This marker in Saxonburg memorializes Gregory Adams, the borough police chief who was shot and killed during a 1980 traffic stop.

It was a real-life murder mystery without a satisfying resolution.

It was one of the most frustrating cases in Western Pennsylvania law enforcement history stretching nearly 50 years from its start to its anticlimactic finish.

After Saxonburg Police Chief Gregory Adams was gunned down while making a traffic stop on Dec. 4, 1980, investigators from the Pennsylvania State Police soon had a suspect, Donald Eugene Webb, a career criminal based in New Bedford, Mass.

What they wouldn't have, despite working the case for decades, was an arrest or even a sighting of Webb. It was if he'd vanished like a ghost.

“The Ghost” is what Maureen Boyle titled the book she wrote about the case, which was published earlier this year.Boyle will be at the South Butler Community Library, 240 W. Main St., Saxonburg, at 1 p.m. July 17 to discuss the case, give readings from “The Ghost,” answer questions and sign copies of her book.Library Director Michelle Lesniak said those wishing to attend or wanting to pre-order a copy of Boyle's book should call the library at 724-352-4810.This will make Boyle's third trip to Saxonburg, said the former police reporter who's now the journalism program director at Stonehill College in Easton, Mass.In researching “The Ghost,” Boyle said she made two week-long trips to Saxonburg in 2018 and 2019. “None of us went anywhere in 2020,”she said.She said the Greg Adams murder and its ties to New England kindled her reporter's instincts.“I've worked for newspapers for more years than I would care to admit in Bridgeport, Conn., New Bedford and Brockton, south of Boston,” said Boyle. “I was a police reporter covering cops and courts.”Initially, she thought of using the case as the basis for a fictional work, but she said, “I've always done things that are more journalistic. I will do it as a true-crime book.”It took her two years to research and write the book beginning at the end of 2018.“The process I have is I write as I go along. I see holes in the story,” said Boyle. “It took two years to write; I was adding more things as I went along.“I got some FBI files toward the end that had some interesting details about the case,” she said.What stands out in the book is the contrast between Saxonburg, a semi-rural small town with a population of 1,300 in 1980 and the trail of clues that led to New Bedford, a former whaling center in Massachusetts with a population of 95,072.The contrast between the two men at the center of the book was even more pronounced.<b> A portion of this story is shared with you as a digital media exclusive. To read the full story and support our local, independent newsroom, please subscribe online or pick up Sunday's print copy of the Butler Eagle.

Maureen Boyle, director of the journalism program at Stonehill College in Easton, Mass., took two years to research and write her book, “The Ghost.”