Life was not easy for Anna Anton. The thirty-four-year-old recent divorcee had been stricken with cerebral palsy at a young age and had been involved in a severe car accident at age twenty-four. Her ailment and accident forced her to walk with a cane. Unable to drive or work, she lived on disability and depended on the generosity of family, friends, and neighbors. The dependency on the latter two increased in October 1986, following her divorce from her husband, Tom, and her move from tiny Milford, Iowa, to even tinier Lyons, Nebraska, one-hundred-fifty miles away.

Anna came to Lyons, a town of 1200 people seventy-five miles northwest of Omaha, hoping to make a fresh start; instead, her life came to a grizzly end two months later. On December 27, twelve days after she was last seen, Anna’s nude body was found in a rural field.

The year ended in sadness with all of Lyons wondering who had taken the life of the virtually defenseless woman. The New Year began with a shock as one of the town’s most respected citizens was charged with her murder.

Anna Anton

Anna was born in Washington D.C. but had lived most of her life in Iowa. She dropped out of Spencer High School but later returned to complete the work needed to graduate. In the early 1970s, she attended Estherville Junior College, now called Iowa Lakes Community College. (My mother was teaching at the college when Anna was attending, but she has no recollection of her.)

Several of Anna’s small circle of friends in Iowa said she had experimented with drugs but had successfully weened herself from them. She is not believed to have been using them when she moved to Lyons, Nebraska.

Young Anna

Upon her arrival in Lyons, Anna appeared to be devoutly religious, regularly attending St. Joseph’s Catholic Church. She said she did not drink alcohol and expressed scorn for those who did.

Her friends in northwest Iowa knew of a different Anna. There, she was described as a “party girl” and “bar-hop,” frequenting the taverns and often downing the suds until closing time.

Nebraska Anna Is Different From Iowa Anna

Anna met thirty-six-year-old Greg Webb in September 1986, at Arnold’s Park bar on Lake Okoboji, in northwest Iowa. He had grown up in Sioux City, Iowa, and had been Chief of Police of the Lyons, Nebraska, two-man force for nine years.

Webb was a respected lawman, though he was a loner who turned a lot of people off with his extreme right-wing political views and his tendency, when not working, to dress in military fatigues. Like Anna, he was recently divorced, having separated in December 1985 from his wife, Karen, with whom had a twelve-year-old son.

Police Chief Greg Webb

Upon meeting Police Chief Webb, Anna told him of her dilemma; the building near Milford in which she lived had recently been sold and the new landlords did not allow pets. Anna had three dogs which she did not want to give up. Some sources say she also had a cat.

The police chief suggested she move into a vacant ground floor apartment directly below his in Lyons. The building was an old weather-beaten house turned into a duplex. Locals referred to it as the Pink House, as its pink paint was fading but still noticeable. (I could not find a color photo of the building.)

Having no other options, the financially strapped and physically impaired Anna moved to Lyons, Nebraska, in October 1986.

The “Pink House” in Lyons, Nebraska

Shirley Edgecomb lived across the street from the Pink House. She befriended Anna, frequently taking her to get her groceries and run other errands.

When Shirley arrived at Anna’s apartment to take her to an appointment on the afternoon of December 15, she was surprised to find the back door locked. Shirley knocked on the windows and called out Anna’s name but received no response. She checked several times throughout the day and evening, but each time she found no sign of Anna.

Shirley Edgecomb

Anna’s Friend and Neighbor

Chief Webb had a key to Anna’s apartment. After still not being able to get ahold of Anna the following day, Shirley asked him to check on her. Shirley feared her friend may have fallen down and been unable to summon help.

Upon entrance into Anna’s apartment, Shirley and Chief Webb were greeted by the barks of Anna’s dogs, who were locked in the basement. Anna was not in the apartment. Some of her clothes lay neatly on her bed, but her purse, cane, and the jacket she generally wore were also not in the apartment.

Anna’s address book was found on a table. Webb told Shirley he would call all of the contacts to see if they could shed any light on Anna’s whereabouts. Several hours later, he phoned Shirley, saying he had reached all of the people, but none of them had recently seen or heard from Anna.

No Sign of Anna

Eleven days later, on December 27, a farmer found Anna’s body in a field on a remote Indian reservation near Walthill, twenty miles north of Lyons. She was naked and appeared to have been bathed after being killed. Insects were swarming her frozen body, suggesting she had been in the field for several days.

Because the field was outside of Lyons’ jurisdiction, the Nebraska State Patrol was summoned. They determined Anna had been killed elsewhere and placed in the field afterwards.

The Area Where Anna’s Body Was Found

Anna had been stabbed multiple times and shot three times in her torso with a .38 caliber Smith & Wesson revolver. It was never found.

Her autopsy showed her blood alcohol level was .22, high for a petite woman who professed not to drink.

Stabbed and Shot

Shirley Edgecomb thought Anna’s former husband, Tom Anton, had killed her. Anna had told her that he was involved in a large drug ring and that she was fearful he would try to harm her because she had testified against him at a recent trial.

Anna went on to tell Shirley and others in her small inner circle that she had moved to Lyons, even though she did not know anyone there and was unable to work, to get away from Tom. The Pink House seemed perfect for her because, in addition to the ground floor apartment, cheap rent, and allowing of pets, Anna believed her former husband would be leery of threatening her with the police chief residing in the same building.

Tom Anton, however, had a solid alibi for December 15 when his former wife was last seen. He was ruled out as a suspect.

Suspicion then fell on a man named Tony Sears, a friend of both Greg Webb and Anna Anton. Sears told authorities he had seen both of them at the Pink House earlier that day and that the chief appeared drunk.  Investigators were skeptical of Sears’ contention because he was a diagnosed schizophrenic known for making up stories.

Like Tom Anton, Tony Sears was investigated and cleared of any involvement in the murder of Anna Anton.  Soon, the Nebraska State Patrol began to believe he may have been accurate in what he had told them. They were becoming suspicious of the Lyons Police Chief.

Greg Webb told Shirley he would contact all of Anna’s associates in her address book to see if they had recently seen or heard from her. Only a few of the people listed in the book, however, reported being contacted by the police chief.

When he was originally questioned by the Nebraska State Patrol, Webb denied any more than a friendship with Anna. Soon, however, he admitted they became romantically involved upon Anna’s moving to Lyons. Anna’s friends said she was upset that Webb was also dating Linda Wells, who had previously lived in Anna’s apartment.

The Lyons Police Chief Lies

Two days after Anna’s body was found, Nebraska state lab technicians performed a luminol test in her apartment. The chemical substance makes drops of blood hemoglobin glow in the dark, even if the blood had been washed away or has faded. The luminol revealed traces of blood in Anna’s living room and dining room. Additional traces were found outside her apartment door, with the trail leading to Webb’s upstairs apartment.

While the luminol test was being conducted, Webb was in his apartment, directly above Anna’s. Investigators in Anna’s apartment said they heard him moving around and believe he was trying to listen to what was occurring downstairs.

Several neighbors also later saw Webb nervously pacing outside the building before leaving while the tests in Anna’s apartment were still in progress.

The Trail Is Leading to the Chief . . .

Webb drove to Fremont, thirty-five miles south of Lyons, arriving at Jalopy John’s Used Cars, where he traded his 1971 Mercury Cougar for another car. His next stop was a travel agency, where he posed for a passport picture, obtained an international driving permit, and inquired about carrying firearms to Costa Rica and Honduras.

The following day, December 30, Webb went to Fremont’s First National Bank where he emptied his bank account of roughly $3,500. Later that day, he directed traffic for a funeral. He briefly spoke to Lyons mayor Mary Piper afterwards, telling her he would soon be using some of his vacation time.

. . . And He Knows It

Five days later, investigators were granted a search warrant for Webb’s apartment. They found a mop with traces of blood, later shown to be Anna’s Type A and, hanging in the closet, a military style coat spattered with several bloodspots also found to be Type A.

They did not find the Police Chief turned suspected murderer.

The Cop Flees

Investigators came to believe an argument ensued between Anna Anton and Greg Webb, possibly over his other girlfriend, on the evening of December 15, 1986. They had both probably been drinking, became inebriated, and an argument likely escalated into a fight during which Webb killed Anna.

The following morning, neighbors saw Webb carrying something large out of his apartment to the trunk of his car. Authorities believe it was Anna’s body after he had washed her and removed her clothes.

The police chief had likely left Anna’s body in the leased farm field because he knew it was part of the Winnebago Indian reservation and would cause jurisdictional disputes for authorities.

A Lovers’ Quarrel Is Suspected

On January 6, 1987, a warrant was issued for the arrest of Greg Webb, charging him with the murder of Anna Anton. At their meeting that evening, the Lyons City Council officially terminated him as Chief of Police. Webb’s police car, sitting in front of his apartment since before the New Year, was confiscated.

The following day, the 1971 Mercury Cougar Webb had traded was found in a Fremont parking lot. The car he had acquired in the swap was found abandoned eight days later at Houston International Airport, nine-hundred-twenty-five miles away. Webb was determined to have purchased a ticket to the Central American country of Belize.  The lawman was long gone and had begun his life on the other side of the law.

Cops gone bad often make good fugitives, as they know the procedures used in tracking the wanted. Greg Webb was no exception, staying in hiding for six years. It took national television exposure to locate him.

The Chief Is Charged

The Unsolved Mysteries segment on the murder of Anna Anton was twice profiled on NBC but yielded few substantive clues to Greg Webb’s whereabouts. The right person was watching, however, during a rebroadcast of the case on Lifetime in 1993.

Orlando, Florida, viewer John Brereton recognized Greg Webb as a man who had previously installed underground cable and pipe for his construction company. John knew him as Jim Webber, his full name being Gregory James Webber.

Florida authorities faxed the Nebraska State Patrol a copy of the driver’s license of Gregory James Webber. They confirmed he was the wanted former police chief.

Webb’s Fake License

Greg Webb was arrested in Holly Hill, Florida, near Daytona Beach, on February 23, 1993. He had resided in the small town of Osteen, thirty miles south of Daytona Beach, since March 1987, only two months after fleeing Nebraska, but he had, as suspected, initially fled abroad to Belize.

After a few months of hopping across Central America without finding work, Webb told his former law enforcement cohorts that he ran out of money. He says he took a bus through Mexico back into the United States, briefly settling in Nogales, Arizona, before moving to Florida where he found construction work and began a relationship with Pam Gilroy, a divorced mother of five. They were living together when Webb was captured. She did not know he was fugitive sought on a murder charge.

Captured Webb

In 1996, Webb accepted a plea deal in which he pled no contest to manslaughter and tampering with evidence in the death of Anna Anton. The no contest plea meant he did not admit guilt, but that he would accept the sentence of six-to-eighteen years in prison.

While Webb was imprisoned, he and Pam Gilroy married.

Jailed Webb Weds

Greg Webb was released from prison on August 22, 2002, after serving just over six years. Despite his manslaughter plea, he says he is not responsible for the death of Anna Anton.

Webb claimed he originally planned to have dinner with another girlfriend on the evening of December 15, 1986, but that Anna stopped him as he was leaving his apartment and convinced him to instead spend the evening with her. He contends that after getting drunk on brandy in Anna’s apartment, they went upstairs to his apartment where they continued drinking.

Webb claims the last thing he remembered was passing out in his bed. He said after he awoke the following morning he found a naked Anna lying dead on his kitchen floor. He said he cleaned her and, in a panic, dumped her body in the field.

Webb claims he has vague recollections of his other girlfriend storming into his apartment and arguing with Anna. He believes she killed Anna in a jealous rage and framed him because she was angry at him for seeing another woman. Several Omaha World Herald articles state this girlfriend had moved out of Nebraska by the time he was captured and could not be located. I could not find any source stating if this girlfriend was Linda Wells, or if she was found and questioned.

Investigators chuckled at Webb’s claims. They believe a former police chief should be able to concoct a better story.

Served His Time

Proclaims His Innocence

Anna Anton’s claims that her former husband was involved in drugs and had threatened to harm her were found to be fabricated. Authorities determined Tom Anton was never involved in any drug activity and Anna had not testified against him because he had never been put on trial. Acquaintances described Tom as nice man and say he was respectful to Anna following their divorce.

Tom Anton died in 2013 at age fifty-six.

Tom Anton

Why Anna made up such a sensationalized bogus story about her former husband is unknown. 

Anna Anton’s case is closed, but she will probably always remain something of an enigma.

Anna Was an Enigma 

The former Pink House building was demolished in 2008.

Tony Sears, the man viewed as a person of interest in the murder of Anna Anton before suspicion fell on Police Chief Greg Webb, committed suicide in 1988, two years after Anna’s murder. I could not find a picture of Tony Sears.

The Pink House Is No More

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/101376171/anna-marie-anton#

SOURCES:

• America’s Most Wanted
• Chicago Tribune
• Des Moines Register
• Omaha World Herald
• Orlando Sentinel
• Ottumwa Journal
• Sioux City Journal
• Unsolved Mysteries