The FBI special agent who, along with troopers from the Pennsylvania and Massachusetts state police, helped find the remains of fugitive Donald Eugene Webb and solve the 1980 murder of Saxonburg Police Chief Greg Adams, presented the current Saxonburg police chief with mementos to commemorate the resolution of the 37-year-old case. Special Agent Tommy MacDonald presented Chief Joe Beachem with the framed Webb FBI wanted poster with “RESOLVED” stamped across it. MacDonald also presented the chief with a bat bearing the police and FBI logos along with “Donald Eugene Webb-fugitive.” The bat was made in Webb's hometown of Fall River, Mass. Rear, from left, are: Beau Sneddon, deputy warden at he Butler County Prison; Saxonburg Mayor Bill Gillespie; Beachem; Adams' partner Gordon Mainhart; MacDonald; Trooper Chris Birckbichler, and Brian Fox of the FBI. At front is Adams' son, Benjamin Adams, who is holding the poster.

SAXONBURG — Brothers in blue as well as those dear to murdered Saxonburg Police Chief Greg Adams gathered at the police station on Saturday to thank one another and celebrate the solving of the fugitive case after 37 years.

Tommy MacDonald, the FBI special agent on the Adams case, presented Saxonburg Police Chief Joe Beachem with a framed wanted poster featuring Donald Eugene Webb with “RESOLVED” stamped across the poster in red.

He also presented the chief with a black and gold baseball bat made in Webb's hometown of Fall River, Mass., that is stamped with the logos of the FBI, the Pennsylvania State Police and the Massachusetts State Police along with the date of Adams' murder, Dec. 4, 1980, and the date the case was solved, July 13, 2017.

The bat is also stamped with “Donald Eugene Webb-fugitive.”

Others at the small gathering included Gordon Mainhart, a former Saxonburg police officer who was Adams' partner and rode with him in the ambulance after he was shot; Pennsylvania State Police trooper Chris Birckbichler, the trooper assigned to the Adams case; and Adams' son, Benjamin Adams.

“It means an awful lot,” Mainhart said of the poster and bat. “Everyone went extremely out of their way to get this resolved.”

But Mainhart still wishes Webb could have been found alive instead of in a shallow grave beside his ex-wife's home in Dartmouth, Mass., where the woman had buried Webb as requested after he died of a stroke.

Massachusetts State Police and the FBI, during a search of the Webb home in an illegal gambling case, found a hidden room containing a cane and eventually coaxed the truth from Webb's ex-wife: that Webb had shot Adams during the traffic stop, but not before Adams broke Webb's ankle and bit off a part of his bottom lip.

It appears Webb remained inside the house since 1980, since even his closest neighbors reported that they never saw him outside.

“Webb had to hide all his life and didn't get to enjoy it, which is fine by me,” Mainhart said.

He commended the Massachusetts State Police, who took on the fugitive case as if it happened in their own back yard.

“They jumped right on board and got involved,” Mainhart said. “There was great cooperation between all agencies.”

Birckbichler said the solving of the Adams case is especially poignant to him, as he was in the car when his father, now a retired state trooper, received the call that the police chief in Saxonburg had been shot during a traffic stop.

In 2005, Birckbichler took over as the lead investigator on the Adams case, a position his father had held before his retirement.

“The first call I made was to dad,” Birckbichler recalled. “He made me promise to do my best to solve the case.”

He hung the wanted poster featuring Webb on his office wall the day he was assigned to the case 13 years ago to remind him to never stop searching for closure for Adams' family.

Birckbichler said the FBI and troopers from both states leaned on Lillian Webb until she confessed that Webb had shot Adams, 31, and that she had buried Webb on the family's property as he requested shortly before his death in 1999.

Troopers didn't have to dig very deeply to find Webb's remains, which were found beside the house.

“One of the proudest moments of my life was calling dad from (Webb's) graveside to say 'We found him,'” Birckbichler said.

Chief Beachem somberly and with gratitude accepted the poster and bat, which will hang in the Saxonburg police station.

“We're very honored by it, obviously,” Beachem said of the special agent's gifts.

He recalls being summoned to Dartmouth by troopers there, who said they might have made a major break in the search for Webb.

“A lot of us had resolved to ourselves that this case would never be solved,” Beachem said. “For (the Massachusetts and Pennsylvania state police and the FBI) to stay on it like they did was humbling as well,” Beachem said.

Benjamin Adams said he appreciates the troopers' and FBI agents' hard work as well as the gifts MacDonald brought to Saxonburg on Saturday.

“But for me, it's always going to be about the loss,” Adams said. “Dad is there one second, and the next, he's not.”

While Adams stressed that he cannot speak for his late father, he guessed what he may have said about Saturday's gathering at the Saxonburg police station.

“My dad would probably say, 'You sons of bitches get back to work,'” Adams said.