What Don Studey's Green Hollow Search Missed in Three Days

This is Hidden Tillers Live with Tony Brusky and Robin Dree.

A daughter says she helped her father carry bodies to a well when she was little girl,

you know, father daughter bonding time.

She says he covered them in lie to make them disappear and they when it made ludifisc,

Norwegians get sick.

She says he allegedly killed dozens of women over decades in rural Iowa and that she's

been telling anyone who would listen, going all the way back to 2007.

And there's claims that she was saying this well before then as well, nobody has found

those remains.

Nobody has proven her wrong either.

Donald Dean Stoodley died in 2013 without ever being charged.

His daughter Lucy is still fighting and the question at the center of all of it has

never been answered.

What really happened in grain hollow?

New documentary on Paramount Plus asking that question, my killer father is what it is called

and it is out as of today, which is the 28th January of April, 2026, I don't know what

month we're in anymore.

Yeah.

Thank you for joining us to discuss myself and Robin Drake, Retired FBI Special Agent.

Robin Drake is Bob Mata, host of the podcast, Defense Diaries, Defense Attorney and Extraordinaire.

You have been following this case.

I'm hearing just all these noises from the screaming goat.

It was Jesus Christ, you know, if our audience could see the chaos behind the season before

we come on with Bob, you know, I didn't, I couldn't see the camera.

I was looking in the, the prompter and I'm hearing weird sounds coming in my earpiece and

I'm just watching, man, it's very apropos for, we're about to get into today and I'm laughing

so hard at the ludifice, but I thought it is if you know, you know, you know, Bob, you've

been into this case, boots on the ground for quite some time.

A lot of folks are just learning about this through this documentary.

Let's start here.

What drew you in?

Bring us on your journey of discovering the magic of Donald Studeley.

It's okay.

There's no L in Studey, yes, Studey, I'm sorry, yes, Studey, yes.

Yeah, I mean, try to remember the potential serial killer.

Yes, yes, Studey, yes.

All right.

So I'm going to prepare everybody.

I'm going to prepare everybody out there.

I'm going to do a lot of talking today, suggest if you don't want to do Bob, right?

I run the Bob.

That never happens.

That never happens.

That never happens.

That never happens.

That never happens.

All right.

All right.

All right.

So here's when that news story dropped, it's a, it's a, it's really a fascinating story.

I've been waiting for three years to tell it truly.

And so when that news week article dropped, it blew my mind and it kind of hit and it

was that story that you were talking about, T, this, this girl's now woman coming forward

and saying that she believed that her father was a serial killer and that he had killed

somewhere between 50 and 70 women, quite a, and yeah.

And I'm like, what in the what?

So, so immediately, and I had just wrapped up my gacy season and I was like three episodes

into Garcia and I hadn't even started to YouTube yet.

Okay.

I'm like, okay, Alison, I'm like, we got to get this, we got to get this woman on the

phone.

So I tell Alison, we kind of concoct this idea and I'm like, look, in her article, she's

talking about helping her father dispose of the bodies, like literally that her and her

siblings would, in the winter, you know, use sleds to drag the bodies up to the wells.

And, you know, then dad would jump, they'll jump them in or if it was a wagon in the summer,

whatever the case may be.

So we're like, well, if she's at all concerned about criminal liability, maybe just call

and leave her a message that you're a criminal defense attorney and, you know, you're not

implying that she's in any kind of trouble, but if she has any kind of questions about

the potential for them to be looking at hers and accomplice potentially, even though

she was young.

So at any rate, Alison leaves the message and Lucy calls her back.

And from that point forward, it's just an incredible tale of like 16 months of like dealing

with Lucy's duty and her sister Susan and taking trips to Green Hollow and spying on

the feds when they're trying to do the initial day.

The whole thing, this is going to be an amazing conversation and it's going to be the first

place that it happens because I haven't even put it out on my shit at all.

And I just got a lot to talk about.

I really went TikTok famous when I was down there the first time and I didn't even know

how to use TikTok as I'm an old man, you know, so I'm sitting there.

In real time, I would go live in like the entire town by the second day new me.

Like it's down there and it's there's tabers, probably the biggest town.

And just to give you an idea where this area is, is it's right on the border of Nebraska

and Iowa.

So Omaha is about 30 miles away.

Omaha, Council Bluffs are the two biggest cities that are closest to saber in Green

Hollow.

Green Hollow is exactly like that.

If you hear about the Hollers down in Tennessee, it's this odd Holler that is completely

out of place in Iowa, which is as flat as flat can be in its farmland.

When you drive through Iowa, you have to prepare yourself mentally to get through that

long flat state because there's nothing to see other than corn, that's it.

So to get down to this, this hollow and it was the creepiest place and it was like,

it was, it was so weird because it's kind of like in a ravine and it's got some croppings

on both sides of it.

So it's really like this enclosed area that you drive back into and there's no way out

of it once you go back in.

So let's start with the story with, so that's how I get to start speaking with Lucy.

All right.

So the Newsweek article and her claims and that which are are pretty, I mean, 50 to 70 bodies.

It's a lot of people, but but not a lot of people seemingly looking for these people,

too.

No one, which is very bizarre as well, but okay, continue on and that's what I'm

been doing.

You know me, I'm going stat heavy on, I'm trying to figure this out.

Oh, I know you are, because I'm going at it.

Yeah.

And so I started having conversations with Lucy and my first thing that I want to try

to figure out is, is she telling the truth?

So like in every conversation I'm having with her, I'm looking for red flags.

I'm looking for inconsistencies in the stories.

You know, I'm doing what I do as an attorney when I'm talking to my client.

And I'm saying, well, you know, this is what they're saying you did.

Did you do it?

You know, you got to pull calls and, you know, so I get in these really, really long detail

oriented conversations with her trying to figure out if this thing tracks because the

thing that made me believe the story was true was the fact that the outcry started when

she was a child had she, because we've seen recent cases of people coming up with the

same type of story that my parent was a serial killer and they were exposed.

You know, that it was, it was a money grab.

So there was that side of it that was obviously like percolating around in my mind that this

could just be a money grab.

She got somebody to bite on the story.

It was news week.

They ran with it.

So that's all going through my mind when I'm getting these into these discussions with

her.

So I'm trying to probe for as many details as she can remember.

Now the fact of the matter is, at that point, she's 52 years old when I'm talking with

her.

And it's evident to me that she suffered some kind of trauma, you know, it's evident.

She had serious trauma.

What it was was what we were trying to figure out.

So in the meantime, like as soon as I start doing the TikToks when she sends me down.

So say, I'd say like two months goes by of me talking to Lucy and you know, she's like,

I, you know, and I told her like right up front, I was like, I really want to do an investigative

podcast in this case, like I'm your guy, like just trying to get her to go listen to

Gacy.

I'm like, that's how I deep dive.

That's 36 episodes.

It was the deepest, blah, blah, blah, blah.

So she's like, you know, she's like, I really, I really only trust the guys for Newsweek

because they're the guys who finally told my story after I've been telling people for

40 years.

And I'm like, okay, I get it, you know, so I'm like, but I'm telling you you could trust

me.

You're like, I'll keep everything completely confidential.

I'm not going to go out.

The only things I'll ever put out there are things that you tell me to put out there

about your story.

So I'd say it's like we're going into, I think it was the first winter because I think

I made contact with her two months, like for two months, goes by.

So I think that was October, November, whenever of 23 when that story dropped in Newsweek.

So I get a call one morning and she tells me that people on the ground in the area in

Table are in Thurman, those are the two kind of like main little towns there are telling

me that they're seeing like a ton of black SUVs, like just hauling down the highway.

And they're heading towards the property.

She's like, I think they're doing the dig.

I'm like, I'm on it.

I'm on it.

I said, I'm getting in the car.

So I got in the car and I drove the six hours to Omaha, you know, a right to Omaha.

Taking that drive many, many times on the Garcia case, so it was very familiar drive for

me.

So I end up getting, so that day I left, packed up my car, got down there, Allison's trying

to find me an Airbnb, finds this old kind of like, it's more of a boarding house.

And, you know, I just got a room in there and it was great, you know, so I got there.

As soon as I pull into town, you know, I decide I'm going to go to Green Hollow, you know,

I'm going to drive in.

Yeah.

And as I'm heading down there, where the, where their trailer used to be is deep, deep

into the hollow, okay?

So you got to drive all the way back.

There's obviously no lights back there.

There's no street light, nothing.

It's pitch black.

And I'm driving back there.

And I had been trying to contact this guy whose name is Pat Chittick, who was living currently

renting the trailer back there.

Now, this isn't the same trailer that Don lived in, and the kids lived in.

But it's, it's located about 20 yards from where that trailer is to be.

So I get back there and I had been on the phone with Lucy, I'm like, I'm heading back.

Like I'm going to go see if I can, if Chittick happens to be outside or I'm going to go

knock on his door because what I'm trying to do is gain access to that property so that

they'll let me come on the property because I know that there's a fence line that is

separating the two properties, which would have been the Steudie property and then Sean

Smith and the Smith family owns the property where the wells were actually located.

Going down, I didn't understand that part of it because when I was reading the article,

they didn't really delineate between the fact that this wasn't all the Steudie property.

Like in my mind, I'm reading the article and I'm like, oh, they had like a ton of land.

It's all farmland out there, you know, and these wells were, you know, just randomly

placed out in various areas on the property, which is massive, at least Sean Smith says.

So I get down there, I see somebody smoking a cigarette, I get out of my car.

I'm like, hey, I'm Bob.

I'm here to find the bodies.

Hey, how you doing?

You know, so it's like a weird thing and they're like, who is it?

Who are you?

It's a female.

She's I'm like, I'm here.

I'm working with Lucy Steudie.

I'm like, have you heard anything about this story?

She's like, oh, yeah.

She's like, yeah, she's like, I don't want to talk to you.

So I get back in the car.

I'm like, okay, you know, and I'm like, I'm going to leave.

So I turn around and drive out and I'm like, all right, I got to get pad on the phone.

I'm like, there was a female out there.

She wasn't interested in speaking with me.

It is like 10 o'clock at night.

I get it.

I'm going to go back first thing in the morning.

So I go back to the boarding house.

I check in.

Before I do that, I actually go down to where Lucy tells me I have to go, which is by this

ear-y old graveyard.

That, I think, right.

I think.

Right.

Oh man, Jenkins.

Oh man, Jenkins.

So, dude, like this whole thing was so surreal, like being in this moment, it was just

by myself.

No.

Once I had no partner with me, so it was like, I'm just, in oddly enough, I had rented

a car that morning.

I had Ali bring me the rental car place and they gave me, like, I didn't ask for it,

but they gave me a white Chevy Prius.

So it looks just like a cop car, which, which comes into play better than it could be

when I do band that I thought you're going to say.

Right.

It's a magic mystery machine.

Yeah.

We're like a pito van.

It's something like that.

Nobody wants to have that.

Yeah.

So, yeah.

I go, so I go back to the place.

We dig up Chittix number and I'm able to, I saw he started messaging him actually before

I call him on Facebook and he responds and I'm like, hey, kind of tell him the whole

story.

I said, this is what I'm doing down here.

You know, I don't want to disturb you at all.

You're not going to even know I'm here, but what I'm asking is for access to your property.

So I can climb up on that bluff because Lucy's telling me that the feds are just beyond

that fence line and that's where they're doing the soil samples in the well.

And she just wants me to verify that they're actually doing it and see if there's any

dogs out there and to make sure that they're in the right area because Lucy was always

claiming that they were in the wrong well, that there was a dry well and there was a

wet well and that they were doing the wet well and that's not where the bodies were.

The bodies were in the dry well meaning that they weren't actively using that well anymore.

The problem with this property, the Smith's property is when you're envisioning a well,

you're probably thinking that there's either like a stone structure and a nice little

handle and you're pulling a bucket out.

Yeah.

No, none of that shit.

And beyond that, there wasn't even like a stone circle.

These wells had all been filled in over the decades because Sean Smith is a cattle rancher

okay.

And he had cows and cattle out there and so they didn't want the cows falling in the

well.

So we started filling all the wells up.

That created a problem in the sense that the wells were not all mapped out.

So we have this issue wherein Lucy's trying to go from 45 years ago, yeah, that's what

the digging looked like.

45 years ago, trying to go from her memory looking for landmarks that she remembered as

a child sitting in certain places like a fallen tree, oh, I used to sit on this fallen

tree and I'd look at this particular thing and this is it, this is the spot.

So none of that has even taken place yet okay.

So the way that it went was the feds had gone down with them.

They had done a cadaver dog search.

They got numerous hits on what would be the sturdy property on this side of the fence

line up on that bluff where I was standing.

I saw the markers on there.

They had put like pink ribbons on each tree where the dogs had a problem with that.

So I'm calling my guy who's a sniff guy who's got cadaver dogs to try to get the down

zone.

He's a good sniff guy.

Everybody needs a good sniff.

If you want to try to understand the science of dog sniffing, especially in an area where

it's not flat land and where there's going to be water runoff, where the dog is sniffing

doesn't necessarily mean and where the dog is hitting doesn't mean that's where the

body is because of the water runoff over the years.

I mean, the scent could have drifted down with the water as rains happen, right?

And they had a massive flood in that hollow when that when Iowa got that massive flood

like in the late late 80s, early 90s, like 93, I think, yeah, like just a massive massive

flood.

So the entire area was covered underwater.

So I'm up there.

So Chidick says, yes, I'm giving you access.

I'm like, you're amazing, dude.

So I get up there and I can see, I can see the cops out there.

I can see the feds.

I can see the local sheriff.

They're all out there.

And what they had done, the feds are like, we don't want any local guys out here.

You guys are going to stand guard in case there's interlopers like me.

You know, I'm a bomb watch.

My mod is showing up, right?

And in the meantime, I'm doing these TikToks.

So and again, this is like literally the first time I'm doing TikTok, I'm literally

figuring it out.

And as I said, I really am an old man.

So it's like it, and that is very much a kids app.

I think.

And this is in 20, 23, man.

So I'm like sitting there trying to go live.

I have a terrible signal.

I don't know.

Sometimes I'm recording and waiting to post when I have an internet signal.

And so I'm taking these videos.

Sometimes I'm able to go live when I'm there in the moment.

But I become like, I go viral as this story is breaking that I'm down there.

But the interesting part isn't that.

The interesting part is that all the cops, the local cops were watching my TikTok.

So they saw me down the night before.

They saw me down driving into the, the hollow.

They saw me at the graveyard and getting out and looking under the full moon, like everything

about it was the area shit of all the cops running out of the wall.

Right.

Exactly.

So, and then I see the area where, and this is again, the night that, that night that

I got down.

And I can see all the heavy, heavy equipment just beyond on Sean Smith's property.

I'm like, I'm not trespassing on Sean Smith's property.

I'm saying this on the video.

I think I was live during that one.

I said, I'm just going to look at it.

I'm only going to try to gain access by people giving me consent to come under the property.

I'm not here committing such a good lawyer.

Yeah.

And you know, just a good citizen, man.

I'm not trying to break the law, you know.

So it's like, especially on a video because I'm not a moron, you know what I mean?

Rob Mata, an amazing story of his investigative work there on this Green Hollow case.

There's more to come in the interview.

It's going to be dropping very soon.

Press subscribe so you do not miss any of that wherever you're getting podcasts.

Hit it right now.

And we will be continuing the conversation shortly until then I'm Tony Bursky.

We'll talk again real soon.

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