Posted on 02/19/2007 9:46:05 AM PST by NormsRevenge
One of two men convicted of the "Onion Field" kidnap.m.urder of a police officer in 1963 has violated parole and is being sought by authorities.
Jimmy Lee Smith, 76, has been at large since Dec. 22, said California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokesman Jonathan Parsley.
Although Parsley couldn't specify what parole condition was violated, but Smith went back to prison in June 2005 after admitting that he had violated parole by possessing heroin.
Smith and Gregory Powell were convicted of abducting two Los Angeles policemen from a Hollywood street on March 6, 1963. The officers were driven 75 miles to an onion field south of Bakersfield where Powell shot Officer Ian Campbell to death and fired at Officer Karl Hettinger as he fled.
The case was the subject of 1973 best-selling novel, "The Onion Field" by Joseph Wambaugh, which was turned into a movie in 1979.
Smith and Powell were sent to death row but their sentences were commuted to life in prison in 1972 when the California Supreme Court overturned the state death penalty. Smith was first paroled in 1982. He has since been arrested numerous times, mostly on drug-related charges.
Why was he even paroled????
Paroled is the problem here.
Next question: what happened to Powell? Is he still safely locked up, or have they let him out too?
A surprisingly quick dodderer. Souped-up motorized wheelchair maybe?
Nope.
No death penalty is the problem.
Apparently the best qualified man to comment on the onion field case. Perhaps they need to get Sheriff Pepper on his trail, and take him in front of Judge Bean when they find him.
He's in his 70's and still doing heroin, so who knows
One of the big reasons for paroling elderly prisoners is to get them off budget for the prison system.
He should have been executed of course. People sat down, looked at his case, and let him loose.
This sorry sack of garbage should have been gassed 45 years ago.
So, let him do the heroin and kill himself.
'Onion Field' killer Gregory Powell denied parole in Calif.
January 10, 2007
LOS ANGELES – One of two men convicted in the "Onion Field" kidnap-murder of a police officer was denied parole Wednesday from state prison. A panel from the state Board of Parole Hearings issued a two-year denial to Powell, said Sandi Gibbons, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County district attorney's office.
Powell, 83, has repeatedly been denied parole ever since he and Jimmy Smith were convicted in the March 1963 murder of Los Angeles police officer Ian Campbell in an onion field near Bakersfield.
[snip]
What I wouldn't give to capture this turd.
Anybody here NOT read most of Wambaugh's books? I'm Po-Po and I have to say they are all very good.
Just goes to show, a Life Sentence does not always mean a life sentence.
The guy is 76. I would start the search at all Bingo parlors.
I wonder if he's not already dead from an OD (a 70 year old junkie?) and you may find him in the course of your diving activities . . .
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