Posted on 04/07/2007 8:51:16 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
Jimmy Lee Smith, the notorious, lifelong criminal whose role in the 1963 kidnapping and killing of a police officer inspired Joseph Wambaugh's true-life crime novel "The Onion Field," has died in jail at age 76, a state prisons official said Saturday.
Smith died Friday at the Pitchess Detention Center in Castaic, where he was being held for failing to report to a parole officer, said Bill Sessa, a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokesman.
The cause of death was under investigation, according to the county coroner's office, although foul play was not suspected.
Smith was once sentenced to death for the killing of Officer Ian Campbell, and his parole after 19 years in prison prompted a wave of public outrage when he was released in 1982.
His crimes were documented in 1973's "The Onion Field" and the 1979 film of the same name, both written by Wambaugh, a former Los Angeles police officer himself.
Smith, who was on parole when he killed Campbell, spent the last 25 years of his life in and out of prison, usually for drug crimes.
"He was a hype and murderer and we let him out of prison," former Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates told the Los Angeles Times on Saturday. "He should have gone to his death in the gas chamber."
He and Gregory Powell were convicted of abducting Campbell and his partner, Officer Karl Hettinger, from a Hollywood street on March 6, 1963, after the officers stopped their car for an illegal U-turn.
After Powell disarmed the pair by pulling a gun on Campbell and threatening to kill him, he and Smith drove them to an onion field near Bakersfield.
There, Powell shot Campbell in the face. Hettinger bolted, running four miles to the safety of a farmhouse.
Powell was arrested that night and Smith the next day.
The two were originally sentenced to death but the sentences were reduced to life in prison after the California Supreme Court briefly overturned the state's death penalty in the 1970s.
Powell, who remains in prison, has been denied parole several times.
Months after he was paroled in 1982, Smith was returned to prison for failing a drug test.
Paroled again, he was arrested soon after for selling heroin.
In subsequent years he would be arrested again and again on various charges.
The fact that this waste of skin was paroled is proof positive that California is one sick place.
One can only hope it was painful and lonely.
I remember watching the movie shortly after it came out. James Woods as Powell and John Savage as the cop were great. It was a pretty chilling movie for the day.
In late April 1969, a few weeks after I was hired as a L.A. County Deputy Sheriff, I was assigned to guard the cell block that powell and smith were in while appealing their death penalty (prior to attending the Sheriff’s academy).
Their attorney convinced the judge to allow them to have a typewriter in their cell to help in their appeal. The Attorney delivered the typewriter to the jail for them. An astute Deputy at the front of the jail checked the typewritern closely and saved MY life. The typewriter had a loaded gun concealed within. Nothing happened to their attorney. No charges filed by law enforcement, the court or the state bar. That was the highpoint in my opinion of attorneys, judges and the “judicial system”. I’m glad this ass-hole died. Now the other one sometime soon. Semper Fi
The image that sticks in my head is of Ted Danson as the late Det. Campbell, a young eccentric guy who annoyed everyone by playing the bagpipes. I suppose I should see that again; it’s been a long time.
That’s amazing. Thank God that the deputy had enough wisdom to check out the typewriter.
I assume that's prior to you attending the sheriff's academy. If Powell and Smith were being considered for the sheriff's academy, then SoCal is even more f'ed up than I ever imagined.
I had forgotten that Danson was in that movie. I just looked it up on IMDB.com and now remember that Christoper Lloyd was also in it. Good cast.
I thought under no circumstances was parole ever to offered to a cop killer. how did this guy manage it?
Was the attorney REALLY well connected?
I can tell you that the Georgia Bar would have shown him no mercy. He would have been in a cell with his client faster than you can say, "Lynne Stewart".
Those two should have never been arrested. They should have been exterminated like the cockroaches they were.
” I’m glad this ass-hole died. Now the other one sometime soon. Semper Fi”
Bump!
As a matter of fact. It was Gov. “moonbeam” brown who appointed “rose byrd” to the supreme court and she overturned the death penalty. Prior to being appointed to the supreme court she led a defense group raising money to defend an anal orifice cop killer’s defense. This particular cop killer was an ethnic minority member who went around to his friends to say goodbye on new years eve.
He then went to a “business” in West hollywierd called the “sexual cafeteria”, where he caused a ruccess while armed with a large screwdriver. Four deputies showed up, and tried to tackle him. During the melee, he obtained the gun from Mike Grimes holser and began blasting away, killing one deputy, critically wounding Dep. John Day, and wounding Gene Leshensky. Mike got control of his weapon again, but by then it was out of ammo so he just beat the guy unconcious and by then there were other cops there so he couldn’t reload and do him.
I don’t remember the name of the deputy killed, but I worked with the others. John Day was medically retired from his wounds.
I was also the jailer (after the academy) to tex watson and charlie during their initial arrests, and hauled the manson girls {adkins,krenwinkle,and the other one) to court during the trial. To go to work in the Hall of Justice jail, I had to get by “squeaky) and the others. Semper Fi
The dept. had the policy of putting new hires to work in custody settings while awaiting the start of academy classes. One of the D.I.s in my class was the fool that is now the sheriff, Lee Baca. I was not impressed with him back then and less now.
Good bye and good riddance.
Yes, Manson and the others all were sentenced to Death but it was overturned.
Leslie Van Houten is still trying to get parolled and I hope she never makes it.
Thanks for relating your personal story! That is one of the reasons I love FreeRepublic! No matter what the story is, someone out there has some connection to it! Stuff you don’t get anywhere else! Thanks, again.
jeeez!
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