Donald Webb died Dec. 30, 1999, his widow told investigators. Lillian Webb knew the exact day — and time — despite the passing of 17½ years.

“Nine thirty-five p.m.” said Trooper Max DeLuca, criminal investigation assessment officer at the Butler state police barracks, noting the time when Lillian found her husband, “dead in bed.”

She apparently wasted no time moving to fulfill Webb's dying wish — burial in the couple's backyard.

“She said she just went in the back and started digging,” DeLuca recounted.

She acknowledged it wasn't easy, especially for someone in her 60s. The season only heightened the challenge.

“It was winter and starting the hole was very tough,” DeLuca said. “The ground was frozen. She said it took her three weeks.”

Lillian, described by investigators as tough beyond her years, claimed she got no help.

“Is this woman capable of doing it?” DeLuca asked. “If any woman is, it's her.”

Before Donald's death, she dug under the cover of night in a backyard surrounded by trees and near a shed. She kept as quiet as possible.

Neighbors reported seeing or hearing nothing suspicious during that time.

The hole was only wide enough to fit a body, and between 3½ and 4 feet deep.

Once the digging was done, and Donald passed away in bed, there was the not so simple matter of dumping the body.

“We asked how she got the body out, how she was able to move it,” DeLuca said. “She put him in a Tupperware tote, drugged that tote out and dumped him in at night.”

He described the green Tupperware container as “the largest-sized one you'd see at Wal-Mart.”

Webb's unceremonious burial outfit was a white T-shirt with the name of Lillian's employer — United Container — on the front, along with a pair of shorts and socks.

While dragging the body-laden tote down the stairs and out of the house, Lillian recalled an uneasy moment.

“She said when she was moving the body,” DeLuca said, “his eyes were open and she was worried that he was still alive.”

But having plopped her dead husband in the grave, Lillian wasn't finished.

“She covered him in lime,” the trooper said. “We asked her how she knew to do it and she said, 'Someone told me that would help to keep the smell away.'”

Next she placed large rocks on top of the body before back filling the hole with dirt.

She told investigators that she never had any close calls over someone or some animal discovering the hidden remains.

Authorities didn't know if Lillian ever regarded the crude burial site as anything more than a serviceable hole in the ground.

Police would later find a bench nearby.

“Maybe she would sit on the bench (at the makeshift grave site),” DeLuca said. “Or maybe she just thew an old bench there.”

Police said Lillian never got rid of that large, green Tupperware container. Police eventually recovered it as part of their investigation.

“It was still in the garage,” DeLuca said. “There was stuff in it. Miscellaneous stuff you would store in your garage.”