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Speaker 5: Now listening to True Murder the most shocking killers in
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Speaker 5: True Murder with your host journalist and author Dan Zufanski.
Speaker 4: Good evening, Police Chief Greg Adams was out on patrol.
Speaker 4: Christmas was coming to Saxonburg, Pennsylvania, a quaint borough of
Speaker 4: just thirteen hundred in three short weeks. The winter air
Speaker 4: was crisp, colored lights sparkled on houses. He was only
Speaker 4: a block and a half from the police department, and
Speaker 4: this was just an average traffic stop until it wasn't.
Speaker 4: The devoted husband and father of two little boys was
Speaker 4: about to meet any law enforcements officer's nightmare. Moments later,
Speaker 4: he would lay dying in a pool of his own
Speaker 4: blood on that white winter snow, while his killer vanished
Speaker 4: like an operation into thin air. Despite as many aliases,
Speaker 4: the true identity of the murder was quickly found. The
Speaker 4: killer himself was not, As State police and FBI investigators
Speaker 4: peeled back to twisted layers of low level mobster Donald
Speaker 4: Webb's life. The path of the killer would wind through
Speaker 4: decades toward a shocking conclusion. After all, secrets can only
Speaker 4: be kept for so long. The book that we're featuring
Speaker 4: this evening is The Ghost, the Murder of Police Chief
Speaker 4: Greg Adams and the Hunt for his Killer, with my
Speaker 4: special guest, journalist and author Maureen Boyle. Welcome back to
Speaker 4: the program, and thank you so much for this interview.
Speaker 4: Maureene Boyle.
Speaker 2: Oh, thank you very much for having me. I always
Speaker 2: enjoyed talking with you.
Speaker 4: So do I and it says again, congratulations on this book,
Speaker 4: The Ghost, remarkable, remarkable. Let's go right to the beginning
Speaker 4: of this and this is in Saxonburg, Pennsylvania. As we
Speaker 4: did in the introduction, just tell us briefly before we
Speaker 4: get right into this December fourth, nineteen eighty and inside
Speaker 4: the Freeling home Midge and Donald were home. But before that,
Speaker 4: just tell us your connection to this area, Saxonburg, Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2: Well, actually I don't have a connection to Saxonburg. I
Speaker 2: learned of this story. I live in Massachusetts, and I
Speaker 2: was a reporter in Massachusetts, and I had just finished
Speaker 2: one book, one a true crime book, and I was
Speaker 2: looking for another idea for a book, and I discovered
Speaker 2: the killer of our Chief Adams was from this area,
Speaker 2: and that really intrigued me because I had been a
Speaker 2: police reporter in the New Bedford area and this is
Speaker 2: where the killer was from in the nineteen eighties, in
Speaker 2: the mid eighties through the nineties. And while I knew
Speaker 2: the name of this individual, Donald's Web, I really wasn't
Speaker 2: aware that he might that he was still wanted, that
Speaker 2: he could even be in the area. So that was
Speaker 2: my connection to the story, and it took me to
Speaker 2: Saxenburg where it all started, and we went down there.
Speaker 2: Saxenburg is a lovely, lovely community, very very tight knit,
Speaker 2: and what struck me from the minute I went to
Speaker 2: Saxonburg was how those in the community have never forgotten
Speaker 2: the chief, our Chief Greg Adams. They were really determined
Speaker 2: in spirit to find him, and those members of law
Speaker 2: enforcement who were involved with the case, even after they retired,
Speaker 2: they were still working on it with new investigators. So
Speaker 2: that's sort of the sum of how I got involved
Speaker 2: with it. And I just found it a very very
Speaker 2: very fascinating case of how someone could kill, especially a
Speaker 2: member of law enforcement, and then just vanish, and that
Speaker 2: people could keep the secret of where he might be
Speaker 2: for so long.
Speaker 4: Yes, you take us to December fourth, nineteen eighty in Saxonburg,
Speaker 4: and you take us inside the Freeling home. And this
Speaker 4: is Donald as a teenager. He's staying home from school
Speaker 4: and his mother is home, Midge, and he hears something
Speaker 4: that he thinks is like hitting a stick against a tree,
Speaker 4: and then he hears a loud boom. And then he
Speaker 4: also thinks that he heard a faint cry for help,
Speaker 4: but he couldn't see anyone. So he called for his
Speaker 4: mother and said someone is calling for help. Take it
Speaker 4: from there. What the mother and the team do and
Speaker 4: find that day December fourth, nineteen eighty.
Speaker 2: Yes, the tiger heard something outside. He looks outside, can't
Speaker 2: see anything. You tell his mom. Then he thinks he's here.
Speaker 2: He's hearing someone calling for help. And he's telling his mom, hey,
Speaker 2: someone's outside, someone's calling for help. And she's just she's vacuuming,
Speaker 2: and she's thinking, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll be
Speaker 2: talking about So Saxonburg is a very quiet town. They live,
Speaker 2: not fought up from the Aguay Hardware store. Nothing nothing
Speaker 2: ever happens in town. Uh. And then she hears something.
Speaker 2: They go outside and they find that she's in the
Speaker 2: snow and he's he's mortally wounded. At that that point,
Speaker 2: they call for police and then the it's the Because
Speaker 2: Saxonburg is so small, the amts are actually part of
Speaker 2: the fire department and they are all volunteers. So she
Speaker 2: calls and the ambulance arrived. One of the ambulance workers
Speaker 2: is also a member of the police department, and they
Speaker 2: recognize who it is immediately, and they're in the back
Speaker 2: of the ambulance trying desperately to save the chief's life,
Speaker 2: and they're talking to them and they're telling them to
Speaker 2: hang on, hang on, hang on, as they're racing along
Speaker 2: these country roads in the snow, in the ice to
Speaker 2: get to the hospital. And they get there in record time,
Speaker 2: but you know, it's nineteen eighty they don't have the
Speaker 2: best equipment in the ambulance, you know, not like we
Speaker 2: might have today. And you know, they get there and
Speaker 2: they're like, you know, just hang on, hang on, hang on, Greg.
Speaker 2: But by the time they get to the hospital, he's
Speaker 2: already gone. And it's just heart wrenching. When the those
Speaker 2: that were in the ambulance they're telling the story, I mean,
Speaker 2: would it breaks you horror, because here is someone who's
Speaker 2: a colleague, here's someone who's a friend, here is someone
Speaker 2: who they know, and they are seeing him die before
Speaker 2: their very eyes. And to this day, when they're telling
Speaker 2: the story, you can tell that it's still playing in
Speaker 2: their minds. It's a scene that they'll never ever forget.
Speaker 2: They're just haunted to this day. So at that point,
Speaker 2: the chiefs are someone contacts the chief's wife. She's at home.
Speaker 2: They have two young children, one is a toddler and
Speaker 2: the other one is an infant, and someone comes over
Speaker 2: to watch the kids, and she gets to the hospital
Speaker 2: and that's when she's told now her husband is gone.
Speaker 2: And in that moment, you know, one moment, she's planning
Speaker 2: for Christmas, the next moment, she's a widow, and her
Speaker 2: wife is turned completely inside out. The entire town is
Speaker 2: turned inside out because Saxonburg. People joke in the area
Speaker 2: about Saxonburg. They say, it really is like Mayberry. It
Speaker 2: is very community oriented. It is a quaint, tight knit
Speaker 2: town with a lot of festivals parades. Someone once told
Speaker 2: me that Saxonburgh is the type of town that will
Speaker 2: have a parade for a parade because there's a certain
Speaker 2: joy in the town, and the killing of the chief
Speaker 2: really did it killed part of that joy, even though
Speaker 2: they keep on kept on moving forward. But in that
Speaker 2: moment when the chief is brought to the hospital, police
Speaker 2: throughout the area just converge on Saxonburg. There's only two
Speaker 2: full time police officers in Saxonburg. One of them was
Speaker 2: in the ambulance and one of them had just died.
Speaker 2: So say police in the area converge on the community.
Speaker 2: They send up helicopters looking for the killer for the
Speaker 2: car that just drove off, and they can't find them.
Speaker 2: Roadblocks are set up because they've already got speed traps
Speaker 2: in the area anyhow, there's a lot of traffic enforcement
Speaker 2: around there, so they're blocking off the area and the
Speaker 2: killer just seems to have vanished. And that has always
Speaker 2: puzzled people in that area. It's very rural and when
Speaker 2: we went through there and the current chief took us
Speaker 2: through the area, and unless you know where you're going,
Speaker 2: you don't know where you're going. It's one of those
Speaker 2: those areas well. It's always been puzzling how the killer
Speaker 2: was able to escape detection.
Speaker 4: But he did talk about what definitely let's talk about
Speaker 4: Let's talk about what was found at the crime scene.
Speaker 4: Before we talked about this person that was a phantom
Speaker 4: and disappeared seemingly. What was found at the crime scene?
Speaker 4: What evidence did they have, What did they determine happened
Speaker 4: to the killer? Tell us about what police could determine
Speaker 4: forensically from that crime scene.
Speaker 2: Well, they believed that the at that time, they believed
Speaker 2: that the chief may have shot the killer because there
Speaker 2: was quite a bit. There was blood there, both the
Speaker 2: chief's blood and this unknown and blood that they believed
Speaker 2: was that of the killer. They NFL found a licensed
Speaker 2: driver's license there, uh and that that license that that
Speaker 2: was the name of the individual by the name of
Speaker 2: Stanley Portis.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 2: So they started checking on uh on that uh the
Speaker 2: license was out of there was a New Jersey. It
Speaker 2: was out of New Jersey. So they wound up looking
Speaker 2: for uh, some of the R and B records to
Speaker 2: see if uh where this individual lived and uh and
Speaker 2: that uh it wound up it wound up being a puzzle.
Speaker 2: They wound up piecing together this very intricate puzzle of well,
Speaker 2: once they got the name, the name of Stanley Portis,
Speaker 2: and then they eventually discovered that was an alias for
Speaker 2: a man named Donald's web. But at the scene of
Speaker 2: the crime, it was it was clear that there was
Speaker 2: a scuffle, there was blood, and there was a driver's license.
Speaker 4: Right now. You also talk about there was a witness
Speaker 4: that said that they had seen somebody limp away from
Speaker 4: this car and they didn't get another description of the
Speaker 4: person because the person was ducking down. But also very
Speaker 4: important there was a description of police took it very seriously.
Speaker 4: Description of the car, what was the model, and the
Speaker 4: color of the car.
Speaker 2: It was white and it was a Mercury Cougar. They
Speaker 2: were able to eventually track down where through a series
Speaker 2: of just plain hard hard work amongst the police officers
Speaker 2: and the investigators trying to track down where this this
Speaker 2: car was, and they determined that it was a car
Speaker 2: rental car and eventually we're able to track it down
Speaker 2: to who rented the car and after even mural work,
Speaker 2: where it was where one of the vehicles this individual
Speaker 2: had rented a number of cars, and tracked down where
Speaker 2: the car was rented from, and everything eventually pointed to Massachusetts,
Speaker 2: and that's where they believed that the killer was from
Speaker 2: and may have fled.
Speaker 4: To You talk about the you talk about this investigation
Speaker 4: into his New England connections, But what was the what
Speaker 4: was the criminal gang that they found that he was
Speaker 4: a member of, and what was some of the information
Speaker 4: they found out about the characteristics of this gang?
Speaker 2: Yeah, the killer was Eventually they found out this this
Speaker 2: individual had a number of different names. Uh. They discovered
Speaker 2: that his real name was Donald Webb. Was originally from
Speaker 2: the Midwest, but made his way to New England after
Speaker 2: he joined the service. UH. And he was living in
Speaker 2: New Bedford, Massachusetts, but he was with his wife, whose
Speaker 2: first husband was a man named Stanley Portis, and that
Speaker 2: was one of the names that he used as an alias.
Speaker 2: He was a low level mobster. He hung around with
Speaker 2: a group of individuals from Fall River, which is one
Speaker 2: city over from New Bedford, and they called themselves the
Speaker 2: Fall River Gang. It wasn't uh very imaginative, but these
Speaker 2: individuals would break into jewelry stores, homes throughout the Northeast
Speaker 2: and sometimes down excuse me, by the way down the
Speaker 2: East coast. They did not do many jobs in their
Speaker 2: home area. They would go outside. They'd go to Connecticut,
Speaker 2: they'd go to New York. They'd go to Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Florida, Virginia.
Speaker 2: They would go, they travel in some place, sometimes even
Speaker 2: into the Midwest, but but not in their in their hometown,
Speaker 2: even though they're very well known around here. So they
Speaker 2: were and they were tied a little bit to the
Speaker 2: Providence mob, but they weren't part of the Providence mall.
Speaker 4: Right at the time of the killing. And yes, at
Speaker 4: the time of the killing. Oh, there was a warrant
Speaker 4: for uh Donald Webb. Wasn't there at the time. That
Speaker 4: way stopped him?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yes, there was. At the time of the killing,
Speaker 2: he had uh he was he had skipped bail out
Speaker 2: of u uh out of upstate New York. He and
Speaker 2: a group of his cohorts were pulling a scam up there,
Speaker 2: a robbery scam. They would go to different houses and
Speaker 2: pose as UH city workers, you know that old scam
Speaker 2: of oh, we're here to check the meter, we're here
Speaker 2: to check the water, We're here to do this, we're
Speaker 2: here to do that. So they showed up at a
Speaker 2: couple of houses, and in particular, they showed up at
Speaker 2: a house of an elderly couple. And this couple was
Speaker 2: a little bit suspicious about them, and they wound up
Speaker 2: calling the police, and you know, after the crew left,
Speaker 2: the police were already on the alert for these individuals,
Speaker 2: and they wound up arresting them. The group was arranged,
Speaker 2: they made bail, and they left, so they skipped bail
Speaker 2: and didn't return for their next court date. So there
Speaker 2: was a warrant out for Donald Webb's arrest, and that
Speaker 2: warrant was still active when he was stopped in Saxonburg, Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2: But there's some people who were speculating that he may
Speaker 2: have fought with the chief because he was afraid that
Speaker 2: the chief would find out who he was when he
Speaker 2: called in the stop and he would wind up going
Speaker 2: back to jail. However, I really think that Webb's fears unfounded,
Speaker 2: given that in nineteen eighty, unlike today, it was a
Speaker 2: little bit harder to check lawrence. They said it was
Speaker 2: a whole because things weren't computerized, so it was a
Speaker 2: whole involved process checking someone's name, and especially since he
Speaker 2: was using the alias, because he want would have been
Speaker 2: under his name of Donald's Web or even Donald Perkins,
Speaker 2: because he was using both names, not Stanley Porters, that
Speaker 2: would have been one of the aliases. So I'm not
Speaker 2: quite sure that the name on the license plate on
Speaker 2: his driver's license would have popped up during a check,
Speaker 2: but that may have been what web was was fearful of,
Speaker 2: and that may have been me why there was that
Speaker 2: fight between the two of them. But that's all speculation.
Speaker 2: That but that's what law enforcement and the investigators thought.
Speaker 2: That was probably why there was that confrontation between the two.
Speaker 4: You talk about also what you talk about that is
Speaker 4: also without any question, he was pistol with beaten and shot.
Speaker 4: He shot twice in the chest and under the armpit.
Speaker 4: Ironically or interestingly, sadly, he was not wearing a bulletproof
Speaker 4: vest because his bulletproof vest he needed a new one.
Speaker 4: The one he had was too small, so he wasn't
Speaker 4: wearing a vest.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yep. And every everything with people people had told
Speaker 2: me is that the chief was very, very safety conscious
Speaker 2: and it's kind of did things by the book. He
Speaker 2: had worked in the in the DC area prior to
Speaker 2: returning to Pennsylvania. He was a Pennsylvania native and he
Speaker 2: really liked small towns him. He was uh had worked
Speaker 2: down in the DC area for about two years and
Speaker 2: really didn't like it. And returned home and got married
Speaker 2: because he preferred the small town life and he didn't
Speaker 2: like the larger cities. He considered them too dangerous, which
Speaker 2: is really ironic. He survived working in a larger city
Speaker 2: and dealing with crime all the time, only to be
Speaker 2: killed in you know, a safe community, which is just heartbreaking.
Speaker 4: Yes, you write that he was working in Washington, d C.
Speaker 4: Didn't like it and worked with people that were now dead,
Speaker 4: had been killed on duty. So he went for a
Speaker 4: bus ride and met mary Anne, who was visiting her
Speaker 4: sister in Maryland, and there was only one seat left
Speaker 4: on the bus. She didn't really plan on being meeting anyone.
Speaker 4: Then they started chatting and by the end of that
Speaker 4: bus ride they had formed a relationship which they kept
Speaker 4: in touch and it seemed quite serious. And then he
Speaker 4: made his move to go back to Saxonburg for you say,
Speaker 4: a fraction of the pay to go back to where
Speaker 4: his roots were, and also with in mind that he
Speaker 4: and mary Anne would be together, and so they certainly
Speaker 4: did and were married. But like you say, ironically, he
Speaker 4: left Washington, d C. And that kind of work for
Speaker 4: this little place that he felt was and everyone else did.
Speaker 4: That was really incredibly safe.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that that is. I think that only one
Speaker 2: of the one of the heartbreaking up turned in this story.
Speaker 2: You know, he's he a larger city. He was uncomfortable,
Speaker 2: not necessarily uncomfortable with it, but disturbed by by the
Speaker 2: crime and what was what he was surrounded by. Uh,
Speaker 2: and then thinks that he's coming home, He's gonna he
Speaker 2: gets married, he has two children, he's building a life,
Speaker 2: his extended family is nearby. Uh. It's it's a perfect,
Speaker 2: perfect life, a perfect world for him, only to have
Speaker 2: someone who he has no idea who this person is.
Speaker 2: Who the person isn't even from the area, from the state, uh,
Speaker 2: someone from Massachusetts in a city he's never even been two.
Speaker 2: This chance encounter completely destroys his world and destroys a community,
Speaker 2: and you know, multiple and multiple lives.
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Speaker 4: Now, Maureen, back to this investigation. There are a lot
Speaker 4: of dedicated people, state troopers, FBI agents, and the FBI
Speaker 4: is involved with this in Pennsylvania State troopers and eventually
Speaker 4: Massachusetts State Patrol troopers as well state police. Pardon me,
Speaker 4: so let's talk about what they plan to do, and
Speaker 4: that is to speak to Lilian Web. They figure they
Speaker 4: need to speak to a lot of people, and they try,
Speaker 4: but the focus seems to be a good place to
Speaker 4: start would be Lilian Web. And then tell us about
Speaker 4: also this idea about getting a search warrant potentially for
Speaker 4: her home, but also before that, just the idea that
Speaker 4: they needed to speak to Lilian Web. And what was
Speaker 4: the results of those attempts.
Speaker 2: Donald's Web, who was identified kill They had obtained a
Speaker 2: warrant for his arrest for first degree murder on Christmas Eve.
Speaker 2: But prior to that, the state police Pennsylvania State Police
Speaker 2: had traveled to Massachusetts to try to find Donald's Web
Speaker 2: because they knew this was the killer. There was a
Speaker 2: variety of steps that were taken by teams of investigators.
Speaker 2: They'd gone to multiple states to track where the first
Speaker 2: to positively identify Donald Web and then to try and
Speaker 2: track where he might be and find some of his
Speaker 2: quote unquote colleagues and crime to see if they knew
Speaker 2: where he was. But they were able to determine that
Speaker 2: he was His family, his wife was living in New Bedford, Massachusetts,
Speaker 2: and they figured, well, he may return to Massachusetts to
Speaker 2: seek shelter. There was an FBI office in New Bedford
Speaker 2: at the time. The State Police Investigative Unit, Massachusetts Investigative
Speaker 2: Unit was also in Massachusetts was also in New Bedford
Speaker 2: at the time, so state police from Pennsylvania came up.
Speaker 2: They were working very closely with the Massachusetts troopers to
Speaker 2: try to I find Webb. They had gone to William
Speaker 2: Webb's residence and she insisted she did not know where
Speaker 2: he was. I had no idea, I hadn't seen him,
Speaker 2: no idea where he was. She was not very cooperative.
Speaker 2: They did not Obviously, the investigators did not believe her,
Speaker 2: so they began following her while they were also tracking
Speaker 2: down some of the people book that he knew. That
Speaker 2: included doing quite a bit of surveillance in some of
Speaker 2: the neighboring communities where he was known to you know,
Speaker 2: quote unquote do business, uh, and where some of his
Speaker 2: associates lived. They did a number of steakhouts. They checked
Speaker 2: local hospitals because based on the amount of blood that
Speaker 2: was found at the scene, UH, they believed that he
Speaker 2: may have been shocked, but they could not find any
Speaker 2: gunshot victims coming into any local hospitals.
Speaker 4: UH.
Speaker 2: So they decided to spend a lot of time the
Speaker 2: following brilliance UH. That was his wife, UH. And they
Speaker 2: sometimes she would take different types of maneuvers, evasive maneuvers
Speaker 2: when they were tealing her uh, and they couldn't they
Speaker 2: They were convinced she knew where he was, but they
Speaker 2: couldn't prove it. When they confronted her, she would repeatedly say,
Speaker 2: I don't know where he is. But they remained very
Speaker 2: very suspicious. They had taps on the phone and nothing
Speaker 2: really came up. They could not at that time get
Speaker 2: a warrant to search her house because they had no
Speaker 2: evidence that he was there. They spoke with different neighbors,
Speaker 2: they hadn't seen him. They kept a very very close
Speaker 2: eye on her. There's no indication that she was bringing
Speaker 2: anything back for another person in the house, and so
Speaker 2: they began thinking, well, maybe he's hiding someplace and she
Speaker 2: would read them all to him, and it all came
Speaker 2: to nothing. They did recover the car that he was
Speaker 2: using in Rhode Island and there was blood in the car.
Speaker 2: They founded in a Warwick, Rhode Island, So then they
Speaker 2: began thinking, oh, maybe he's in the Rhode Island area.
Speaker 2: But so they began talking to some of the individuals
Speaker 2: that he knew in that area there, but they could
Speaker 2: not get a search one for the house at that
Speaker 2: time because there was no evidence to back up a
Speaker 2: search one to say that he was in there. As
Speaker 2: much as they would have loved to have just kicked
Speaker 2: in the door, they couldn't. And later on they discovered
Speaker 2: he wasn't in the house anyhow at that time.
Speaker 4: But they went as far as to put a video
Speaker 4: camera up on a telephone pole. They did everything they
Speaker 4: could and it just then talked all the names neighbors,
Speaker 4: and one neighbor had a view right into the home
Speaker 4: and said, well, I never saw Donald Webb.
Speaker 2: Yeah, in the early days, there was nothing that showed
Speaker 2: that he was there. And as the years went by,
Speaker 2: they put up the video cameras at her. She'd moved
Speaker 2: to different houses and there was nothing that they could
Speaker 2: find that would substantiate that she that he was there,
Speaker 2: or that she could They suspected she knew where he was,
Speaker 2: but she wasn't leading them to him. She was very
Speaker 2: very careful, very careful, And they went into neighbors repeatedly,
Speaker 2: you know, and the neighbors ball said never saw him,
Speaker 2: never saw him. And she had moved twice since the killing,
Speaker 2: and in each place the neighbors never saw him. But
Speaker 2: in the meantime, while by they're putting a lot of
Speaker 2: pressure on William Webb, who is his wife. A number
Speaker 2: another team of Pennsylvania troopers were checking some of the
Speaker 2: other areas and following up other leads in the months
Speaker 2: and years after the killing, and they believed that he
Speaker 2: was out and about committing other possibly committing other crimes,
Speaker 2: but there were always like one step behind him and
Speaker 2: there was a lot of reported sightings of Donald, just
Speaker 2: like ike in it to Whitey Bulger, the infamous Whitey
Speaker 2: Bulger who's out of Boston, who was on the uh
Speaker 2: FBI on the top most wanted list, just as Donald's
Speaker 2: web was for a number of years. Were you know,
Speaker 2: people were uh calling in sightings of Whitey over the years,
Speaker 2: just as people were calling in investigators were getting reported
Speaker 2: sightings of Donald's web over the years. UH. But that
Speaker 2: for the most part, they they were false sightings. There
Speaker 2: were a couple uh instances where they believed the information
Speaker 2: that they had was yet was valid, but they got
Speaker 2: the information all days, weeks, sometimes months after the fact.
Speaker 4: So the the idea too that all these agents were
Speaker 4: involved in this and they're turning up nothing, and this
Speaker 4: case is going colder and colder. They're there's different people.
Speaker 4: There's people retire and then take on the case or
Speaker 4: asked to take on the case. You talk about Jim
Speaker 4: Poyden's was involved right from the almost from the very beginning,
Speaker 4: and you also talked about the Whitey Bulger case, because
Speaker 4: there's very important when you talk about agent Tommy McDonald
Speaker 4: and an agent's bates and what happens in terms of
Speaker 4: Whitey Bulger after he's FBI's number one top priority. But
Speaker 4: this case, Adams murder case and Donald Webb as a fugitive,
Speaker 4: as like you mentioned, is the FBI's top ten list.
Speaker 4: So tell us about these agents and the conversation that
Speaker 4: happened after Whitey Bulger is convicted or arrested. Pardon me, yeah.
Speaker 2: For years and years, you know, there's been movies made about,
Speaker 2: you know, Whitey bull Journey. The case is infamous. Who
Speaker 2: is on the top ten most wanted FBI's top ten
Speaker 2: most wanted list for years and years and years, uh
Speaker 2: until he was finally caught. However, Donald's web had been
Speaker 2: on the top ten also for years and years and years,
Speaker 2: and eventually, you know, those that were in the FBI
Speaker 2: knew of the case and it sort of gnawed at them.
Speaker 2: In recent years, there was one when there was doing
Speaker 2: the Whitey Bulger case. A number of the FBI agents
Speaker 2: were working on the case were brought in to help
Speaker 2: work on the case at the end and helped track
Speaker 2: Whitey Bulger. Once Bulger was found thanks to their efforts,
Speaker 2: they turned their attention to Donald Webb, Phil Torresny, who's
Speaker 2: a an FBI agent now retired. He always wanted to
Speaker 2: be able to find web. He remembers seeing the poster
Speaker 2: when he first joined the FBI. He's like, you know,
Speaker 2: I want to get this guy. Want to get this guy.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 2: So, once White A. Vulger was found, he began doing
Speaker 2: a little bit of work on it, trying to do
Speaker 2: some of the groundwork, seeing what has already been done. H.
Speaker 2: And then as he started reaching nearing his retirement AIG,
Speaker 2: he turned to a fellow agent by the name of
Speaker 2: Tommy McDonald, who had worked on a number of very
Speaker 2: high profile cases as well as the Vulture case, and said, Tommy,
Speaker 2: you have to work on this case. You have to
Speaker 2: do this. He killed a cop. He can't be free.
Speaker 2: And so Tommy began asked his superiors as he could
Speaker 2: work on the case. He enlisted the help of some
Speaker 2: other agents and they reopened the case and knew and
Speaker 2: came to he UH reached out to some of the
Speaker 2: original agents and the original Pennsylvania Troopers. UH. He went
Speaker 2: down to Saxonburg UH viewed where everything happened. UH and
Speaker 2: then started interviewing some people in checking out some other
Speaker 2: leads down in Pennsylvania to see if you know, possibly
Speaker 2: was Donald's web dead, was he killed? You know, there's
Speaker 2: indications that he was shot, did he gunshot wounds? Did
Speaker 2: did a mobster that he was with U discover that
Speaker 2: he's mortally wounded and dumped his body someplace or bury
Speaker 2: his body someplace. So he began you know, tracking some
Speaker 2: of those those leads also and then turned his attention
Speaker 2: to Massachusetts and started figuring out other ways and looking
Speaker 2: at the case differently, and then enlisted the help of
Speaker 2: Pennsylvania State Police again and Massachusetts State Police. Massachusettstate Police
Speaker 2: worked and working in the Attorney General's office. There's a
Speaker 2: group of state troopers in Massachusetts out of the AG's
Speaker 2: office who were working on a large scale gaming investigation.
Speaker 2: And this investigation involved Donald Webb's step son. So they
Speaker 2: would sort of teamed together to see, you know, looking
Speaker 2: at finances and looking at a wide range of other
Speaker 2: things to see if that would from how bring this
Speaker 2: case to a conclusion. And it really highlighted the work
Speaker 2: that they all did to work together that really brought
Speaker 2: it to a really shocking conclusion. And you know, it
Speaker 2: really showed that, yes, secrets can be kept when it
Speaker 2: comes to crimes, but eventually they're told and eventually they're uncovered.
Speaker 4: You talk about that this investigation of Donald Webb's step son,
Speaker 4: Lillian's son, ends up being the impetus for the ability
Speaker 4: for them to be able to get a warrant for
Speaker 4: her house now, which is super important, and just before
Speaker 4: that too as well. They have always hounded or looked
Speaker 4: at other members of this Fall River gang, but one
Speaker 4: that they focused on was Frank Lack and so interesting. Yes, yes,
Speaker 4: they had some sort of relationship with them, and you
Speaker 4: write that they went there one time. Over they went
Speaker 4: there several times, but they went there one time with
Speaker 4: a box of Canol's ten thousand dollars and said, this
Speaker 4: is one tenth of the one hundred thousand dollars reward
Speaker 4: if you tell us where Donald Webb is. And then
Speaker 4: he said very interestingly that that, well, if I did that,
Speaker 4: then my life would have been meaningless. But on his
Speaker 4: way out, he did give them some information, or at
Speaker 4: least information to contemplate and consider. What was that information.
Speaker 2: He made him The way he was talking, they believed
Speaker 2: that that Donald's Webb at that point was dead, and
Speaker 2: then they just had to figure out where he was,
Speaker 2: but they believed at that point he was dead and
Speaker 2: just how he reproaches.
Speaker 4: Interestingly, he said that he had been he had died
Speaker 4: in the nineties, and that a mob connected funeral home
Speaker 4: had buried him or carew made him under a fake name.
Speaker 4: So of course the investigators have to look into that
Speaker 4: possibility as well, don't they.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, They followed just about every wead possible
Speaker 2: in the case.
Speaker 1: And.
Speaker 2: Eventually, you know, we're able to dyesthetic some of what
Speaker 2: he said. But they did believe that just the way
Speaker 2: he was talking, that there was a good chance that
Speaker 2: Donald Webb was said and part of that was, you know,
Speaker 2: how old that our Webb would have been at that
Speaker 2: that point that it could be that that that was
Speaker 2: a real possibility, and you know that that's what makes
Speaker 2: this case feel very very intriguing, is that there's so
Speaker 2: many people had different stories about Donald Webb and different
Speaker 2: theories about where he could possibly be, how uh, how
Speaker 2: he eluded the thirties, Did he have help, did he
Speaker 2: not have help, or was he alive? Was he not alive?
Speaker 2: Did the mob do him in? And that was also
Speaker 2: one of the possibilities that was raised, is that maybe
Speaker 2: someone in the mob had done him in just because
Speaker 2: he killed a confin. It was, you know, really putting
Speaker 2: so much heat on the uh uh on the operation,
Speaker 2: on the finance, financial operation of you know, the mob
Speaker 2: doing business.
Speaker 4: Mm hmm. Let's get back to the search of Lillian
Speaker 4: Webb's home. What do police find at that search?
Speaker 2: Ah, you want me to tell you how the whole
Speaker 2: case ends, Well, well.
Speaker 4: We won't just what find We won't give We won't
Speaker 4: give away this, No, we can't. Yes, tell us, tell
Speaker 4: us what they do find.
Speaker 2: Oh, when the FBI first gets in there, the FBI
Speaker 2: goes in there looking for uh. The f I was
Speaker 2: able to get a search war and to get into
Speaker 2: the house to get photo photographs of Donald's Webb. They
Speaker 2: had used photos very very successfully in the Whitey Bulger case.
Speaker 2: Tommy McDonald had obtained photos of white Bulger's girlfriend, who
Speaker 2: is out who is with him all those years while
Speaker 2: he was on the run, And they circulated photos of her,
Speaker 2: You were photo photos that they got from doctors' offices
Speaker 2: because she had cosmetic surgery, and they used that to
Speaker 2: try to get someone who may recognize her rather than
Speaker 2: Whitey Bulger. Because Whitey at that point looked like any
Speaker 2: old man, you know driving a buick down the street,
Speaker 2: you know, and nineties buick down the street. Uh, And
Speaker 2: that's what they were also getting tons of calls about
Speaker 2: every every guy that was out there. So they used
Speaker 2: photos to try to identify find Whitey Bulger. So Tommy McDonald,
Speaker 2: the FBI agent who took on to Kaithan New had
Speaker 2: talked to his colleagues and they'd got to use photos again.
Speaker 2: Let's go looking at the photos. So they went to
Speaker 2: got a search warrant for William's home to get photos
Speaker 2: of Donald's web and see if there were newer photos
Speaker 2: of him, different photos of him that they didn't have.
Speaker 2: And by getting a search warrant for photos, which is interesting.
Speaker 2: You know, if you're looking for a gun, that's a
Speaker 2: larger object, but when you're looking for photos, photos can
Speaker 2: be slipped into anything. So they were able to look
Speaker 2: in a wide range of places. Just think about where
Speaker 2: you could put a photo. You could put a photo
Speaker 2: in a book, you can put a photo in an
Speaker 2: address or draw. You can put a photo on the wall,
Speaker 2: you can put a photo in the closet, you know,
Speaker 2: you can put it in a box. You could put
Speaker 2: it behind something. So they were able to do a
Speaker 2: pretty wide ranging search at the house because they're looking
Speaker 2: for photographs. And during this search they found a little
Speaker 2: space behind a closet that they effect sort of a
Speaker 2: hiding place, and in that they found a cane and
Speaker 2: some and some coins and some other objects. But they
Speaker 2: could not seize any of that those items because their
Speaker 2: search warn't was for photographs and you know, related type
Speaker 2: things related to photographs. But they found that very very intriguing.
Speaker 2: There was a king in what looked like a hidden room,
Speaker 2: but it isn't really a room it but just like
Speaker 2: a like a little croose at hidden closet, which they
Speaker 2: found extremely intriguing. But they did not find Donald Webb
Speaker 2: in the house. They but they did find a wide
Speaker 2: range of photos. So they found that was one of
Speaker 2: the things that it's like, ah, maybe he was here
Speaker 2: at some point, but they weren't sure and as a result,
Speaker 2: they weren't able to get back into the house after
Speaker 2: that because their search weren't was for photos. But at
Speaker 2: that point they're like, well, maybe he was here, maybe
Speaker 2: he really is dead, and if he is, where is he?
Speaker 2: But yeah, it came down to photos. So that there's
Speaker 2: real parallels between the Whitey Balder case and in this
Speaker 2: case in terms of the investigative methods that they used
Speaker 2: between the two of them, and methods that were very,
Speaker 2: very successful. And that's the one thing about this case
Speaker 2: that really struck me was that it was basic police
Speaker 2: investigative methods that really broke this case from the start
Speaker 2: to the finish. And the only reason why Donald's web
Speaker 2: wasn't found earlier is just by bad luck.
Speaker 4: There was also a well somewhat unique but at least
Speaker 4: another strategy in this was a lawsuit was launched. Again,
Speaker 4: we don't want to give away this incredible ending, but
Speaker 4: how does that lawsuit exert some pressure her on Lilian
Speaker 4: and her attorney.
Speaker 2: Well, they want the Adams family.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: Uh, the chief's widow and his children. Uh. The FBI
Speaker 2: had gone back to them, uh, looking for family photos
Speaker 2: to try to tug at the heart of William Webb,
Speaker 2: of Donald Webb's wife. There's some photos of you know,
Speaker 2: the widow who is she since remarried, her with her
Speaker 2: small children, with the grandchildren, you know, basically showing what
Speaker 2: don what Greg Adams missed, uh because of her, because
Speaker 2: of Donald's web. You know, he missedeing his children grow up,
Speaker 2: he missed those watching them play baseball, he missed them
Speaker 2: getting married, he missed uh seeing his grandchildren, he missed
Speaker 2: you know, lifetimes. And they were hoping to make her
Speaker 2: feel guilty, uh, and that it did not work. So uh,
Speaker 2: Tommy McDonald and other fbiations went back to the chief's
Speaker 2: widow and asked her, you know, do you have any
Speaker 2: more photos? And at that point the family is like,
Speaker 2: you know what, it's it's not gonna work. Uh, and
Speaker 2: her uh, Marion Marion's kids said, you know, Ilin just sore.
Speaker 2: Let's just sue her. She knows something and she's not
Speaker 2: saying what's going on, So let's just file a suit
Speaker 2: her And okay, we're convinced that she knows where he
Speaker 2: is and she's harboring him, and let's sere And they did.
Speaker 2: They in Pennsylvania court, and that I think really helped
Speaker 2: helped turn the case because it involved money. Because if
Speaker 2: they were successful in the suit, they could take her house,
Speaker 2: they could take whatever money is in the bank, they
Speaker 2: could go through her finances, and there's just a whole
Speaker 2: variety of things that could happen. And at this point,
Speaker 2: Luian Webb is getting on there in years. She's well
Speaker 2: past the retirement age, and you know, she's living a
Speaker 2: comfortable life in a suburban you know, raised ranch and
Speaker 2: outside of New Bedford. And I think that helped to
Speaker 2: ultimately resolve this case because sometimes, you know, people, if
Speaker 2: you hit people in the pocketbook, sometimes that does that works.
Speaker 2: Does what trying to argue or trying to convince them
Speaker 2: to him that that doesn't work. So that helped really
Speaker 2: turn the tide in the case.
Speaker 4: You refer to the Whitey Bulger case. And in that
Speaker 4: case they successfully captured him. And he was an old
Speaker 4: man in his almost eighty or around his eighties, a
Speaker 4: little diminutive man, and they captured him, not quite easily,
Speaker 4: but they did capture him without any struggle. You write
Speaker 4: in this book. I've never read this before, but this
Speaker 4: was very interesting. You said, when a cop killer is caught,
Speaker 4: the dead handcuffs of the chief or of the of
Speaker 4: the police officer are traditionally snapped on the killer's wrists.
Speaker 4: So the handcuffs of Gregory Adams were to be snapped
Speaker 4: on the killer's wrists if caught. That would be the tradition,
Speaker 4: wouldn't it that.
Speaker 2: That would have been the tradition. Yeah, because that's the
Speaker 2: type of thing and that that has happened in a
Speaker 2: lot of cases when it's it's possible. Uh, it's very
Speaker 2: very symbolic. It is to let the let the killers know,
Speaker 2: yes we got you, and you know he or she
Speaker 2: is still here and we we don't forget. We don't
Speaker 2: forget the people that have been lost. We don't forget
Speaker 2: law enforcements members that have been killed. Uh, and killers.
Speaker 2: It it is the ultimate symbolic point of of justice
Speaker 2: when they do that. You write about that is often done.
Speaker 4: You write about that the person that was in that ambulance,
Speaker 4: that other police officer that also wore many service hats
Speaker 4: that was also an EMT and was in that ambulance
Speaker 4: with Gregory Adams. He becomes the police chief of Saxenburg. Obviously,
Speaker 4: you talk about all of the people Danny McKnight, Chris Burke, Bitchler,
Speaker 4: Gordon Mainhardt, James Poyden's, Pete McCann, all these people instrumental
Speaker 4: in this investigation, so many people rooting for the capture
Speaker 4: and the resolution of Donald Webb mystery where this phantom,
Speaker 4: where this person disappeared to and how so many people involved,
Speaker 4: so many dedicated people. What about Mary Adams? What did
Speaker 4: she and her boys do? Did she stay in the area.
Speaker 4: What happened with Marianne?
Speaker 2: Her one of her sons is still in the area,
Speaker 2: but she uh is now now lives down south, she's retired,
Speaker 2: and her youngest son is doesn't live in the area either.
Speaker 2: They remember and it is still part of their lives.
Speaker 2: But you know, life does go on, yeah, and the
Speaker 2: the legacy of Greg Adams lives on. It lives on
Speaker 2: in Saxonburg. You know, every year there is a memorial
Speaker 2: service for him. You know, they have they remember him
Speaker 2: outside the what would be called a city hall, the
Speaker 2: municipal building. They have a memorial there for him, and
Speaker 2: swallowers are a placed there during police week and also
Speaker 2: during you know, the honoring the day that he died.
Speaker 2: Where he is buried in the local cemetery. People come
Speaker 2: back and leave flowers there, leave momentous there. Even people
Speaker 2: who have never met him or in law enforcement have
Speaker 2: left different tokens at his gravesite. So he's never been forgotten.
Speaker 2: And that's the remarkable thing when it comes to law enforcement.
Speaker 2: When someone in law enforcement dies, their legacy always continues,
Speaker 2: and in law enforcement, make sure that they are never
Speaker 2: ever forgotten. And in Saxonburg, the entire community, even people
Speaker 2: have never met him, make sure that he's never been forgotten.
Speaker 4: You wondered in this book, you said, how could someone
Speaker 4: hide so easily for so long in the city you
Speaker 4: once covered as a police reporter for more than a decade,
Speaker 4: And so you asked, you pose that question, how he
Speaker 4: could have done that? And while I asked that is
Speaker 4: that you refer to the book is called the Ghost.
Speaker 4: What you talked about him being a phantom and an
Speaker 4: operation disappearing. Why did you refer this book? Why did
Speaker 4: you title this book the Ghost?
Speaker 2: For two reasons. Well, some members of a law enforcement
Speaker 2: were calling Donald Webb the ghost because he was like
Speaker 2: a phantom. But also the chief is also a ghost.
Speaker 2: His memory haunted the community for decades, as you know,
Speaker 2: as the search for the killer uh continued. So there
Speaker 2: are really two ghosts here. Those the ghost of the
Speaker 2: killer because he just you know, vanished, but also the
Speaker 2: ghost of Greg Adams, who just uh haunted investigators, haunted Saxenburg,
Speaker 2: haunted his family because there was no answer because you know,
Speaker 2: over what people don't realize is when in unsolved cases
Speaker 2: and the killer hasn't been brought to justice, the family
Speaker 2: really is in this limbo. They never know when they'll
Speaker 2: get that call to say the killer has been found,
Speaker 2: that you know, the trial is going to start. We
Speaker 2: have this new read and it's in this case, it
Speaker 2: went on for decades. There's that uncertainty. It's and you know,
Speaker 2: people use the word closure and a term in murder cases,
Speaker 2: but there isn't a beginning, middle, and end to the
Speaker 2: case itself. There's always it's always open ended. And that
Speaker 2: was the thing in this case that the family faced.
Speaker 2: They never knew when that other shoe, so to speak,
Speaker 2: was going to drop. So the ghosts two people, killer
Speaker 2: and vidcom Yeah, and.
Speaker 4: So we didn't talk about the shocking conclusion and it
Speaker 4: certainly is. And what's important, I think is that the
Speaker 4: law enforcement people that rallied around Mary Adam, mary Ann Adams,
Speaker 4: the people that kept her in the loop as well
Speaker 4: for this crucial information in this conclusion, and also all
Speaker 4: of the people that from the past law enforcement, FBI agents,
Speaker 4: Pennsylvania State Patrol of the State Police and Massachusettstate Police,
Speaker 4: all these people involved in the investigation, and when it
Speaker 4: was time for them to retire, they still remained involved, engaged,
Speaker 4: and this is an incredible story of the honor to
Speaker 4: Police Chief Gregory Adams, like you mentioned every year in
Speaker 4: Saxonburg and all of the people that came to the
Speaker 4: funeral and all of the people that were involved in
Speaker 4: this incredible hunt for the killer of Chief Greg Adams.
Speaker 4: I want to thank you very much, Maureen for coming
Speaker 4: on and talking about The Ghost the Murder of Police
Speaker 4: Chief Greg Adams and the hunt for his killer. For
Speaker 4: those that might want to take a look at this
Speaker 4: and your other work, do you have a website that
Speaker 4: they might take a look at and tell USO at time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's maureeneboilewriter dot com. There is also a Facebook
Speaker 2: page for The Ghost the Murder of chiefs Greg Adams.
Speaker 2: I'm on Twitter as Maureen E. Boyle one and the
Speaker 2: book is available on Amazon and at Barnes Noble and
Speaker 2: through the publisher which is Black Line Publishing.
Speaker 4: Yes, well, thank you very much. Maureen. Has been fantastic
Speaker 4: The Ghost, the Murder of Police Chief Greg Adams and
Speaker 4: the Hunter is Killer. Thank you very much, Maureen. You
Speaker 4: have a great evening. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2: Good night okay, thank you and it was a pleasure
Speaker 2: by good night,