells on the 420-acre property, Studey also randomly gave way to violence, beating and killing people around the country.
Donald Dean Studey died in 2013, but his memory is kept alive by a daughter who believes he killed dozens of people and buried some in western Iowa.
Before she died in January 2025, Marilyn Kepler, Donald Studey’s sister, told Lee Enterprises that Studey-McKiddy was always telling the truth. She insisted that her 188-page handwritten journal about her life and alleged killings by her brother was accurate.
The journal by Kepler, a purported 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.
The 188 pages paint a picture of Donald Studey as a man who killed with ease and would murder those who upset him.
Donald Studey did have a criminal record, including domestic violence, and he spent time in prison. But never was Studey charged in connection with any slayings.
Still, Kepler said of Studey-McKiddy’s claims about her dad: “I think Lucy is 100% right.”
An area Lucy McKiddy says was a well where bones were buried is shown Saturday, Oct. 12, 2024, in rural Fremont County near Thurman.
Lucy's hope
As for the upcoming documentary, Studey-McKiddy said she has several hopes.
“The main thing that I am most loyal to is the bodies in the wells,” she said. “I want them up.”
Past professional digs in the area have yielded no human remains.
Then, her hope is to get the body of her mother, Lucy Studey, who allegedly hung herself outside Denver in a small closet, exhumed and reexamined by a pathologist. The wife who was already exhumed was Studey-McKiddy’s stepmother, Charlotte Studey.
Charlotte Studey was re-autopsied after questions were raised about her suicide by a single gunshot to her head from a rifle as she reportedly sat in her husband’s car in Omaha after leaving him.
Charlotte Studey’s death is currently listed as “undetermined,” on the autopsy. But the Douglas County Attorney, Don Kleine, won’t change the death certificate from suicide.
That fact infuriates Charlotte Studey’s daughters, who have been battling with Omaha police, the county coroner and county attorney to look anew at the case.
Citing undisclosed evidence, Charlotte Studey’s three daughters and Studey-McKiddy want Douglas County, which includes Omaha, to rule it a homicide. They say there is evidence that the petite woman couldn’t have killed herself with a long rifle while sitting in the front seat of her husband’s car in a parking lot after she had argued with her husband and left him.
And Omaha police, who started a death investigation into Charlotte Studey's shooting in 2022 as a homicide, hasn't investigated further.
Among those in the documentary is one of the police officers who first responded to the scene of Charlotte Studey’s death in 1984. He denies any coverup by investigators then or now.
An old brick grain silo where Lucy McKiddy used to run away and hide from the family is shown Saturday, Oct. 12, 2024, n rural Fremont County near Thurman.
“It all is coming to fruition” with the documentary about to air, said Marie McGovern, one of Charlotte Studey’s daughters. “Hopefully, something good stems from it. And I am really excited for Lucy because I've always said, ‘Why would a child start at the age of like four or five and keep the story going all of her life? I mean, something in there has got to be true.’”
Seeking closure
Studey-McKiddy said she desires closure for those affected by the alleged killings but also peace of mind at a time when many people don’t believe her and her family has been torn. And she wants another full dig of the property to find wells since none were found in a private excavation last year.
She also wants law enforcement to open new investigations after the FBI and state investigators found nothing but animal bones in a first excavation of a well almost four years ago. At the time, the Fremont County Sheriff’s Office, the Iowa State Bureau of Investigation and the FBI were all actively investigating the case.
“I want the fact that my moms didn't commit suicide,” Studey-McKiddy said. “I want both my moms’ death certificates changed from suicide to homicide. I don't want ‘undetermined’. I want homicide."
Linda Moore, Kepler’s daughter, remembers growing up with and around the Studey family. She recalls an evil man who would quickly snap with rage.
A farm in rural Fremont County near Thurman is seen on Saturday, Oct. 12, 2024.
“I’ve seen him beat his kids,” Moore said Friday. “I remember as a child whenever he came around I was scared. Maybe at the time, I couldn’t even tell you what I was scared of. Maybe it was because I can still hear my sister screaming as the emergency room doctor was removing her earring that uncle Don had embedded in her ear because he hit her upside the head so hard. That’s a sound I’ll never forget.”
Pat Moore, Linda’s father and a former police officer of 11 years in Ashland, Nebraska, was quick to say he believed Studey was a murderer in an interview Friday.
“I’ve had a lot of suspicion — and none of that I could, you know, attest to in a court of law. But it’s just…He was a cold duck," Pat Moore said. "He didn’t seem to have any emotions. I am not a psychiatrist or anything, but it just seemed like he was pretty much emotionless.”
Studey, Moore said, tried to stay on his good side. Asked if he ever saw Studey kill or confide illegal activities to him, Moore said never. He said he would have arrested Studey immediately if he had.
But Moore heard many stories of killings from family.
Lucy McKiddy walks to an alleged well site on Saturday, Oct. 12, 2024, in rural Fremont County near Thurman.
More work to do?
While the documentary series is set to air in just over two weeks, James said, “We're reminded by how much work there is to do still. And we’re hopeful that the baton can pass over to law enforcement who are really the ones who are best at this work.
“We set out to investigate these claims to the best of our ability for over three years, and we found just unbelievable findings, (including) testimony from an accomplice who has kept this secret hidden for years and confirmation of other accusations.
“I think we're feeling that we did right by the family,” James added. “At least the family's saying that to us, and that feels good.”
The grave of Lucy McKiddy's father, Donald Studey, and step-mother Charlotte Studey is shown Saturday, Oct. 12, 2024, in rural Fremont County near Thurman.
Related
"My Killer Father: The Green Hollow Murders" is a new documentary from Paramount+ that looks into the decades-long mystery of a whether Donald…
Of particular interest is the death of one of Donald Studey’s wives, who allegedly died of suicide but whose manner of death recently was reclassified as undetermined.
Donald Studey died in 2013. But his memory is kept bizarrely alive by a daughter, whose allegations he killed dozens of people and buried some…
