The State : Gregory Powell Denied Parole

Gregory Powell, the so-called “Onion Field” killer, was denied parole on grounds he has refused to cooperate with psychologists and has learned no job skills during more than two decades in prison. Powell and Jimmy Lee Smith, who has since been paroled, were convicted of the March, 1963, shooting death of Los Angeles Police Officer Ian Campbell, who was abducted with his partner, Karl Hettinger, from a Hollywood street and taken to an onion field near Bakersfield. Campbell was shot five times in the chest at point-blank range. Hettinger escaped death by running into the darkness. The slaying was dramatized by author Joseph Wambaugh in “The Onion Field,” a best seller later made into a movie. Powell has worked as a clerk in the law library at the medium-security Mule Creek State Prison at Ione, which holds nearly 2,500 inmates.