Since its inception in 1950 the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI’s) Ten Most Wanted List has achieved iconic status. A collaborative development of bureau chief J. Edgar Hoover and International News Service editor William Kinsey Hutchinson, the list was developed as a representation of the “baddest of the bad.” Elevation to Top Ten status meant extra special attention as the fugitive’s picture would be sent to every law enforcement agency in the country and plastered on post office walls nationwide.

The Ten Most Wanted List has been phenomenally effective. Over 90% of the fugitives placed on the list have been captured, some within days, others within weeks, more within months. Some manage to elude the dragnet for a year or two, but a fortunate few stay at large for several years.

If one ascends to the Top Ten List, his or her days of freedom are usually numbered. Every rule, though, has an exception.

Donald Eugene Webb sat atop the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List for nearly twenty-seven years and it would take an additional nine years to learn the fate of the accused cop killer.

For nearly thirty-six years, Webb was a ghost without any confirmed sightings. The reasons were finally learned in bizarre fashion in 2017.

Donald Webb

Donald Webb was a career criminal and member of the Fall River Gang, a loose knit group of primarily small time lawbreakers based in Massachusetts. The group’s primary illicit method of operation was robbing homes and stores throughout the northeast United States, primarily the New England states.

Webb served time in prison and had a variety of convictions ranging from burglary and possession of counterfeit money, to grand larceny, car theft, and armed bank robbery. On December 4, 1980, the low level mobster is believed to have capstoned his criminal career with the ultimate crime of murder.

Career Criminal

Greg Adams had served two years as a policeman in Washington, D.C.  Although he had never personally been in any violent encounters, he had seen plenty of instances of brutal crime.

In 1973, Greg jumped at the opportunity to become the police chief of Saxonburg, Pennsylvania. The town of 1,500 people thirty miles northeast of Pittsburgh had few instances of anything approaching a violent crime.

Greg Adams

For seven years, life in the small town was idyllic; Chief Adams’ biggest problems were keeping the town jail up to code, handling an occasional accident, and finding lost dogs.

Small Town Police Chief

The thirty-one-year-old Police Chief and his wife Mary Ann had two boys, two-year-old Ben and eight-month-old Greg, Jr.

Greg Adams was settled into his life as the head lawman of the sleepy small town of Saxonburg, where instances of violent crime had never occurred . . .  until December 4, 1980.

The Adams Family

On that typically cold winter day in western Pennsylvania, Donald Webb and Greg Adams, two men who chose careers on opposite sides of the law, came into contact.

That afternoon, several Saxonburg residents observed Chief Adams give chase to a white Mercury Cougar seen running a stop sign near downtown Saxonburg. The driver, in an attempt to hide, pulled into the parking lot of the Agway Feed Store, but the chief saw the car and pulled it over.

At approximately 2:50 p.m. several people heard an array of gunshots. It is believed Webb shot Chief Adams several times as the lawman was looking at the criminal’s phony license and registration. The chief returned fire. A struggle ensued, during which Webb, after emptying his own gun, wrestled Adams’ gun from him and pistol-whipped him, causing deep wounds in his face and head. Webb then shot the police chief twice in the chest, with one bullet collapsing a lung, the other lodging in the bottom of his heart.

The Criminal And The Cop Collide

Midge Freehling lived near the Agway Feed Store and heard the commotion. When she arrived on the scene, she saw a white car racing away, but she could not make out any features of the driver.

Midge Freehling

Saxonburg Resident

Police Chief Greg Adams was beaten so badly that he was only recognized by his uniform.  He died en route to the hospital.

The Police Chief Is Slain

A gun found at the scene had all of its rounds fired. The serial number had been scratched off and police were unable to trace it.

The dispatch microphone in Adams’s car had been ripped out.

Adams’ Patrol Car As Found At the Scene

Investigators identified Webb as the likely killer of Police Chief Adams by a license found at the crime scene. It bore the name of Stanley John Portas, who was found to be the late husband of Lillian Webb of Dartmouth, Massachusetts.

Lillian was now married to Donald Webb who was considered a master of assumed identities. One of those identities taken was that of his wife’s first husband, who had died in 1948.

Lillian And Donald

At the time of the murder, forty-nine-year-old Donald Webb was wanted in Colonie, New York, for failing to appear at a December 1979 court hearing on attempted burglary charges. With his record, another conviction of any sort would likely have meant spending the rest of his life in prison.

After being pulled over in Saxonburg, Pennsylvania, Webb likely knew it was only a matter of time before Chief Adams discovered he was wanted in New York. Desperate times require desperate crimes: it was either his life or the chief’s. The career criminal naturally chose the latter.

Webb Ascends To Murder

Police found Webb had rented the Mercury Cougar involved in the incident. It was found abandoned seventeen days later, on December 21, at a Howard Johnson’s motel parking lot in Warwick, Rhode Island, over five-hundred-thirty miles from Saxonburg, Pennsylvania.

Significant amounts of blood were found under the steering wheel, suggesting Webb may have been shot or otherwise injured in the struggle.

Webb’s Car Is Located

With Donald Webb identified as the likely killer of Police Chief Greg Adams, a warrant was issued for his arrest. The FBI became involved because the murder occurred in Pennsylvania while Webb’s car was found in Rhode Island. America’s top law enforcement agency had a plan to get its man. Five months after the murder, Donald Eugene Webb was placed on the Ten Most Wanted list. The FBI was confident the publicity generated from the list would soon locate him.

As expected, Webb’s placement on the Ten Most Wanted List generated reported sightings of him; unexpectedly, none of the sightings could be confirmed.

An FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitive

By the late ’80s, after the leads had dwindled, the FBI tried another approach. The new television show America’s Most Wanted had been successful in leading to the capture of fugitives nationwide, including several members of the Ten Most Wanted List.

Webb was profiled on AMW in December 1989, near the ninth anniversary of Chief Adams’ murder. One month later, FBI Director William Sessions received a letter whose author claimed to be the fugitive. The writer asked for forgiveness from Adams’ family and said he was considering surrendering, but only if he could speak directly to AMW host John Walsh.

On March 31, 1990, America’s Most Wanted re-broadcast the segment, after which John Walsh personally appealed to Donald Webb to call him on the AMW hotline. The following day, a man claiming to be Webb and the author of the letter phoned. The call was given to Walsh, who asked the man to provide the names of two of Webb’s closest relatives. The caller failed to do so.

The call, a coincidence or not, was made on April 1. The man never called again, and the call was dismissed as an April Fool’s joke.

Handwriting analysis of the letter written to FBI Director Sessions was compared to samples of Webb’s handwriting, but the results were inconclusive. No subsequent communications were received, and the letter was ultimately dismissed as a forgery.

Did Webb Phone Walsh?

Few leads of substance surfaced on Webb over the following fifteen years until an even more bizarre event involving the fugitive occurred. In April 2005, the longtime wanted cop killer and identity thief apparently had his own identity stolen.

A man in Detroit was found using Webb’s name and social security number. Police trailed him to a burned-out house in a poor section of the city. The man bore a resemblance to a computer-aged image of Webb, but police determined he was not the fugitive, had no connection to him, did not know Webb was wanted, and had no knowledge of his whereabouts. It was ruled to be an unusual case of identity theft.

Still, this would not be the strangest occurrence involving Donald Webb, and another dozen years passed before his peculiar saga was resolved.

The Career Thief And Cop Killer’s Identity Is Stolen

In 2016, the FBI announced agents had discovered a secret room in Lillian Webb’s North Dartmouth, Massachusetts, home, the same house where she and her husband lived prior to his being charged with murder. They have not disclosed what information led them to suspect the secret room had been installed in the home.

Donald And Lillian Webb’s Home

The room had not existed when the home was purchased by the Webbs and had apparently been installed as a hiding place for the fugitive.  Inside the room, investigators found a cane which they believed was used and needed by Webb because he had been injured in his fight with Chief Adams. They also found traces of blood, determined to be the same type as the wanted cop killer.

The discovery of the room led to Mary Ann Jones, Greg Adams’ widow, filing a lawsuit against Lillian Webb for civil damages in the wrongful death of her husband.

The Secret Room

If Lillian were found liable, she could face criminal charges, though the likelihood of the latter was small. The lawsuit was more of a ploy as investigators hoped it would spook her, whom they had long suspected of knowing her husband’s whereabouts, into talking. The tactic proved successful.

Faced with possible prosecution for harboring a federal fugitive, Lillian Webb struck a deal with prosecutors.  They agreed not to charge her with any wrongdoing in return for her leading them to her husband.

With that promise, Lillian revealed why there had been so few leads on Donald Webb in the over thirty-six years since the murder of Greg Adams.

Lillian Talks

Lillian said after fleeing Saxonburg, Pennsylvania, with severe injuries inflicted by Chief Adams, her husband, under an assumed name, received treatment at Tobey Hospital in Wareham, Massachusetts, nearly six-hundred miles away. While he was in the hospital, twenty miles from their home, she had the secret room installed as a shelter for him.

According to Lillian, her husband rarely ventured from the house, and often not even the room, during most of the following eighteen-and –a-half years. One article, however, says the FBI narrowly missed capturing Webb in Miami, Florida, sometime during the 1980s.

Lillian said her husband suffered a series of strokes beginning in 1997. As they realized he was dying, he told her to dig a grave in the back yard of their home. The area was surrounded by large trees allowing her to do so without being observed. Lillian said her husband died in 1999 after suffering a final stroke, after which she buried him in the grave.

On July 17, 2017, over thirty-six years after Donald Webb is believed to have murdered Police Chief Greg Adams, Lillian Webb led the FBI to remains buried in the backyard of her Dartmouth home. Forensic examination conclusively identified the remains as those of Donald Webb.

Lillian Sheltered Her Wounded Husband

As part of the deal for leading investigators to Donald Webb’s remains, Lillian would not face any criminal prosecution for harboring a federal fugitive. Her claims that she was entitled to the $100,000 reward for information leading to the location of her husband were denied.

Lillian Webb still lives in the North Dartmouth home where she hid her husband for nearly twenty years; she refuses to speak about her infamous other half.

Mary Ann Jones ultimately dropped her civil lawsuit against Lilian, as it was likely to drag on with little chance of succeeding.

Lillian Is Given Immunity

But Not Money

Donald Webb beat law enforcement, both figuratively and literally. He killed one of their own and was never prosecuted for the crime. However, if there is such a thing as a Pyrrhic victory, his appears to be it.

Webb, it seems, was largely quarantined in his home for nearly twenty years. Furthermore, Lillian says the leg injury incurred during his struggle with Chief Adams hindered him for the rest of his life. He walked with a pronounced limp and could do so for only short distances and only with the aid of a cane. In addition, Lillian also told investigators that Adams had either bitten or ripped off part of Webb’s lip in the struggle, an injury which made it difficult for him to eat.

Although Donald Webb eluded capture, in a very real sense, it appears he was imprisoned for the remainder of his life.

Mangled Webb

Despite finding Donald Webb’s remains, questions still linger. How was a badly-injured Webb able to make it from western Pennsylvania to Massachusetts, check into a hospital under a fictitious name, remain in the hospital for treatment for a month, and not be detected as every cop in the country was looking for him? Perhaps some of Webb’s underworld associates with the Patriarca crime family aided him.

The day before the murder Webb and another unidentified man, believed to be fellow career criminal Frank Lach, were seen in a Saxonburg jewelry store. Webb and Lach specialized in jewelry thefts, and police believe they were casing the store in preparation for a robbery. It is possible Webb was on his way to rob the store the following day when he was pulled over by Chief Adams. Many authorities believe Lach was with Webb and helped beat the police chief to death before taking the injured Webb to Massachusetts for treatment.

Like Webb, Lach was also sought by the FBI for failure to appear in New York on robbery charges. Unlike Webb, Lach was apprehended in Miami in May 1982. If the article stating Webb was nearly captured in Miami is correct, it is likely during this time. The article, from SouthCoast Today, is the only source I found seemingly contradicting Lillian Webb’s claim that her husband rarely left their Massachusetts home. If he was as crippled as she said he was, it seems unlikely he would have been able to travel that far.

Convicted of burglary and bail-jumping, Lach served time in prison before being paroled in November 1985, but he was back in the big house four months later after being convicted of conspiracy to transport stolen property interstate. Shortly after being released in June 1996, Lach was convicted of driving under the influence and violating his parole. He was returned to prison but released in October 2000.

I could not find a picture of Frank Lach.  He died on November 4, 2017, three-and a-half months after Donald Webb’s remains were found.

Remains Found

But Questions Remain

The fugitive killer was born Donald Perkins but changed his name to Donald Webb. He apparently had a sense of humor as he had the name “Don” tattooed on the “web” of his hand.

A Killer With A Sense of Humor

A stone monument in front of the Saxonburg, Pennsylvania, municipal building pays tribute to the town’s slain lawman.

Police Chief Greg Adams’ murder is the only homicide in Saxonburg’s history.

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/37965718/gregory-blaise-adams# 

http://www.odmp.org/officer/1052-chief-of-police-gregory-b-adams

A Memorial To the Fallen Police Chief

Donald’s Webb’s tenure on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List was nearly twenty-six years. The stay on the list of his successor, Shauntay Henderson, before her capture was one day.

Since its inception five-hundred-thirty people have been placed on the FBI Ten Most Wanted List. Henderson, a member of a violent street gang wanted for murder in Kansas City, is one of only eleven women to make the list.

Shauntay Henderson

A Much Shorter Top Ten Tenure

Donald Webb was on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List from May 4, 1981, until March 31, 2007. His nearly twenty-six-year tenure as a top tenner was the longest of any fugitive until being surpassed by Víctor Gerena in 2010.  Like Webb, Gerena was removed from the list despite not being apprehended.

Gerena’s time on the top ten list lasted from May 14, 1984, until December 15, 2016. He is still at large and is believed to have been given sanctuary in Cuba.

Here is a link to information about Gerena.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/631752367223887/posts/1894351387630639/?__cft__[0]=AZVpPQaSM1xo63SUhsDomi0E_1Zt414Cb3mG6Yy29PAMeTe-WGC_z0WyML44y0WA3oQSMhIVMmTHNiYn48pRi3ZOIq5UPYNJiyWHUm3guC2J-jJ7VHFCeKCKXMeKPAc8BQaIlmInxgGpjJ7F7hKItAXqebLDnuagGItB6fe055wfIIhPoO6UrsJEV_-KdwgCRRA1ouSBIjNRMvIkRJHmL-SS&__tn__=%2CO%2CP-R

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Webb’s Dubious Record is Eclipsed

SOURCES:

• America’s Most Wanted
• FBI
• Officer Down Memorial Page
• Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
• SouthCoast Today
• Unsolved Mysteries