The Onion Field

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This article is about Joseph Wambaugh's book, and the events it describes. For the film adaptation, see The Onion Field (film).


The Onion Field is a 1973 nonfiction book by Joseph Wambaugh, a sergeant for the Los Angeles Police Department, regarding the kidnapping of two plainclothes LAPD officers by a pair of criminals during a traffic stop, and the murder (an hour or so later) of one of those officers, Ian James Campbell.

On March 9, 1963, LAPD officers Campbell and Karl Hettinger pulled over a car for no rear license plate light on a Hollywood street.[1] The car contained two men, Jimmy Lee Smith (aka "Jimmy Youngblood") and Gregory Ulas Powell, fresh from a string of robberies. Powell, who was driving, pulled a gun on Campbell and forced Hettinger to give up his gun to Smith. The two officers were then forced into Powell's car and driven to an onion field around Bakersfield where Campbell was fatally shot. Hettinger was able to escape, running nearly four miles to reach a farmhouse.[1] The killing occurred primarily because Powell assumed that the kidnapping of the officers alone constituted a capital crime under the state's Little Lindbergh Law. However, Powell's interpretation was incorrect, as under the Little Lindbergh Law kidnapping becomes a capital crime only if the victims are harmed or the kidnappers try to ransom them.

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[edit] Aftermath

Powell was arrested on the night of the murder. The following day, Smith was apprehended as well. The lead LAPD investigator on the case was Sergeant Pierce Brooks. Both suspects, convicted of murder and sentenced to death, ultimately received life-imprisonment sentences following a court decision that temporarily abolished executions in California.

Though Hettinger was able to escape, he was scorned by his fellow officers. Eventually a police training video was made using his experience as example of what not to do when stopping and approaching a vehicle. Hettinger suffered severe emotional trauma as a result, and people who knew him said he was never the same afterwards. He was forced to resign from the LAPD in 1966 after committing some acts of petty shoplifting and developing a drinking problem. Later in life, Hettinger was appointed to serve as a Kern County supervisor; he died of a liver disease in 1994 at the age of 59. The book details these events, as well as the lengthy trials and continual appeals of the two criminals.

Powell remains incarcerated; his most recent parole-board hearing was in January 2007. However, Smith was initially released in 1982, but returned to prison several times on drug-related parole violations. In December 2006, he failed to report to his parole officer and a warrant was issued for his arrest. In February 2007, a man matching Smith's description was detained by police in Los Angeles' Skid Row area and eventually identified as Smith. He was arrested and charged with violating his parole, and sent to the Pitchess Detention Center in Castaic, California. On April 7, 2007, while in that facility, he died of an apparent heart attack at age 76.[2]

[edit] Film adaptation

The book was adapted into an eponymous 1979 film directed by Harold Becker. It starred John Savage, James Woods, Franklyn Seales and Ted Danson.[3]

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b 'Onion Field' killer dead at 76. Retrieved on 2007-04-08.
  2. ^ Quinones, Sam (April 7, 2007). Jimmy Lee Smith, infamous 'Onion Field' cop killer, dead at 76. Los Angeles Times.
  3. ^ The Onion Field at the Internet Movie Database.

[edit] External links