Onion Field

Jimmy Lee Smith, who helped kill a police officer in an onion field outside Bakersfield more than 40 years ago, has violated parole and is being sought by law enforcement authorities, officials confirmed Sunday. A California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokesman, Jonathan Parsley, said Smith, 76, has been at large since Dec. 22. Parsley said he could not specify what parole condition Smith violated.

Convicted killer Jimmy Lee Smith of the infamous "Onion Field" kidnapping-murder case could be headed back to prison, prosecutors said Friday. Smith, 74, faces up to four more years of incarceration if a judge finds that he violated parole by using drugs. He had been out of jail for about a year after serving a 60-day sentence for heroin possession, and was rearrested Tuesday when a police officer spotted him with a syringe, trying to shoot up, Deputy Dist. Atty. Carol Rash said.

Phil Halpin, the veteran Los Angeles County prosecutor who won murder convictions against "Night Stalker" Richard Ramirez and a slayer of a policeman in the retrial in what became known as the "Onion Field" killing, has died. Halpin, who retired in 2001 after more than 36 years as a deputy district attorney, died Friday -- his 65th birthday -- in a hospice in Bend, Ore., according to a statement released by Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley. The cause of death was cancer.

Paroled "Onion Field" killer Jimmy Lee Smith was sentenced in Los Angeles to six years in prison Monday on a drug charge. Smith, 65, pleaded guilty April 1 to one count of obtaining codeine, a controlled substance, by fraud. As part of the plea bargain agreement, Superior Court Commissioner Richard Price sentenced Smith to the six-year term.

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.

Karl Hettinger, the troubled survivor of the "Onion Field" attack that claimed the life of his police partner 31 years ago, died Wednesday at a hospital in Bakersfield after an illness of several months. Hettinger, 59, who suffered crushing bouts of depression and left the Los Angeles Police Department after the brutal ordeal, made a comeback as a politician in recent years, serving as a Kern County supervisor from 1987 until his defeat in a bid for reelection in 1992.

An Oxnard farm worker convicted of second-degree murder for dumping her newborn son to his death in a portable toilet was sentenced Wednesday to 15 years to life in prison, despite her attorney's quest for a sentence of probation and forced contraception. The sentence brought Francisca Maria Sanchez Jimenez, 23, to the end of a long trip through the courts that began after her baby's body was found floating in the toilet in a Saticoy onion field on July 28, 1991.

Jimmy Lee Smith, convicted of killing a Los Angeles police officer in the infamous "Onion Field" case, began serving a 1 1/2-year jail sentence Wednesday after pleading guilty to theft and narcotics charges. He was charged with stealing eight packages of cold medicine from a Thrifty store in Hollywood on Feb. 16, and with being under the influence of codeine and morphine. Smith and Gregory Powell were convicted of kidnaping two Los Angeles policemen from a Hollywood street in 1963.

A man who was sentenced to death for his role in the "Onion Field" killing of a police officer but was later paroled has been charged with theft and being under the influence of drugs, authorities said Tuesday. Jimmy Lee Smith, 61, was arrested Sunday for allegedly stealing $35 worth of cold medicine from a Thrifty drugstore on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. A second charge that Smith was under the influence of heroin and cocaine was also filed, Deputy City Atty. William Sterling said.