Was Patricia Webb Murdered Because She Was A Narcotics Informant Or Was She Murdered By A Serial Killer?

Patricia Carol Webb

She was popular, beautiful, considerate, loving responsible and trustworthy with a restless spirit. She was very involved with needlework, ceramics and crafts. Patricia Webb loved to roller skate and often took her folks with her to the rink just north of 48th and O streets.

Patricia was born on July 2nd, 1949 in Burnwell, Kanawha County, West Virginia. She born to Robert "Bob" Webb's brother. 

She was adopted by Bob and his wife Joan Webb after Patricia's birth mother died when she was 4 years old.

Patricia grew up in south-central Lincoln, Nebraska in a modest white ranch with a Cornhusker-red door. She attended Calvert Elementary School and Pound Junior High. In July of 1967, Patricia was chosen "Miss Nebraska" at the North Central Regional Amateur Roller-Skating championship in Kansas City. She later won a silver bar representing Nebraska at the national championships in Lincoln. 

Patricia graduated from Southeast High School in 1968. After her graduation, Patricia married in October wearing a gown of satin with a high-rise bodice and double lace ruffle. A satin pillbox held her veil, and she carried Tropicana roses centered with a single orchid. Patricia and her husband  separated less than a year later. In April of 1970 they were divorced and the court restored her maiden name. Patricia had difficulty deciding what she wanted to do in life. She tried attending the University of Nebraska twice before deciding that wasn't for her.

In 1974, 24-year-old Patricia was a new employee of the Adult Book and Cinema Store. She disappeared overnight on April 18th, along with 51 bondage-themed adult magazines, a calculator and $30. A cord leading to an extension from a pay phone had been cut and the shop door left unlocked.

On April 20th, Oscar Fiene went to feed cattle on a vacant farm he owned east of Hallam and spotted a blue jacket sleeve and patch of thigh barely visible under a haystack.

Patricia’s bullet-riddled body was nude under the hay, except for a quilted jacket, one of 143 extra-large jackets distributed by a feed mill and given to customers or sold to employees. Patricia had a piece of tape over her mouth. She had been dead for at least 12 hours.

The Adult Cinema and Book Store had been open for two years. In the early 70's the idea of being able to buy pornography and take it home was new. When the Adult Book and Cinema at 140 S. 11th St. opened, the town was shocked. Everyone thought that the Mafia ran such stores, along with gambling, drugs and prostitution. So when the body of the pretty young clerk turned up full of lead, people began wondering if the Mafia knocked her off.

Patricia's case was being handled as a typical homicide, until two days later.  Authorities disclosed that the state, county and local police were coordinating an around-the-clock search for the person or persons who murdered her, because she had been an informant for the narcotic division of the Nebraska State Patrol since the fall of 1973. At the time of her murder, Patricia had stopped undercover work in early 1974 and wanted to start again, but she owed $3,000 to $4,000 to finance companies and was told that she couldn't be reinstated until she got those bills straightened out.

Patricia was supposed to testify in court the day she disappeared. She also would have testified in at least one future case. Half a dozen drug cases had to be dismissed when Patricia failed to show up to testify. The cases were for small amounts of amphetamines and marijuana. The attorney at the time said that the cases were nothing big enough to make someone desperate enough to kill her.

Patricia and another undercover informant played key roles in late 1973 and early 1974, setting up 60 or 70 undercover drug buys leading to the arrests and convictions of more than two dozen people.

Police never found the .22- and .25-caliber guns that ended Patricia's life. Investigators believed the .22s were fired from a rifle, most likely a Mossberg, and the .25s from a semi-automatic handgun like a Beretta Panther 418 or Tulski Korovin.

Investigators suspected that there were two killers and that they moved the body, because little blood was found nearby.

Police never found her clothes, but her purse turned up in a ditch a mile and a half away.

Witnesses came forward to say they saw a young woman leave the store with a black man at about 1 a.m. on April 18th and get into a large, older car that looked like a boxy Cadillac or Buick and may have had another person inside.

Police developed two strong suspects, a man matching the description that witnesses gave and his partner, a white man, but they couldn't definitively connect them to the slaying.

Ottis Elwood Toole became a prime suspect in Patricia's murder. He was an American serial killer and drifter. He sometimes would also sometimes participate in the murders committed by serial killer Henry Lee Lucas. 


Toole was born on March 5, 1947, in Jackson, Florida. His father was an alcoholic and mother an abuser. Toole was sexually assaulted as a child by his elder sister, close relatives and neighbors.

Toole’s grandmother was a Satanist. She exposed young Toole to various Satanic practices and rituals, such as self-mutilation and grave robbing. She often called him as "Devil's Child".

Toole suffered from mild mental retardation and epilepsy which caused frequent grand mal seizures. He was a serial arsonist and was sexually aroused by fire. Toole often ran away from home, seeking shelter in abandoned homes.

When he was 5, Toole he was forced to have sex with his father’s friend. By the age of 10, Toole realized he was gay and had his first sexual relationship with a young boy from neighborhood at 12. He visited gay bars often and became obsessed with gay pornography. By his teen years, Toole became a male prostitute.

In 1962, Toole was 14-years-old when he committed his first murder. A travelling salesman propositioned him for sex. The incident infuriated Toole so much so that he ran over the salesman with his own car. 

Between 1966 and 1973, Toole moved to Southwestern region of America. With no job and no career aspect to fall back upon, he supported himself through prostitution and panhandling.

In 1974, Toole was living in Nebraska at the time Patricia was killed. Soon after her murder, he moved to Boulder, Colorado. While in Boulder, he was accused of  murdering 31-year old Ellen Holman. Despite being accused, Toole left Boulder and moved back to Jacksonville.

On January 14, 1976, Toole married a woman 25 years older than him. The marriage lasted three days. On the third day, upon discovering his homosexuality, she left him. Later, Toole said that he got married in attempts to hide the fact he was gay.

In 1976, is when Toole first met Henry Lee Lucas at a Jacksonville soup kitchen. The two had sexual relations. He was an accomplice to Lucas  in 108 murders.

In January 1982, when Toole was living in Jacksonville, he had a sexual relationship with George Sonnenberg.  One day they argued and Toole set the house on fire. Sonnenberg died a week later due to injuries sustained from fire.

In April 1983, Toole was arrested for an unrelated arson incident in Jacksonville. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison. Two months later, his friend Henry Lucas was arrested for unlawful possession of firearm. It was during their time in prison that the two confessed about their murder rampage.

In October 1983, Toole confessed that he had kidnapped, raped and brutally murdered 6-year old Adam Walsh in 1981.

In April 1984, Toole was found guilty of first degree murder and was sentenced to death. Same year, he was convicted of the murder of a 19-year-old Tallahassee, Florida woman whom he strangled to death. He received yet another death sentence but later got both the death penalties were converted to life imprisonment.

In 1984, Toole confessed of being the man behind the two unsolved northwest Florida slayings. He admitted that he had killed 18 year old David Schallart and Ada Johnson.

Toole never confessed to Patricia's murder. He died on September 15th, 1996 at Florida State Prison due to cirrhosis. Since no one from his family came to claim his body, he was buried in the Florida State Prison Cemetery.

A composite sketch of one of the men reported to have been at the adult store the night Patricia Webb was abducted and killed was put together and released. The sketch is close to that from the Marianne Mitzner case. Due to other similarities, it’s been investigated whether or not they involved the same perpetrator. 

It seems, so far anyway, that there is no concrete evidence that they are the one in the same, but i'm going to talk about Marianne and the man that killed her anyway. In my mind, he is a suspect until proven other wise.

Marianne Anderson Mitzner

She was born on November 27th, 1924 to Ralph Clarence Anderson and Mabel Eleanora High Anderson. She married  Kenneth Laurence Mitzner on February 14th, 1952.

On June 6th, 1975, Marianne was 50 years old when her son, Monte, found her in the bathroom of the Mitzner Rare Coin Shop on 6106 Havelock Avenue, which she owned with her husband. Her son ran into the street screaming his mommy had been shot.

When police arrived they concluded that a robbery. Marianne was shot 3 times in the head. One of the shots had the point of entry in the mouth of Marianne. Marianne’s hands and feet were also tied when she was found.

A suspect was immediately identified as a man last witnessed in the shop as: Caucasian male, 5’8" tall, 140 lbs, medium blonde shoulder length hair. He was said to be wearing a short-sleeved shirt and riding a dark colored motorcycle.

Quite a few rare coins and money were missing as identified by the husband.

The man identified and convicted of Marianne’s murder is Wesley Peery.  Peery, was an employee of Nebraska Wesleyan University. On the day of the murder, his supervisor, Darwin Penrod, had sent to the Action Locksmiths, which was right next door to the coin shop. Peery also had bought a gun from the lady's apartment he was living in. The gun was a RG .22 caliber revolver. It had eight lands and grooves with a right-hand twist for rifling. One of the metal fragments removed from Marianne's brain had four lands and grooves and because the fragment appeared to be half of a .22 slug.

Peery had more evidence against him. There was rare coins, that had been stolen from the coin store on the day of the murder, found in his apartment. Tags from watches stolen on the day of the murder were found in his car. The rope that Marianne had been tied up with, match that from Peery's work as well as the rag that was stuffed in her mouth.

Peery had a long disturbing past. In 1932, he was 8-years old when he set fire to his family's rental house. He started young, stealing bikes and cars, pulling a gun on a police officer in 1939. He burglarized a sorority, broke into a house, was arrested for shooting a farmer he worked for and held up a Havelock gas station. In 1956, he broke into the Lincoln Assistant Police Chief's home near 37th and J, stealing the officers gun and using it six days later to rape a woman in Sarpy County. He raped again in Ohio a year later. She was seven months pregnant. She lost her baby and was placed in a mental hospital. He served 15 years. 

Peery was sentenced to death for Marianne's murder. He died in 1988 of a heart attack. Sometime before he died, Peery told lawyers he'd killed 13 people. As far as i can find, he never said that he murdered Patricia. but he confessed to killing a woman named Nancy Parker. 

Nancy Ellen Morrison Parker

She was a graduate of Roosevelt High School at Des Moines. She attended Iowa State College. While there she was a member of the Alpha Gamma Delta sorority. Nancy graduated college in 1955, with a major in institution management. While at Iowa State College, she met a man named Darrel Parker and the two fell in love. Nancy and Darrel married in the spring of 1954.

In 1954, Darrel Parker was an Iowa State grad and was hired as Lincoln's first forester. He and Nancy moved into a city-owned house in Antelope Park at 3200 Sumner. 

Nancy had been working in research and advertising since July 1955 at Gooch Milling Co. She also appeared on KOLN-TV in the creative cookery program where she demonstrated recipes. Nancy planned her work schedule and often traveled out of town.

On December 14th,1955, Darrel had been trimming the town's Christmas tree before coming home for lunch. When he arrived he found the partially clad body of 22- year old Nancy on their bed. She had been beaten and her hands were bound with a white cotton clothesline that had been taken from the basement. Heavy brown wrapping twine had been twisted around her neck and she had been gagged with her husband’s handkerchiefs. 

Darrel called the police at 12:07 p.m. The fire department was also called. The firemen moved Nancy from the bed to the floor in a futile attempt to bring her back to life.

A doctor was then called to the scene. He surmised that Nancy hadn't been dead long, because her body was still above room temperature. An autopsy was preformed later and showed that Nancy had been raped and strangled.

The was little sign of a struggle. It appeared that Nancy was writing Christmas cards and their puppy, Rudy, might have scattered them about.

Darrel told police that Nancy had mentioned that she was going to town after breakfast dishes were done. Also, Nancy's boss had called the house since 8 a.m., but no one answered until the police picked up around noon.

The deep snow surrounding the home was checked for footprints. Police began searching for a black car which was seen parked in front of Nancy's house the morning she was murdered. They had a partial license plate number and a cast of the tire tracks. They eventually found the owner of the vehicle, Wesley Peery.

Peery, a co-worker of Parker’s who had a criminal record, was questioned because his Ford had been parked nearby that morning. But Peery said he often drove through the area taking his mother to work. After Peery passed a polygraph test, the police didn't pay him anymore attention.

Two weeks before Nancy's murder, there was an attempted burglary at their home. A window was broken and there were clothes tossed about.

Darrel was in Iowa for his wife’s funeral when he was summoned to help with the investigation. He was not told he was a suspect,but when he returned to Lincoln, he was put in a windowless room  and hooked up to a lie detector. Darrel was then questioned by John Reid, a noted Chicago criminologist and polygraph expert. At one point Reid, allegedly grasped Darrel by the chin, stroked his head “as if I were some kind of animal” and threatened he’d “fry” if he didn’t produce his wife’s missing watch. It never was found.

Reid also accused his wife of “refusing relations” and suggested she “was probably running around with another man.

Darrel claimed that his marriage with Nancy was sound. In several hours of questioning he repeatedly denied killing his wife. But, after Reid taking details from investigators and feeding them to Darrel over and over again, Darrel confessed to killing his wife. The next day, he recanted his confession, but it was too late. The investigators wouldn't look at anyone else for Nancy's murder and they wouldn't stop until they had Darrel behind bars.

Darrel maintained his innocence through the investigation, the trial, the 13 years he served at the Nebraska State Penitentiary. Peery wound up there too. He had been convicted of rape that was eventually overturned. While at the same prison, Peery taunted Darrel, saying: “Darrel, if your folks could put up money for my bond, I can lead you to the guy who killed your wife. I can tell you where the suitcases (belonging to Mrs. Parker) are." Darrel didn’t even know suitcases were missing.

In 1969, a federal appeals court ruled Darrel's confession involuntary and reversed his sentence. But the U.S. Supreme Court reversed that ruling and Darrel's case was sent back to Lancaster County for a new hearing on the confession. The prosecutor said that if Darrel would waive the hearing, the state would recommend commuting his sentence, and he could stay free on parole. Parker waived the hearing. 

In 1975, Peery was back in prison. This time he was on death row for Marianne Mitzner's murder. Having heard rumors about Peery’s possible involvement in Nancy's murder, his attorneys asked him if it was true. Peery took credit for it right away. 

Perry recalled where he parked, the snow that reached the tops of his overshoes, the shotgun he carried. He knew someone was home when he saw a car parked outside. He went to the door anyway. "I put the gun on her and I said 'this is a robbery' and she backed up into the house." 

He told the lawyers what she'd been wearing that morning. He told them she reached into her purse and gave him $10. He described the kitchen closet she opened when he told her he needed rope so he could tie her up. He was able to describe the layout of the house. He even drew a blueprint with correctly placed furniture. He described distinguishing marks on her body, from her wrist and the desk where he found the 2 books of S&H Green Stamps he took when he left. He recalled checking on her, still bound in bed, as he ransacked the home. "I don't think she was dead at this time but I knew she would be before she was found."

Peery also said he’d taken Nancy’s watch and eventually fenced it.

Peery also confessed to other murders, the whole time grinning like a jackal. His lawyers couldn't divulge anything that he had told them in confidence and so they sat on the terrible recounts of murder that he was so proud of.

It wasn't until after Peery died in 1988 in prison of a heart attack did his attorney's come forward wit the awful truth.

Darrel was pardoned in 1991, but he kept up his efforts to formally clear his name. In 2012, He finally got an apology from the state's top prosecutor and a $500,000 judgment from the state of Nebraska for his wrongful conviction.

Patricia Webb's parents both have passed on. Over the years, her case has been looked at time and time again, but it remains unsolved.

You can submit a tip about any cold case homicide by contacting the Nebraska Information Analysis Center via the Missing Persons Hotline at 877-441-5678 or by email at NEfusioncenter@nebraska.gov.