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Chief greg webb

Greg Webb

Real Name: Gregory Jon Webb
Aliases: Greg
Wanted For: Murder
Missing Since: December 30, 1986

Case[]

Details: Thirty-nine-year-old former Police Chief Greg Webb is wanted for the murder of thirty-four-year-old divorcee Anna Marie Anton. The two lived in Lyons, Nebraska, a quiet farming town of 1,200 people, located sixty miles from Omaha. Crime is so rare in the area that the county does not even have a jail and Lyons only has two officers. Greg was originally from Sioux City, Iowa. He was a graduate of the Nebraska Law Enforcement Center. He had lived in Lyons for over ten years and had been chief there since 1978. Sometimes, on his days off, he moonlighted as a police officer or deputy sheriff in a nearby town. He and his third wife, Karen, had divorced in December 1985. He also had a twelve-year-old son. After the divorce, he moved into the second-floor apartment of the "Pink House", a two-story duplex located a few blocks from downtown Lyons. He later became the building's owner.
Anna was originally from Milford, Iowa. She was raised by her grandparents. She dropped out of Spencer High School as a senior, but later returned and acquired her diploma. She also attended Estherville Junior College. According to friends, she experimented with drugs in the past, but was able to kick the habit. She and her husband, Tom, were separated for several years when they divorced in September 1986. One month later, in October, she and her three dogs moved into the first-floor apartment of the "Pink House". She was a stranger to town. According to Mary Piper, Mayor of Lyons, there was no rational reason for Anna to move there. She says that people do not move there unless they have a job, or family, or are returning there. Anna did not have any of those.
Ten years before she settled in Lyons, Anna had severely injured her leg and scarred her face in a car accident. As a result, she dragged her leg, walked with a cane, and wore heavy makeup. She was unemployed and planned to attend classes at a nearby community college in the future. However, at the time, she depended on a small disability income and the kindness of her neighbors, who were happy to lend her a helping hand. They helped pay for her heat and groceries. Her fellow parishioners at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church would take turns driving her to and from church. Friends from Milford forwarded her mail to her. According to her neighbor, Shirley Edgecomb, she appeared to be a very religious person. She had very high morals and did not drink. She went to church daily if she was able to get a ride.
Shirley lived across the street from Anna and would often take her grocery shopping. They became friends and Anna began to confide in Shirley. She told Shirley that Tom had been involved in some large drug ring, and that she had testified against him and other members of the ring. She said that she was afraid that he or the other ring members were going to harm her. She also said that she had moved to Lyons to get away from him. She was apparently so afraid that she would refuse to open her door until the person identified themselves.
One day, Anna gave Shirley an envelope and said, “If anything should happen to me, I want you to open this envelope and call the number that is in it.” The number belonged to a female friend in Iowa. Anna told Shirley that she had chosen her apartment because Greg lived right above her. She thought if Tom ever did find her, that he would be leery about bothering her because of the police car parked out front.
On December 15, 1986, a neighbor saw Anna being dropped off at her apartment after she went shopping with a friend. The next day, December 16, Shirley brought some groceries over to Anna’s apartment. She was surprised to find the back door locked. She knocked on Anna’s windows and called out her name. There was no response. That evening, she tried to deliver the groceries several times, but still there was no answer. Anna seemed to have disappeared as mysteriously as she arrived.
At Shirley’s insistence, Greg agreed to help. The next day, December 17, he unlocked the door to Anna's apartment using his spare key. They went in, thinking that she had fallen somewhere and was unable to get help. However, there was no sign of her. He said it looked like she had not been there in several days. Shirley was concerned because they were supposed to meet, and it was not like Anna to not call.
Anna's dogs were found locked in her basement (another neighbor reported seeing someone letting them out after December 15). Groceries she had bought a few days earlier were gone. In her bedroom, they found an outfit of clothes laid out on the bed, from shirt and jeans all the way down to underwear. Strangely, her shoes, which she always wore, were also left behind. Shirley notes that, especially in the winter, if you take your purse, coat, and cane, it seems only reasonable that you would take your shoes as well. In another room, they found her address book. Shirley planned to call the people in it, but Greg told her that he would do it, since it was “his job.”
A few hours later, Greg called Shirley. He said that he had called the numbers in the book, but Anna was not in any of those places. He also said that Anna had taken off on unannounced trips before. Shirley asked him to file a missing person's report for Anna. He told her to wait a few more days to see if Anna would show up. Finally, on December 23, seven days after she disappeared, he filed the report with the county sheriff. By then, her mother, Geraldine, was also concerned because she had not received a Christmas card from her.
On December 27, eleven days after Anna disappeared, her nude and frozen body was found by a farmer in a remote field on the Winnebago Indian reservation, three miles north of Walthill, Nebraska, and twenty miles north of Lyons. She had been shot twice in the torso with a .38-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver. Greg helped identify her. Since the crime scene was outside Lyons’ jurisdiction, state criminal investigator Gerald “Gerry” Krieger of the Nebraska State Patrol was called in on the case. He says that as he observed the crime scene, it was apparent to him that she had not been killed there. It appeared that the body had been moved there from another location.
Investigator Krieger believes that whoever killed Anna had left her there and had been careful in not leaving any evidence behind. It appeared as though her body had been cleaned. It also appeared that she had been there for quite some time. Surprisingly, the autopsy revealed that her blood alcohol level was 0.22, extremely high for a woman who purportedly did not drink.
After Anna’s body was found, Investigator Krieger visited Shirley. He wanted to know everything he could about Anna. Shirley gave him the envelope that Anna had previously given her. He asked her why Anna would have given her the envelope. She told him that Anna was afraid of her ex-husband, Tom. She believed that he had killed Anna. She told Investigator Krieger about how Tom was reportedly involved in narcotics and was a heavy drug dealer, and that Anna was very fearful for her life.
Within a short period of time, Investigator Krieger was able to determine that Tom had an alibi and was not involved in any drug activity. He was described by Anna's friends as "quiet, patient, and sweet to her." Investigator Krieger could not understand why she would fabricate the drug dealing stories about him. A friend of hers from Iowa believes her fear of drug dealers were "delusions." On the day her body was found, the police officers working on the case agreed to meet in Lyons at the Hiway Café to compare notes. Greg was among them. Knowing that Anna lived in the same building as Greg, Investigator Krieger quizzed him about her.
Investigator Krieger asked Greg how long he knew Anna. He said he had known her for about two-and-a-half months. Investigator Krieger asked him where he met her, and he said Arnolds Park, Iowa. Then, Investigator Krieger asked him, “Were you and she ever intimately involved?” He said, “No,” took a sip of his coffee, and continued looking at him nervously. Investigator Krieger repeated the question. This time, he said, “Yes, on the night she moved in.” At that point, the other officers asked him to leave.
Investigator Krieger was shocked that Greg would lie to him during a murder investigation. Because of this, and because of certain details of the crime scene, he began to look at Greg as a suspect. On December 29, two days after Anna’s body was found, Investigator Krieger and lab technicians performed a test in her apartment to search for bloodstains. Throughout the test, Greg was upstairs in his apartment. There were times where they could hear somebody walking or moving upstairs. Investigator Krieger believes that Greg was listening to them as they conducted the test.
Investigator Krieger and the technicians used a special chemical called luminol, which makes drops of blood hemoglobin glow in the dark, even if they have been washed away or are small and faded. They found traces of blood in the living room and dining room area of Anna’s apartment. The trail of blood just outside of her apartment door was quite heavy. The trail led up the stairs to Greg’s apartment. The blood in her apartment and on the stairs matched her type. Investigator Krieger set out to obtain a search warrant for Greg’s apartment.
During the police investigation of Anna’s apartment, Greg left his apartment. He traveled to Fremont, Nebraska, thirty-five miles south of Lyons, where he traded his 1971 Mercury Cougar to Jalopy John's Used Cars. He also went to a travel agency there, where he got an international driving permit, posed for a passport photo, and asked about carrying firearms to Costa Rica and Honduras. The next day, December 30, he withdrew his life savings -- $3,000 -- and then disappeared. He was last seen in front of the First National Bank in Lyons by Mayor Piper, as he directed traffic for a funeral. He told her he was going to "take a few days off."
Five days later, armed with a warrant, Investigator Krieger and several officers searched Greg’s apartment. They found a mop that had traces of blood on it. The blood was later shown to be the same type as Anna’s. In the bedroom closet, they found a military style coat with several spots of blood on it. These stains also proved to be the same blood type as Anna’s. Blood was also found in a city police car. Although no signs of struggle were found in either apartment, it seemed clear that something had happened to her there.
Once Investigator Krieger started checking into Anna’s background, he learned that she had two separate lives: one in Lyons, where she was very religious; and another in Arnolds Park, where she was referred to as a “bar floozy.” She often flirted with men at bars there. While at a bar there one night in Fall 1986, she was introduced to Greg. The two became friends, comparing their Iowa backgrounds and respective divorces. They went to several bars and parks together in the Iowa Great Lakes area. When she told him she was leaving her old house and looking for a place to live, he suggested that she move into the unoccupied apartment in his building. A friend also told her that Greg was a good man, and that Lyons was a "was a safe, friendly place to live."
Investigator Krieger believes that Anna had moved to Lyons with the anticipation of starting a relationship with Greg, and possibly marrying him. She became infatuated with him. She even wrote to a friend in Iowa that she planned to travel with him there. But she soon learned that he had another girlfriend. According to Shirley, Anna seemed to be preoccupied with the fact that Greg was seeing someone else, and that the two were sleeping together while unmarried.
Anna told Shirley that on several occasions, she was lying in bed when she heard Greg and his girlfriend “making love”. She was so bothered by it that she would turn her stereo up to drown out the sounds. According to Shirley, Anna felt that it was a sin to the point that she would get holy water and sprinkle it up and down the steps and on the doorknobs to "convince him of his sins."
Investigator Krieger has learned that on the night of Anna’s death, Greg was intoxicated. He believes that the two got into a fight that night after she confronted him about his girlfriend. Investigator Krieger learned that early the next morning, Greg was seen carrying something from his apartment out to the trunk of his car. It was later discovered that what he had been carrying was Anna’s body.
Police believe Greg removed all of Anna’s clothes and carefully washed her body before she was carried from the apartment. It is possible that her body was left in that particular farmer’s field because Greg knew the land was part of an Indian reservation, which would cause jurisdiction problems for the authorities. Investigator Krieger believes that Greg thought he had committed the “perfect crime” in the way he had disposed of the body and because he knew that Anna’s ex-husband would be looked at as the prime suspect.
On January 6, 1987, a warrant was issued for Greg’s arrest. He was charged with first-degree murder. He was also fired from his job for "dereliction of duty." The next day, January 7, his car was found in the car lot in Fremont. On January 15, the car he acquired in Fremont was found at Houston International Airport. It was discovered that he had purchased a ticket there to Belize in Central America. Someone used the ticket, but there was no proof it was him. The FBI has since gotten involved in the search for him.
Many residents of Lyons were surprised that Greg would be accused of such a crime. According to the former mayor, there were never any complaints about him. He "loved" police work, was a hard worker, and was respected by everyone. Mayor Piper says that, although he appeared aloof, unemotional, and humorless, he was also competent and cooperative. Other officers say that he was a good professional, knowledgeable of guns and the latest detection technology, and skilled at reading fingerprints.
Surprisingly, some people even believe that Greg is innocent, and that he had reasons for fleeing. Some suggested that he knew the "real killer" and fled to protect them. Some said he fled because he feared being wrongly convicted and sent to prison. Others speculated that he fled because he feared for his own life from the "real killer(s)". Along with the Iowa drug dealers, there was another "alternate suspect" that police looked into: Tony Sears, a friend of Greg and Anna. He had visited them on the day Anna was last seen. According to him, Greg was drunk and brandishing a .38 Smith & Wesson revolver. He was one of the last people to see Anna alive. Two years later, he committed suicide. However, police ruled him and the "drug angle" out.
Greg was briefly a mercenary in Rhodesia and injured his leg there. He apparently left because of his injury and because he was not allowed to take the money he made out of the country. He was also a member of a radical right-wing organization called “The Committee of Ten Million”. He was apparently a survivalist and, according to his ex-wife, was preparing for "Armageddon." He had a hidden supply of survival foods, weapons, and explosives in the duplex; they were not found there when the building was searched. He had talked about going to South America to make money flying airplanes to "fight the spread of communism." Authorities feel he may be hiding out in some isolated, rural area, possibly in Texas or New Mexico. They also believe he may have fled the country to Central America. He is believed to be armed and dangerous.
Extra Notes:

  • This case first aired on the October 18, 1989 episode; it was updated on the April 28, 1993 episode.
  • It was also featured on America’s Most Wanted.
  • It was one of the rare segments where a photograph of the victim was not shown (the one above is from a newspaper article).
  • It was also a rare one in that none of Anna's friends or relatives (outside of Lyons) were interviewed.
  • Greg Webb is not to be confused with Donald Eugene Webb.
  • Some sources state that Anna moved to Lyons in August 1986, and that she was shot three times.
  • Greg was portrayed by professional actor Cork Ramer.
GregWebb

Greg after his arrest

Results: Captured. When this story was re-aired on Lifetime on February 17, 1993, John Brereton, an alert viewer in Orlando, Florida, recognized Greg as his coworker, “Gregory James ‘Jim’ Webber”, a construction worker who installed underground cable and pipe. John says that when Greg’s picture was shown, he immediately recognized the similarities between the picture and "Jim". Based on that and the similar name, John was certain that “Jim” and Greg were the same person. He immediately called the Nebraska State Patrol.
Florida police faxed photographs of the driver’s license issued to “Jim” to Investigator Krieger. Once he saw the photographs, he knew that the man was actually Greg. On February 23, Greg was arrested without resistance at an offsite construction site in Holly Hill, Florida, near Daytona Beach. He had been living nearby in the small town of Osteen since March 1987. He had altered his appearance by shaving his mustache, growing a beard, and changing his hairstyle. When arrested, he owned no vehicles, bank accounts, or property; in fact, he only had $153 to his name. On February 27, he was returned to Nebraska to stand trial on a charge of first-degree murder in Anna’s case.
Greg told investigators where he had been while on the run. He said that he spent a few months in Belize, Honduras, Guatemala, and Nicaragua. When he was unable to find work, he returned to the United States through Mexico and Arizona. After that, he made his way to Florida, where he remained until his arrest. He said he planned to move back to Central America at some point, but decided to stay in Florida when he fell in love with a woman he met there. She had no idea he was a fugitive.
At a pre-trial hearing, it was revealed that Greg had told another police chief that early on the morning of December 16, 1986, he awoke to find Anna's body on his kitchen floor. When he realized she had been shot, he checked his .38 caliber revolver and discovered two spent cartridges in it. He decided he needed to make it look like she disappeared, so he stripped her body, wrapped it in a blanket, and put it in the trunk of his car. As he drove north, he noticed he had blood on his neck and hands, which he was unable to wipe off. He then decided to drop her body off in the field.
At the hearing, Greg confirmed the story he had told to the other chief. He claimed that he had a drinking problem at the time, and that he and Anna had been drinking heavily the night of her death. However, he said he had no recollection of her death itself. The last thing he apparently remembered was "passing out" in bed. In March 1994, he pleaded no contest to manslaughter and guilty to tampering with evidence. Around the same time, he married the woman he met in Florida.
On May 5, 1994, Greg was given a sentence of eight to nineteen years in prison. After his sentencing, he maintained his innocence, suggesting that a former girlfriend wandered into his apartment and killed Anna in a fit of "jealous rage." On August 22, 2002, he was released on parole after serving eight years. His and Anna's former apartment building was demolished in 2008.
Sadly, in 1991, Anna's mother, Geraldine, passed away without ever seeing Greg apprehended. In 2017, Investigator Krieger passed away.
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