Parole in ‘Onion Field’ Case Denied : Prisons: Panel says killer of LAPD officer is unsuitable for release. It cites his failure to take part in counseling and the nature of the 1963 crime.

Gregory Powell, whose point-blank murder of a Los Angeles police officer inspired the book and movie “The Onion Field,” was turned down Tuesday in his bid for parole.

A three-member panel of the state Board of Prison Terms said Powell, 60, was unsuitable for release because of his failure to participate in prison counseling and vocational programs, and because of the nature of the crime.

The board, which said Powell could apply again for release in two years, also noted that he was on parole when the 1963 murder occurred.

Powell is incarcerated at the Deuel Vocational Institution, about 60 miles east of San Francisco.

“His prior criminal record, social factors and the fact that he earlier had three prison terms and was on parole when he committed the murder” also played a part in the board’s decision, spokeswoman Liz Tanaka said.

Powell and Jimmy Lee Smith were convicted and sentenced to death in the March, 1963, kidnap-murder of Officer Ian Campbell, who was abducted at night from a Hollywood street with his partner and driven to an onion field 30 miles southwest of Bakersfield, where Powell shot him to death.

Powell also fired at the partner, Officer Karl Hettinger, who managed to escape into the darkness.

The crime and prolonged trial were the subject of Joseph Wambaugh’s 1973 book “The Onion Field,” later made into a movie.

The death sentence was thrown out in the 1970s when the state Supreme Court determined that California’s death penalty law was unconstitutional.

Smith, who was paroled in 1982, has been in and out of trouble over the years, including a prison sentence on heroin charges in 1986.

Hettinger left the police force in 1972 and returned to Bakersfield, where he served on the Kern County Board of Supervisors. He died in May at age 59.