1980 Suspected Cop Killer, Donald Eugene Webb, Found Buried In Wife's Backyard, 17yrs Dead

[cubby]

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/gregory-adams-donald-webb-remains-found-cold-case-pennsylvania/

Authorities have confirmed that the remains of a fugitive wanted in the 1980 slaying of a Pennsylvania police chief have been found buried in a yard in Massachusetts.

CBS Pittsburgh reports investigators spent the day digging in the backyard of Donald Eugene Webb's ex-wife's house in Massachusetts, where they found human remains.

The FBI, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts authorities announced Friday the remains have been positively identified as Webb. Investigators believe he died about 17 years ago, but declined to say how.

Prosecutors in both states confirmed to The Associated Press that the ex-wife, Lillian Webb, led authorities to his body and won't be prosecuted in the investigation.

Webb shot and killed Saxonburg police chief Gregory Adams in December of 1980 in what started as a traffic stop.

Current Saxonburg Police Chief Joe Beachen was on scene of the discovery.

"It's the biggest question mark in our town's history, so we're hopeful we'll see what happens in the next short time here," Chief Beachem said.

Last month, the Post-Gazette reported that a secret room had been found inside Webb's ex-wife's home. A cane was reportedly found in that room, and it is believed Adams was able to shoot Webb in the leg.

The murder of Adams is the longest running cold-case involving a police chief in the country.

 

[GenericUser123]

I remember him. He was on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted List for years.

 

[lithiumgirl]

Investigators believe he died about 17 years ago, but declined to say how.

Um ... buried in the back yard so MURDER obviously.

 

[cubby]

The name sounded familiar, but just decided it sounded like the name of a serial killer and I just thought I remembered it. But maybe I really did. Who knows, I'm old, I can't remember breakfast.

 

[golanvern]

Um ... buried in the back yard so MURDER obviously.

I don't suspect it was. YOB given on his wanted poster is 1928, so that would make him 72 years old about 17 years ago when he is suspected to have died.

I figure, given the hidden room also found in the house, he just died of natural causes and wifey buried him to avoid finding herself charging her with harbouring a fugitive. Regardless, she's not being charged with anything.

 

[cubby]

I figure it's good riddance to bad rubbish, I think they are mostly just glad to close the cold case, regardless what wifey did or didn't do.

 

[JackBurton]

If she was helping him hideout, she should be put in a cage for the rest of her miserable cunt wife. Fuck this bitch

 

[Keepalowprofile]

Last month, the Post-Gazette reported that a secret room had been found inside Webb's ex-wife's home. A cane was reportedly found in that room, and it is believed Adams was able to shoot Webb in the leg.

I don't get it.

 

[kennasmom]

I don't get it.

The cane proves that he had a leg, and if you have a leg you can get shot in it

 

[Sejanus]

Why would the ex wife give him sanctuary?
Why not just rat him out?
Her last few years must have been spent on edge.

 

[Keepalowprofile]

Why would the ex wife give him sanctuary?
Why not just rat him out?
Her last few years must have been spent on edge.

Ohhhh come on... you've been here long enough to know why...
Some bitches will do anything for dick.

 

[Peanut2]

We have two kubotas working on our property right now. Thanks to this site, my mind wandered: "Might be a good time to bury a body. On second thought...nah, it never works".

 

[cubby]

I was once told that since I knew so much about serial killers I could kill and get away with it. I said I know two things: 1. they rarely get away with it for very long and 2. I have a conscious, something they don't have.

And besides that, the people I usually want to kill I'm so mad at them that I'm incoherent, so I know I wouldn't get away with it. LOL
[doublepost=1500155156,1500141771][/doublepost]http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-led-police-suspects-remains-cop-killing.html

Last month, lawyer Thomas King III filed a notice in court saying the police chief's widow, Mary Ann Jones planned to sue Lillian Webb and her adult son for civil conspiracy claims.

The move came after FBI agents said Webb may have hidden out in a secret room in Lillian Webb's home during short stints in the 1990s. A cane was found in the room.

King said Friday that Jones agreed to drop her claims after Lillian Webb agreed to tell authorities where her ex-husband was buried.

On Thursday, she led police to her ex-husband's remains, which were buried in her back yard in Dartmouth, Massachusetts.

The FBI said investigators believe Webb died about 17 years ago.

Gregg Miliote, a spokesman for the Bristol County District Attorney's Office in Massachusetts said Webb's cause of death has not yet been determined, but it 'does not appear his death was the result of a violent act.'

The police chief's widow, Mary Ann Jones, said she is livid that Lillian Webb kept her ex-husband's whereabouts hidden for years, as Jones and her two sons struggled with their loss and the thought that the killer was still at large.

'I guess I'm angry at her at this point because she could do that to my family - hide him for years and then bury him so we never know,' Jones said. 'Why hide him? Why not allow us closure?'

Lillian Webb could not be reached for comment Friday. A message was left at her home.

Adams was 31 when he was killed, leaving his wife to raise two young sons. She eventually remarried.

State police detectives assigned to Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey's office obtained a search warrant for Lillian Webb's property as part of a separate investigation into an illegal gambling operation that led to the discovery of Webb's body.

The application for the search warrant said police were looking for Webb's body and evidence of him living in the house before his death.

The FBI offered a $100,000 reward for information leading to Webb or his remains, but said Friday that the reward will not be paid because Webb's remains were found as part of the investigation.

So the wife only told where he was when the widow threatened to sue her civilly. I'm so glad she won't get the $100,000 reward.

 

[golanvern]

I don't get it.

The cop he killed managed to get a shot off and hit him in the leg. There was a cane in the secret room. Dude was holed up in that "Ex-Wife's" probably 90%of the time he was "at large".

I figure too that she's been harbouring him all along, and getting laid, but divorced him X number of years after he "absconded/abandoned" her ... gets the heat off of her and her house.

 

[Prettypink513]

Go Dartmouth!

 

[Keepalowprofile]

We have two kubotas working on our property right now. Thanks to this site, my mind wandered: "Might be a good time to bury a body. On second thought...nah, it never works".

Funny you should mention it.
I used to think that when i had my farm. :hilarious:

 

[cubby]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...found-his-secret-room/?utm_term=.98b318ecb921

Webb was a flashy personality, according to the FBI, known as a “lover of dogs” and as “a big tipper.” He also evidently had a sense of humor: His own name — “Don” — was tattooed onto the web of his right hand. Don Webb — get it?

Investigators have long speculated that Webb was casing potential heist targets when he was piloting a white Mercury Cougar through Saxonburg, Pa., on Dec. 4, 1980. About 3 p.m., Webb was pulled over in the small town northeast of Pittsburgh by Adams, the town’s police chief.

Although he was only 31 at the time, with a wife and two sons younger than 2 at home, Adams was actually in Saxonburg to avoid the kind of threat Webb represented. Raised in western Pennsylvania, Adams had worked as a police officer in Washington, D.C., until the murder of his partner during a traffic stop pushed him to swap urban crime-fighting for small-town police work in 1973, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

When Adams encountered Webb in Saxonburg, the hustler had an open arrest warrant in New York for attempted burglary. Whatever prompted the encounter, at some point the men struggled in the parking lot of a store. Adams was badly pistol-whipped over the face. He was then shot with his own revolver twice in the chest. A nearby resident reported hearing gunfire from two weapons. Two blood types were found at the scene. Adams died while an ambulance rushed him to a hospital. Investigators later determined that the police chief and suspect had fired at each other. The shooter left behind a .25 handgun and had also ripped the radio out of Adams’s patrol car before fleeing.

It didn’t take long for police suspicion to lasso around Webb. At the scene of the shooting, investigators discovered a fake driver’s license bearing the name Stanley Portas — a dead man, specifically the deceased first husband of Webb’s then-wife. Blood at the scene matched Webb’s type. A white Mercury Cougar was discovered in the parking lot of a Rhode Island motel two weeks after Adams’s murder. Blood matching Webb’s was in the car and “indicated he had been shot in the leg,” the Post-Gazette reported.

Within weeks, an arrest warrant for Webb was issued in connection with Adams’s murder, and the alleged killer was placed on the FBI’s “Ten Most Wanted” list. Eventually, the reward money for information on Webb rose to $100,000.

But the case remained static until this year. In April, Adams’s widow, Mary Ann Jones, received a phone call from the FBI. “It was the first time I had heard from the FBI in a long while,” she told the Post-Gazette. In the call, an FBI agent informed Jones that investigators had searched Lillian Webb’s home in 2016 in Dartmouth and had found something interesting: a secret room that locked from the inside, and a cane.

“He told me they found a secret room and there was a cane in that secret room,” Jones told the paper. “Since Greg had shot [Donald Webb] in the leg, it all made sense. They must have built that room for Donald Webb to hide him there. It all adds up.”

In a statement, the FBI said it learned that Webb died in 1999.

The FBI, however, wouldn’t go into specifics with Jones about why agents had searched the house or the next move. The agent did mention he felt the secret room was not part of the original construction, and in late June the Post-Gazette confirmed with the local planning department that there were “no indications in municipal records that anyone secured a building permit to add on legally to the house.”

Jones didn’t wait for the answers to come to her: Instead, she filed a lawsuit in June against Webb, his wife Lillian, and the couple’s son, charging wrongful death and conspiracy.

Lillian Webb declined to talk to reporters when news of the lawsuit broke last month, and she also has not publicly commented on the body’s discovery. It remains unclear how Webb’s remains affect that legal situation, but it does seem like criminal charges are not in the offing for Donald Webb’s family.

On Friday, after Webb was identified, the Boston Globe reported that his wife received immunity in exchange for her cooperation. The Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office also told the paper the search of the property was part of an ongoing illegal gambling investigation.

There is a bit more at the link with a few pictures, this was taken from the middle of a fairly long article about Webb, his past and his crimes before he killed the Sheriff