Gregory Webb

 

In 1986 Gregory Webb was the chief of police in the small town of Lyons Nebraska some sixty miles from Omaha. It seems though that despite most everyone believing he was a good police officer it seems that few people knew him very well on a personal level.

In October of 1986 a woman named Anna Anton moved to Lyons. The building that Gregory lived in apparently was a house with two apartments in it. Gregory lived on the top floor and Anna moved into the apartment on the bottom floor. Unlike Gregory, people knew Anna on a personal level, well at least they believed they did.

Anna was thirty-four years old. Ten years prior to moving to Lyons Anna had been in a car accident and had severely injured her leg. It had left her disabled and using a cane for the remainder of her life. Anna appeared to be a fairly social person who was very much involved in her faith. She soon had many friends in the area who would help her to get places as well as bring her groceries and things. She became particularly close to a woman named Shirley Edgecomb.

Anna told Shirley that she had come to Lyons after testifying against her ex-husband in court. She said that he had been involved in a large drug ring and she had moved to get away from the area. Many speculated she may have even been in the witness protection program. At some point she gave Shirley an envelope and told her to open it and call the number inside if something ever happened to her.

Anna also told Shirley that she had picked the apartment because she felt safer knowing that the chief of police lived above her.

On December 16^th Shirley went to Anna's house to take her groceries. When she got there she found the back door locked, which was something that was odd. She knocked but did not receive an answer. She tried a few more times throughout the day without receiving an answer. Finally she went to the upstairs apartment and talked to Gregory Webb. Gregory apparently had a key to Anna's home but it was unclear as to why. It is possible that he owned the home but I cannot confirm that. So, Gregory and Shirley went inside Anna's home but she was not there. Gregory told Shirley that he would call the numbers in her address book and ask if anyone had heard from her. He later told Shirley that she was not at any of those places and no one had heard from her.

It appears that it was at this point Shirley gave the police the envelope that Anna had given her but it seems if she did so that it would have been given to Gregory Webb considering he was the local chief of police. I was not able to determine what was inside the envelope but as you will see later it does not appear that it would really matter. It is unclear whether there was any sort of real investigation or search made for Anna in the days that she became missing.

Twelve days after Anna disappeared her body was found about twenty miles north of Lyons. Some of my research said she was shot three times while another indicated she was shot twice, both in the torso with a .38 caliber weapon. Her throat had also been slashed. At that point, whether there was an open case or not, the Nebraska State Police were in charge of the investigation because of the area in which her body had been found. The state police met with the local law enforcement, including Gregory Webb, first to see if they had information but also to question Gregory since they learned he lived above Anna. Initially he denied knowing much about Anna or being intimate with her but then he admitted that they had been the first night she moved in.

Two days after Anna's body was found law enforcement went into her apartment to search. While there they decided to do a test with luminol and found a blood trail inside her home and leading out of her straight upstairs to Gregory's apartment. When they first started the tests Gregory was in his apartment but at some point he left. The following day he took $3,000 from his bank account and disappeared.

Five days after finding the blood trail leading to Gregory's apartment a search warrant was finally obtained and law enforcement went into his apartment. They found blood on a mop in his closet and also on a military style jacket. Seeing as DNA was not a thing in 1986 they could only do blood typing. The blood found in Gregory's apartment was the same type as Anna's.

In the meantime law enforcement officers were finding out interesting things about Anna. They learned that she lived two separate lives. One was as a quiet, religious woman who did not drink there in the town of Lyons and the other was as a “barfly” in a nearby town. They learned that her story about her ex-husband was not true. There was an ex-husband, but he was not in prison or involved with drugs. They had also discovered that despite her claim to those in Lyons to not consume alcohol that toxicology said her blood/alcohol level was .22. Things were not adding up.

Investigators would learn that Anna Anton and Gregory Webb had actually met at a bar. They apparently started a relationship and when Anna told him she was looking for a place to live he mentioned the apartment under him. Part of the problem was that Gregory was obviously dating someone else, or other, the implication was not clear. It was said that Anna had mentioned to people hearing Gregory having sex with a woman upstairs.

In the meantime Gregory was gone and no one knew where he was. On January 6, 1987 a warrant for his arrest on charges of first degree murder was issued. The case was shown on the television show Unsolved Mysteries but it was a repeat episode in 1993 where investigators got their best lead and found their man. A man named John Brereton recognized Gregory Webb as Jim Webber a friend living in Holly Hills Florida. Gregory had been living in the area and working in the construction business.

Gregory was brought back to Nebraska but would eventually plead no contest to charges of manslaughter and tampering with evidence. He received a sentence of 7-18 years and would be released in August of 2002. His attorney would say that Gregory would claim that all he knew was that he and Anna had drank heavily during the night and then when he woke up she was dead on his floor. In my opinion this does not add up, but then again he did not need it to. He got a deal that brought his charges down from first degree murder to manslaughter and served nine years in prison. I believe the blood trail and the evidence said a lot more than Gregory would ever say. I am sure there are those who believe he likely got special treatment because he had been in law enforcement and I am not sure that I could disagree with them. I am sure after serving his time Gregory likely “disappeared” once again and will take the real story to his grave.