The Onion Field Murder

It was a simple traffic stop, or so thought Bakersfield, California police officers Ian Campbell and Karl Hettinger. When the events of that traffic stop had completely unfolded one of them was dead, the other disgraced.

Joseph Wambaugh, a retired Los Angeles police sergeant turned author of such books as The New Centurions, The Blue Knight and The Choirboys, was so moved by the tragic events that he wrote a novel published in 1974 called The Onion Field. In 1979 the novel was adapted into a powerful movie starring John Savage, Ted Danson and James Woods.

On the evening of March 9, 1963, officers Campbell and Hettinger were patrolling in an unmarked police car dressed in plainclothes. They were assigned to an area that had been recently hit with a rash of burglaries and robberies and the two officers were working undercover looking for any suspicious activity.

At 10 p.m. the officers spotted a 1946 Ford driving slowly, almost meticulously, down the street. It appeared to the officers that the occupants of the Ford might be scoping out locations to rob. Both occupants of the Ford were dressed in dark clothes and caps and the license plate on the car was not illuminated. It was because of this that the officers decided to pull the car over and see what the occupants were up to. Unbeknownst to them the occupants were two petty thieves with lifelong criminal histories. Greg Powell, the driver, was obviously the man in charge and one with a violent temper and uneven disposition. The passenger was Jimmy Lee Smith who was always regarded as a small time crook easily led by others with more strength and guts. Both men had been involved in a string of robberies for the purpose of purchasing drugs.

As the officers approached the vehicle, Campbell to the driver side and Hettinger to the passenger, Powell exited the vehicle putting a gun in Campbell's back. Smith exited the passenger side but it wasn't until Campbell said something that Hettinger realized something had gone very wrong. Campbell informed Hettinger that he had a gun in his back and Powell ordered Hettinger to give up his weapon. According to Hettinger, Campbell told him to do what Powell said. Reluctantly, Hettinger handed his gun over to Smith. This action has been debated for over 40 years.

Powell ordered the men into the Ford with Campbell driving and Powell sitting next to him in the passenger seat, gun pressed against Campbell's ribs. Smith sat beside Powell while Hettinger was placed on the floor in the back seat but not before Smith ordered Hettinger to hand over his money. Campbell was warned not to drive in any manner that would attract attention. Powell told the officers they would be released once they had reached a remote location where it would take time for the officers to find help. Powell also said their guns would be discarded in an area where they could eventually be retrieved. At various times during the drive Smith and Powell would whisper back and forth to each other though neither officer could here what was said.

Powell ordered Campbell to drive off the freeway onto a secluded dirt road. Smith suggested they be left tied up but Powell refuted that stating he feared they would freeze to death. For reasons never understood, Smith returned the money that Hettinger had given him. Powell then ordered Campbell to stop the car telling him that this was the spot they would be let go.

Smith would recall later that Powell had been obsessed with what was known as "The Little Lindbergh Law" which stated that it was a capital crime to harm or seek ransom for someone kidnapped. Powell had misinterpreted the law and believed a capital crime had already been committed as soon as the officers were forced into the car with them. This misinterpretation resulted in the events about to pass though many believe that with Powell's violent past and temperament the outcome likely would have been no different.

All four men exited the vehicle. Powell turned to Campbell and asked him if he had heard of the "little Lindbergh law." As Campbell replied that he had, he wiped away a tear caused by the overwhelming aroma from the onion field located just off the road where they were standing. Suddenly, and without warning, Powell raised his gun and fired one shot hitting Campbell in the mouth. Without a moment's hesitation Hettinger turned and ran for his life. As he cut into the onion field he turned and saw one of the men fire two shots at him while the other fired four more shots into Campbell. Hettinger reported seeing the light of a flashlight from the area he had escaped and then saw car headlights driving in a circular motion as if searching for something. At approximately 12:15 a.m. Hettinger found a farmhouse and roused the owner from his sleep. He called the police to report the incident with a description of the car and the defendants.

At 1:10 am highway patrolmen pulled over a car that fit the description of one that had been stolen within the hour from a farmhouse and may be involved in the homicide of a policeman. There was only one occupant in the car - Greg Powell. The officer noted that Powell had dipped his left shoulder down at the time the car was first pulled over. Upon search a 32-caliber automatic was found under the driver's seat. Powell was immediately put under arrest for carrying a concealed weapon. A further search turned up a box of ammunition, a loaded magazine and a flashlight with the name "Hettinger" printed on it.

In an interrogation at the scene Powell refused to speak to anyone except for "the big detective," who turned out to be Chief Deputy Fote. Fote and Powell sat in a police car where Powell immediately asked if he would get any breaks for talking. Fote informed Powell he wouldn't but Powell proceeded to tell how he and Smith were out looking for "possible stickup locations" when they were pulled over. Then Greg Powell proceeded to blame Jimmy Smith for everything that happened including killing Ian Campbell. Powell admitted that the officer had been "very congenial" and offered no resistance. He claimed to be so shocked by Smith's shooting Campbell that he ran at the same time as Hettinger and ended up at another farmhouse where he stole the Plymouth he was to be driving when he was arrested.

In Powell's second interrogation, this one in Chief Fote's office, Powell new statement mirrored his first. He continued to accuse Smith of firing all the shots, but added that he left his guns in the car and did not even have a weapon in his hand at the time of the killing. He stated that Smith drove after the fleeing Officer Hettinger, saying he was going to "kill that other son of a bitch." Powell sought to explain his possession of the automatic at the time of his arrest by claiming that he returned to the scene of the shooting and found the weapon on the ground where it had "possibly" fallen out of the car as Smith drove off. Powell also stated that he and Smith had bought their guns in Nevada "to commit armed robberies"; when asked if he had committed any such robberies in the Los Angeles vicinity, he admitted perpetrating three. Powell then supplied authorities with a full description of Jimmy Smith.

At 3:28 a.m. authorities repeated this interrogation for the purpose of making a tape recording. At the outset the officer asked Powell if he was aware of his "legal rights" and knew that anything he said "may be used as evidence against you at a later time," and Powell replied in the affirmative. Under the officer's questioning Powell reiterated the contents of his second statement, but in still greater detail. In explaining why he pulled a gun on Officer Campbell when they were first stopped, for example, he said that "all I could see was my parole violation" and "I just thought, 'Well, good God, here I am, I just - I'm dead,' you know." He admitted that during the subsequent kidnapping he told his victims, "We're pretty doggone hot." He denied having ever heard of the "little Lindbergh law," further denying he mentioned it just prior to the shooting. On the basis of information supplied by Officer Hettinger, Powell was accused of firing the first shot himself. Powell replied, "I can't say it was impossible for it to have been fired at the time, but I didn't fire it," and again accused Smith of firing all the shots. After some questioning by a second detective, the interrogation ended at 4:17 a.m.

Ian Campbell's autopsy was completed by dawn and confirmed that he had been shot a total of five times, once in the mouth and four times in the chest. It was determined that the first shot to the mouth would not have killed him based on where the bullet lodged in his palate. One of the shots to the chest was the fatal one. It was also determined that he had been shot with two different guns. When presented with this Powell continued to adamantly deny shooting Campbell. He sought to bolster his own belief in what he was saying by adding "I know what the score is. I know that I've had it completely and totally." Campbell left a wife and two small children.

At 10:50 p.m. the night after the murder Jimmy Smith was arrested without incident in a rooming house he was staying at in Bakersfield. Smith led them to an adjacent room to a jacket on the bed where a gun was found. Smith told arresting officers the exact opposite of what Powell had said. It was Powell, Smith confessed, that shot Campbell. Powell handed a gun to Smith and ordered him to chase Hettinger. Smith claimed he was so frightened that he first pursued Hettinger and then just kept on running.

At 3:30 a.m. Smith was interrogated for the first time at police headquarters. Smith reiterated in greater detail the story he had told when first arrested. He continued to insist that Powell fired "all the shots" but admitted he didn't run off when he was supposed to be chasing Hettinger. He claimed to be so petrified that he didn't move and then volunteered to get in the car to pursue Hettinger but instead drive off, leaving Powell to fend for himself. When informed that Powell was also claimed not have fired a single shot Smith replied, "Well, it don't make any difference because we are both going to get gassed anyway."

At 10:40 a.m., March 12th, Powell was informed that Jimmy Smith had been arrested and was in the very same building at that moment. Powell replied, "Well, as long as you have got Jimmy Smith I may as well tell you that I popped off the first cap and Jimmy popped the caps into the officer after he was down." This extremely damaging admission, of course, was contrary to his repeated prior claims of nonparticipation in the shooting. Five minutes later the interrogation was resumed with a tape recorder, and Powell was asked to tell again how the shooting occurred. He replied, "Well, everything was just exactly like I stated it before except for one thing: When I walked around back of the car and walked up to Jimmy, I don't know exactly how it happened, but my gun went off and I hit the officer and he went down, and he was, when he went down, he laid there, but he was still moving, and the minute it happened I knew, well, there's nothing else to do but go ahead and try to get the other one too, you know, and so I started shooting at the other one, and he was running, and I ran off just about even with the other officer, and while I was shooting at him Jimmy said, 'Hey, this son of a bitch is still alive,' and started popping caps into him." Under further questioning he amplified this statement and repeated it to a police captain, saying that after the shooting of Officer Campbell "we both realized, you know, that it was all over with and we hoped ... to gain a little time by getting the other officer, too"; he admitted that by the phrase "getting the other officer" he meant finding and killing him.

At this point Smith was brought into the room face to face with Powell for the first time since Ian Campbell's murder. Powell repeated the statement he had just given and then Hettinger was brought into the room. Hettinger identified Powell as the man who fired the first shot and said he believed, though he couldn't be certain, that Smith fired the other four. When asked how it came to be that Campbell was shot four more times Smith replied, "This sounds weak, but I don't know."

At 7 a.m., March 13th, Smith and Powell were brought together in the interrogation room to be shown a transcript of their taped interrogations. They were asked if any changes or corrections needed to be made. Smith admitted his memory was hazy and that he had lied before and apologized to investigators. He then stated that he now remembered Powell firing the shots into Campbell when he was on the ground, which drew a loud, angry denial from Powell. Smith did admit to having fired a gun once when Hettinger was fleeing.

After years of delayed motions, appeals and lengthy trials, Greg Powell and Jimmy Lee Smith were found guilty and sentenced to death in 1967. In the early 1970's the death penalty was abolished and their sentences were commuted to life. In 1982 Smith was paroled but would return to prison twice for violating parole with drug charges. There have been Internet reports that Smith was returned to prison in 2005 but according to Joseph Wambaugh, on the DVD for the movie, Smith died in prison in 1999. Today Powell remains in prison having had his parole bids rejected several times. At each parole hearing the family of Ian Campbell appear and speak on his behalf.

Sadly the life of Karl Hettinger would never again be the same after the tragic events in the onion field. Branded a coward by his superiors for handing over his gun, Hettinger fell into deep depressions, turned to alcohol and became suicidal no doubt aided by the fact that he would have to rehash the events of that evening almost a dozen times in court. The emotional trauma contributed to Hettinger turning to small, petty thefts in which he was eventually caught. Doctors would relate that these acts were Hettinger's "cry for help." Hettinger was eventually fired from the police force and his actions on the night of the murder are now used in police training videos to demonstrate what not to do when pulling over a vehicle. While many policemen feel Hettinger should never have given up his gun and, in doing so, proved he was cowardly, others believe that Hettinger had no choice in the matter and had to give up his gun in the hopes of saving his partner's life. For the rest of his days as a policeman Hettinger was looked down upon and scorned. Hettinger moved from job to job but was never able to overcome his alcohol problems. His liver failed and he died in 1994. The onion field had claimed its final victim.

Lastly, it has never been proven who shot the four fatal bullets into Ian Campbell. Hettinger could never conclusively prove it but always believed it was Smith. Both Powell and Smith blamed the other but Joseph Wambaugh firmly believes it was Smith who fired the shots. Wambaugh believes that Smith blocked it out believing he was incapable of such a violent, heinous act whereas Powell's demeanor suggested he was capable.

It didn't matter then and it doesn't matter now who killed Ian Campbell. All that matters is that two officers lost their lives to the hands of petty thieves. One died almost instantly while the other died slowly for 31 years.