2017
journalstar.com
''A new employee of the Adult Book and Cinema Store disappeared overnight April 18, 1974, 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.
Two and a half days later, 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 Carol Webb’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. Webb, 24, had a piece of tape over her mouth.''
''The 1972 opening of the Adult Book and Cinema at 140 S. 11th St. shocked Lincoln. Before that, adults could catch a skin flick at the Embassy Theater at 17th and O streets, but the idea of being able to buy *advertiser censored* and take it home was new.
Before the store opened, police seized a truck full of *advertiser censored* destined for its shelves and arrested the driver.
Manager Jerry Mabie won a legal reprieve and opened the store and another shop at 27th and Holdrege streets that summer, but he faced police raids and more charges ranging from distribution of obscene literature to lack of a permit for coin-operated movie machines.
“Everybody in that era kind of thought anything having to do with *advertiser censored* was probably organized crime,” Barksdale said.'
Police never found the .22- and .25-caliber guns that put at least six bullets in Webb's head and four in her body.
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.''
''They developed three main scenarios.
* Webb was the victim of a robbery or burglary.
* The killer was a sexual psychopath.
* The murder was an execution, possibly related to her work as an informant.
Police investigated possible connections to serial killers and rapists across the country. But the evidence didn’t seem to fit, Barksdale said. Her body wasn’t abused or mutilated, and there was no sign of rape.''
Epilogue: 38 years later, Patricia Webb death still a mystery
Thirty-eight years after a man found her body on a farm west of Hallam, Patricia Webb's death remains one of Lincoln’s greatest murder mysteries.
''A new employee of the Adult Book and Cinema Store disappeared overnight April 18, 1974, 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.
Two and a half days later, 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 Carol Webb’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. Webb, 24, had a piece of tape over her mouth.''
''The 1972 opening of the Adult Book and Cinema at 140 S. 11th St. shocked Lincoln. Before that, adults could catch a skin flick at the Embassy Theater at 17th and O streets, but the idea of being able to buy *advertiser censored* and take it home was new.
Before the store opened, police seized a truck full of *advertiser censored* destined for its shelves and arrested the driver.
Manager Jerry Mabie won a legal reprieve and opened the store and another shop at 27th and Holdrege streets that summer, but he faced police raids and more charges ranging from distribution of obscene literature to lack of a permit for coin-operated movie machines.
“Everybody in that era kind of thought anything having to do with *advertiser censored* was probably organized crime,” Barksdale said.'
Police never found the .22- and .25-caliber guns that put at least six bullets in Webb's head and four in her body.
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.''
''They developed three main scenarios.
* Webb was the victim of a robbery or burglary.
* The killer was a sexual psychopath.
* The murder was an execution, possibly related to her work as an informant.
Police investigated possible connections to serial killers and rapists across the country. But the evidence didn’t seem to fit, Barksdale said. Her body wasn’t abused or mutilated, and there was no sign of rape.''
