Donald Eugene Webb

It was only the second murder in the town's nearly 150-year history; the first murder occurred in 1842.

Donald Eugene Webb (born Donald Eugene Perkins; July 14, 1931 – December 30, 1999) was an American career criminal wanted for attempted burglary and the murder of police chief Gregory Adams in the small town of Saxonburg, Pennsylvania on December 4, 1980.

Donald Eugene Perkins was born in Oklahoma City in 1931.

He was raised by his paternal grandfather.

Perkins enlisted in the United States Navy, but received a dishonorable discharge.

Frank Joseph Lach (November 23, 1940 - November 4, 2017), was closely associated with Webb.

Perkins legally changed his name to Webb in 1956 in Bristol County, Massachusetts.

Webb worked as a butcher, salesman, restaurant manager, and vending machine repairman.

Lach is from Cranston, Rhode Island and was believed to be involved with a Massachusetts-based gang responsible for a number of jewel thefts from residences and businesses in the 1960s and 1970s, as well as having ties to organized crime in New England and South Florida.

In the mid-1970s, Webb served a two-year prison term in New York state prison.

The FBI has considered Webb "a master of assumed identities".

New York and Pennsylvania police have described Webb as "an itinerant burglar well versed in the art of criminal impersonation".

Webb was identified by the FBI as an associate of the Patriarca crime family, who made a living robbing banks, jewelry stores, and high-end hotels up and down the East Coast.

They fenced the goods through "the mob" in Providence, Rhode Island.

He was also involved with an organized crime outfit in the Miami area, where he would also fence the goods.

Before 1979, Webb spent extended periods in the Southwest, New England, and on the West Coast.

In 1979, Webb and two accomplices allegedly burgled suburban Albany homes while posing as sewer and water inspectors.

Webb and Frank Joseph Lach, one of the accomplices, were arrested in Colonie, New York.

They were charged with attempted burglary, but after their bails were posted (bail of Webb was $35,000), they failed to appear at a December 1979 court date.

After Webb's disappearance in 1980, his relatives and criminal associates consistently refused to cooperate with investigators.

Webb had married Lillian and they had a son together.

Although the last known connection of Webb and Lach was in Allentown, Pennsylvania in July 1980, Lach was believed to be with Webb when he killed Police Chief Gregory Adams in December 1980 in Saxonburg.

(See below)

On December 4, 1980, Gregory B. Adams, a 31-year-old police chief of Saxonburg, Pennsylvania, and nine-year veteran of law enforcement, made a routine traffic stop in the parking lot of Agway Feed Store on Butler Street.

Adams used his patrol car to stop the suspect by blocking the exit of the parking lot.

In 1981, Webb's wife Lillian lived in South Dartmouth, Massachusetts.

She worked as a saleswoman for a now-defunct New Bedford box company.

Lach was subsequently wanted by the FBI for interstate flight from justice; he was captured in South Miami, Florida in May 1982.

He was extradited to New York, where he was convicted of burglary and bail-jumping.

He was paroled in November 1985.

In February 1986, he was convicted by a federal jury of conspiracy to transport stolen property interstate, and of driving under the influence and parole violation in June 1996.

She had hidden him in two of her homes for 17 years, until he died of a stroke in 1999.

In 1999, it was reported that Lillian, her son, and other relatives of Donald Webb were living in the Boston area.

Webb had convictions for burglary, possession of counterfeit money, possession of a weapon and dangerous instruments, breaking and entering, armed bank robbery, grand larceny and car theft.

Lach served time in federal prison and was released in October 2000.

Webb was a fugitive featured on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted List until 2007, setting a record in 1999 for longest stay on the list, but was never apprehended.

In 2010, his record on that list was superseded by another criminal; Víctor Manuel Gerena.

The murder of Police Chief Adams was never solved by prosecution of the criminal; it was the longest-running cold case of a police officer in the United States.

In July 2017, Webb's remains were discovered in Massachusetts on the property of his wife Lillian Webb.

Lach passed away on November 4, 2017, at his house in Cranston, Rhode Island just 19 days before his 77th birthday.