On December 4, 1980, 31-year-old Saxonburg Police Chief Gregory Blaise Adams was killed after stopping a motorist in the parking lot of an Agway Feed Store. Adams, a nine-year law enforcement veteran and U.S. Marine Corps veteran, had pursued a driver who sped past a stop sign and used his patrol car to block the vehicle’s exit. When he asked for identification the driver produced fraudulent papers and then opened fire. Adams was struck twice in the chest, returned fire and engaged in a violent struggle during which he was disarmed, pistol-whipped with his own service weapon and left mortally wounded.

Investigators identified the suspect as career criminal Donald Eugene Webb, believed to have been in Saxonburg casing a jewelry store. Webb disappeared after the attack; his getaway car was found two weeks later in Warwick, Rhode Island, and he was placed on the FBI Ten Most Wanted list in 1981. Decades later, new information led investigators to a hidden room in the Massachusetts home of Webb’s ex-wife, Lillian, where a cane was recovered consistent with reports that Webb suffered a leg injury in the struggle. Lillian Webb later said Webb died of a stroke around 1999 and led authorities to remains that were identified as Donald Eugene Webb.