US police to dig up ground after woman claims father killed 70 women, says he made her bury bodies

A woman from Iowa, United States, has claimed that her late father was a serial killer and forced her and her siblings to help him bury dozens of human remains.

The woman, named Lucy Studey, made the explosive claims last month in an interview with Newsweek magazine.

She said that her father, Donald Dean Studey, killed 50-70 women and made her hide their bodies across farmland near their property in Iowa. Many of the victims were sex workers, according to Lucy. She added that several of them were from the same area.

"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," she told Newsweek.

The police have launched a probe into the matter and have decided to dig up the land surrounding their family home.

This is not the first time that Lucy made the claims. She had first approached the police fifteen years ago.

"She [Lucy] told us in 2007, and we went out and there was only one well on the property that we could see, we didn't realise that it was on other people's property," Deputy Sheriff Tim Bothwell said.

The woman's elder sister has refuted all such allegations against their father even though Lucy maintains that her father was a serial killer. Her sister, Susan Studey, said that her father was a "strict" person but not a murderer. Their father passed away in 2013 at the age of 75.

"My father was not the man she makes him out to be. He was strict, but he was a protective parent who loved his children. Strict fathers don't just turn into serial killers... I'm two years older than Lucy. I think I would know if my father murdered," she said.

According to a report by CNN, cadaver dogs had indicated possible human remains in the area and now authorities are checking the validity of the woman's claims about her late father.