Maybe Daddy Wasn't a Serial Killer, After All
Maybe Daddy Wasn't a Serial Killer, After All
True crime rant incoming...
When will news organizations stop running the dramatic stories of possible fabulists for cheap clicks? Because crime is the thing I've covered most intensely, I notice it most in stories like this: Florida woman Lucy (some sources spell her name “Lucey”) Studey McKiddy claimed her father Donald was a serial killer with dozens and dozens of victims he buried in a field in Thurman, Iowa. Her story was vivid, and initial cadaver-sniffing dog searches did uncover possible evidence of a corpse.
Cadaver-sniffing dogs are controversial. There is scientific evidence they are sometimes remarkably accurate. But some also question just how consistent and reliable the evidence from a dog’s reaction might be (caveat—the link goes to an article spotlighting a case in which the accused was found guilty, and there are good reasons unrelated to cadaver dogs to believe the verdict was accurate).
Anyway, the dog’s reaction was enough to get authorities interested. They searched and searched for the bodies Studey McKiddy said she’d helped her father get rid of, and guess what? They found bupkis.
The Iowa Dept. of Public Safety press release about the Donald Studey investigation is worth just cutting and pasting in full:
Over the past three days, state, local, and federal law enforcement assisted with an investigation in Fremont County. 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.
Newsweek reported the story from the beginning and is likely responsible for it getting widespread, borderline viral attention, and the magazine’s article about the end of the official investigation makes it clear they still believe Studey McKiddy.
And at this point, who knows? Maybe she witnessed something. But her story really feels like just another entry in a long list of people coming to a news outlet with a stunning true crime tale that ultimately turns out to be pure fantasy.
I’m not suggesting all these people are lying. In their minds, they may be convinced of the truth, and I include Lucy Studey McKiddy in their number. But look at a very short list of people who have come forward with dramatic claims over the last 20 years or so about connections to huge crime stories. They represent a certain psychological consistency that seems to tie all these claims together.
Deborah Perez - Perez managed to convince several people who should’ve known better that her stepfather, Guy Ward Hendrickson, was the Zodiac Killer. She got a lot of viral notice for the tale. A true crime writer I knew contacted me to fact-check her and I was able to quickly find many reasons to doubt her story. I still remember how deeply disappointed the writer seemed that I called bullshit. Honestly, Perez’s prior claim that she was JFK’s love child should’ve put the kibosh on things, but she was reasonably attractive and convincing on camera, especially to anyone who knew nothing about the Zodiac—which is most mainstream journalists banging out clicky short posts for corporate news websites anxious for a windfall of viral attention.
Gary L. Stewart - Stewart, to his credit, posed a much more plausible Zodiac suspect in his father, Earl Van Best Jr. Van Best certainly sounded like a sociopath with little regard for anyone but himself, and photos of the man could’ve been 3D lifelike renderings of Zodiac suspect sketches. Unfortunately, the people who made a docuseries from Stewart’s claims ably disproved them. In 2020, Susan Mustafa, the author who co-wrote Stewart’s book about his dad, told Vulture, “I honestly no longer believe Earl Van Best Jr. is the Zodiac Killer.”
John A. Cameron - Cameron is a retired cop who did some good, legit work as a detective, as far as I know. Unlike the preceding members of this little list, he didn’t make claims about someone related to him. In fact, Cameron had a fantastic Zodiac suspect in Edward Wayne Edwards, who ticked a lot of boxes that might fit the still-unknown serial killer. Edwards was highly intelligent and calculating, expressed himself well in writing, moved around constantly, and he was indeed a proven murderous psychopath and serial killer with a penchant for killing couples. Then Cameron decided his guy wasn’t just the likely California serial killer. According to Cameron, Edwards essentially committed nearly every major unsolved crime of the last 75 years. He pinned the Black Dahlia, Zodiac, Laci Peterson, and even possibly JonBenet Ramsey on Edwards. To anyone with a smidge of common sense that should cast doubt on all of Cameron’s claims.
D.B. “Dan” Cooper - Cooper, obviously, didn’t make any wild claims. He’s a cipher who jumped out of the jet he hijacked on November 24, 1971 and vanished into true crime infamy with $200,000 in ransom money. Just follow the link to Cooper’s wiki entry to see how many proposed suspects have been promoted as definitely, absolutely, positively (never “maybe, let’s see if we can uncover conclusive evidence”) the real D.B. Cooper. A few of them are indeed extremely plausible. Most are not, and people who often claim they know for certain who Cooper really was frequently had a sketchy family member or friend of a friend in mind.
This list could go on for several thousand more words. I’m not sure if the majority of such claims finger a family member—typically a dad or stepdad who was anywhere from absent to, admittedly, a sociopathic abuser—but I’d bet a little money on most of the claims falling into the “Bad Dad” category.
True crime can’t exist without theories and speculation. Investigators have to deal with evidence and well-supported facts when they start asking judges for warrants, etc., but they do plenty of speculating and theorizing along the way. Most people yammering on true crime podcasts or writing long screeds (like this!), however, aren’t required to have reliable evidence, but if the claim is eye-opening enough and there are even two or three semi-plausible documents or bits of evidence supporting it, then they’ll reap plenty of publicity, even get a damn docuseries, or at a minimum, an Unsolved Mysteries mention out of it.
In the end, though, most such claims are born out of what seems like a slurry of bad dreams, paranoia, delusion, resentment, perhaps, or sometimes even genuine evidence of a bad person (Donald Studey was no prize, according to some reporting around his daughter’s claims) the claimant uses to extrapolate out to the worst possibility imaginable.
There are people living and dead related to me by blood who I am almost certain have done some Bad Things. Not famous unsolved bad things, but bad enough, perhaps. But I have no concrete evidence beyond whispers, claims made in psychotic or drugged states, random documents that imply bad behavior, and vibes.
And as deeply, fully flawed as law enforcement at the state and federal level can be, if I did find seemingly concrete evidence, I wouldn’t tell you all first. I’d take it to whoever could compare the evidence to the possible crime and tell me whether they think I’m full of shit or not.
If the first time you hear of some kind of dramatic true crime claim comes from a PR person at a publishing house or in a slice-of-life style segment on a local newscast, I’d suggest immediate, total suspicion until someone with access to testing and evidence says something like, “yep, we’ve got a DNA match” or some equally compelling bit of proof.
Speculation, theories are fine. I’m about as guilty as it gets there, and I can promise you I’ll indulge in writing out a few in the future. I have wild theories about some very famous cases. But I don’t want attention for assertions because the possibility I’m wrong outweighs all other considerations. I can think out loud all day, but that’s not the same as a direct accusation like “Daddy was a serial killer.”
Nobody wants to be Gary Stewart, co-writing a bestselling book and starring in a docuseries that ultimately proves he was on some weird, depressing snipe hunt all along.