THURMAN, Iowa – A deputy sheriff said that officers checked 15 years ago into Lucy Studey’s report that her father had committed dozens of murders over a 20-year or 30-year period but that officers didn’t look in the right place. Studey had told officets that the corpses were dropped in a 90-foot well. In 2007, said Deputy Tim Bothwell, a team went to a well on the Studey property for evidence but apparently went to the wrong well. “We went out and there was only one well on the property that we could see,” Bothwell said. “We didn’t realize that it was on other people’s property.” Lucy Studey was living in Minneapolis at the time and had not returned to Thurman to guide the search.
