Transcript

Episode 735: The Onion Field Incident

From Morbid | Podcast · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 1 h 20 min · 16,151 words · 366 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "Episode 735: The Onion Field Incident", an episode of Morbid | Podcast published December 14, 2025 (1 h 20 min, about 16,151 words). It mentions 13 people, works and ideas, including Greg Powell, Carl Hedinger, Dan Campbell, Jimmy Smith, Jimmy Lee Smith.

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 10:00: Carl Hedinger, Dan Campbell, The Onion Field
  2. – 20:00: Dan Campbell, Fresno State College, Pierce Junior College
  3. – 30:00: Gregory Powell, Jimmy Lee Smith
  4. – 40:00: Greg Powell, Dan Campbell, Jimmy Lee Smith, Carl Hedinger
  5. – 50:00: Jimmy Smith, Lindberg law, Carl Hedinger, The Onion Field
  6. – 1:00:00: Greg Powell, Jimmy Smith, Dan Campbell, Carl Hedinger
  7. – 1:10:00: Greg Powell, Carl Hedinger, Jimmy Lee Smith, Jimmy Smith
  8. – 1:20:00: Carl Hedinger, Dan Campbell, Greg Powell, Jimmy Lee Smith

Notable quotes from "Episode 735: The Onion Field Incident"

  • And I'm sure you've read this cuz you clicked on the episode, but you were probably like what? It's called the onion field incident.
    about The Onion Field · at
  • The two people that this is the two victims that we're going to be talking about are named Carl Hedinger and Ian Campbell.
    about Carl Hedinger · at
  • Carl enrolled at Pierce Junior College in the San Fernando Valley, which was one of the few schools in the area that was known to have a strong agricultural program. He said, I'm going to get me.
    about Pierce Junior College · at
  • Environments were going to suit him like that. After graduating from Pierce, he enrolled at Fresno State College, which was a very popular choice among the, his peers at…
    about Fresno State College · at
  • One of the city's major roads. Now, the men in the Ford, they were 29-year-old Gregory Powell and 30-year-old Jimmy Lee Smith. Both of them were career criminals with long wrap…
    about Jimmy Lee Smith · at
  • Then just moments after, Campbell noticed the burned out plate light. Greg Powell gave them even more of an excuse to pull over when he made an illegal U-turn. So, they were We got him.
    about Greg Powell · at
  • Didn't really have a lot to do with the conversation that they were trying to have. Years later, Jimmy Smith would recall the conversation between he and Powell as they were…
    about Jimmy Smith · at
  • We love community. Farm community especially. It was a little past 1:00 a.m. when Carl got through the Kern County Sheriff's Office and he gave the deputy on the other's end a…
    about Kern County Sheriff's Office · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

  • Greg Powell — Person · 20 mentions · first at
  • Carl Hedinger — Person · 13 mentions · first at
  • Dan Campbell — Person · 12 mentions · first at
    The two victims that we're going to be talking about are named Carl Hedinger and Ian Campbell.
  • Jimmy Smith — Person · 11 mentions · first at
  • Jimmy Lee Smith — Person · 8 mentions · first at
  • Gregory Powell — Person · 2 mentions · first at
    One of the city's major roads. Now, the men in the Ford, they were 29-year-old Gregory Powell and 30-year-old Jimmy Lee Smith. Both of them were career criminals with long wrap…
  • Joseph Wambaugh — Person · 2 mentions
  • Adolf Ash — Person · 1 mention

Books & papers

Companies & orgs

Concepts & topics

  • Lindberg law — Concept · 4 mentions · first at
    Remember the Lindberg law. He didn't come right out and say it, but when Greg mentioned the Lindberg law, Jimmy knew exactly what he meant.

Full transcript with timestamps

Hey weirdos, I'm Ash. And I'm Elena. And this is Morbid. This is morbid. Not AI. That's what I would sound like if I was AI. AI.

AI. AI. I am a robot talking to you. Longing to you. I feel like I feel like I sound like Rody and Ben's impression of A Girl from the Valley

who they think is AI. Honestly valid. I think I don't watch that show, but I feel like that's valid.

It's one of the saddest shows of all time. I could handle the I don't know if we've talked about this before. Maybe we have. My brain is old now. Uh and it gets older by the day.

Wait, I feel like I know what you're going to say and it's actually like pertinent. So go ahead and say it.

Like I can watch like Vanderpump Rules. I can watch all that. I mouthed it as she said,

but because like it's just adults being dumb and it's like sure, watch that. I don't give a [ __ ] if you blow up your life. Like that's your that's your business. You do what you want. But once it brings kids into it,

I I back off cuz I'm like I can't watch you act this way with kids around. Well, I think it's fun too. Like Housewives is like a thing in and of itself. And then like other reality shows, it's fun to watch like early 20s, 30s people like [ __ ] up their lives and like be ridiculous. But like when real life [ __ ] like divorce and like kids and houses and like gets brought into I don't want to know anything about that

cuz then I kind of feel I feel like too voyeristic in that scenario where I'm like I shouldn't be watching you go through this.

I'm not a shot in Freud. Do I want to watch like 20somes and 30omes like cheat on each other like while they're dating and [ __ ]

all day? Like let's go. But like even I remember watching like Vanderpump Rules like watching Scandaval

too much. I while it was happening I was invested and I needed to know everything. It gripped us all. Looking back on it now I rewatched some of those episodes now watching Ariana go through that I was like we shouldn't have seen this.

No. And she never should have been like subjected to showing that entire part of her life.

Yeah. Which like whatever she was happy showing like power to her. Oh, absolutely. But like I was watching it and I was just like, "Oh, I feel so bad." Like I'm like this is cuz she was it was just all everyone was so broken and I was like, "Oh, fuck." Like way too real.

I can't imagine having to process what she went through like without a [ __ ] camera in my face. I can't imagine it with a camera in my face. And here's the thing. I love like reality television. I'm going to continue. I'm not being

You love the old reality. I like old. I don't watch any new ones. I love all reality television. In fact, um this year me and my friends used to watch The Bachelor like kind of like on and off in high school and like a little bit after. I haven't watched it in forever. I'm watching The Bachelorette this year because Taylor Frankie Paul, her her name is so I don't know who that is.

Taylor Frankie Paul. Well, you don't watch The Secret Lives of Mormon wives. No.

Don't you dare. Don't you dare look at me with a with a scowl on your face and say no. It is

one of the best shows as you should. Like I don't support them. I support you all watching it.

Yeah. It is one of the best shows to grace our television screens in decades and I stand 25 toes down on that. I grew extra feet just to stand further on that.

It's so good. That's a lot of toes. But Taylor Frankie Paul of Mom Talk and Secret Lives of Mormon Wives is The Bachelorette this year. So, I think I'm going to watch

See, that's it's the it's the uh the the Mom Talk kind of stuff. Will Mom Talk survive this?

Yeah. Will Mom talk survive this? I think Yeah, I think uh I'm I'm not quite I'm not on that part of Mom Talk.

Oh, I'm not on Mom Talk. I'm on like on Tik Tok. I'm on uh Cindy Hoffer. Oh, them Hoffers.

Them Hoffers. Mom. We have and I will continue to shout out them hoppers. That's the thing. I watch Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, Slamwa, but I don't experience them on TikTok.

Yeah, which is probably good. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, again, I don't know. Well, that's I mean, now I'm experiencing them because of the whole like Fruity Pebblescape, but we're not getting into that because you know what? Follow them Hoffers. Follow Annalie.

Annalie. Great follow. Annalie, we love Annalie. Great follow. Follow Chef Riley. I love Chef Riley with my entire heart. Do you follow Chef Riley? He's a listener.

Yeah, I didn't before and I do now. Chef Riley makes some of the most gorgeous meals I've ever seen in my entire life and he has a cookbook coming out and I already pre-ordered it.

And that's actually not even a plug like whatsoever. I just love Chef Riley. Hell yeah.

Let's go. Um, but yeah, those are things you should do. Those are people you should if you're into the Valley or, you know, Secret Lives of Mormon Mormon Wives. I'm I'm not judging anybody. You can watch whatever [ __ ] you want. I don't. In fact, Debbie watches it, too. Dubdub, you come in here and we spill the tea and sometimes you ask questions.

I I support it all. Yeah. I support whatever whatever makes you happy and we support your weird stuff. You play like weird video games and watch weird shows.

Exactly. And I watch like um old episodes of Southern Charm and Vanderpump Rules all the time. And it's it's a trip to watch those. us turning on Southern Charm the other day, like a really old episode where they really were talking about. And so after Thanksgiving, we like all get together for the weekend and like we're with John. We're with John's mom. We're with a lot of family. Y

and Elena and I are like, "Let's watch Old Southern Charm. It's night time. Like kids went to bed

and we decided unknowingly to pick the reunion where they say something about giving up oral sex or cheese."

Yep. Immediately on impact. Um, there was another like gross thing. Big shot of Austin's naked ass in the shower

and John's mom gets up and was like, "Well, I'm going to go to bed. Good night."

And acted like it had nothing to do with that, but I was like, "Wow, we fucked."

I was like, "We really [ __ ] this one up." It was a gnarly one. Yeah, I was embarrassed. But we continued to watch it.

We did. Um, but yeah, so watch what you want to watch. 2026, y'all. It's on its way.

I can't wait. It's the year that I turn 30. There you go. I know. And I will be 40

pretty soon. Yep. Uh I think it's good. It is. I feel great. Mikey said 39 to 40 was like one of his best years.

It's true. And I believe him. So Mikey doesn't ever lie. He doesn't. He would never lie to me. All right. Let's let's get into it. We really talked.

Speaking of uh I have no segue. Okay. Uh cuz we were speaking of something happy and this is not. Uh this is called and I'm sure you've read this cuz you clicked on the episode, but you were probably like what? It's called the onion field incident.

Yeah. Now, the onion field incident could make you think it sounds like something silly.

Yeah. Right. You think of an onion field. Yeah. And an incident occurring in it. To me, I immediately was like, is this a silly like UFO kind of thing? Like what's what's this about?

Incident has UFO vibes. Yeah. It's not. There's murder. Oh. Um, and this is a very it's a case where it's just going to make you go, "Oh."

Oh, yeah. It's like it's everybody kind of loses in this, which I'm sorry, it's the holiday season.

But it's a very interesting case and it's a case that changed a lot of policy okay

for the LAPD later. So, that's interesting. And that was it was, you know, something that came out of it. So, the two people that this is the two um the two victims that we're going to be talking about are named Carl Hedinger and Ian Campbell.

Okay. Um so, let's talk about who they are first. Carl was born October 29th, 1934 in Los Angeles, California. He was one of three kids to Francis and Elsie Hedinger.

I think Elsie is the cutest name. I love the name Elsie. Makes me think of Lauren Conrad.

Yeah. He had now he had two sisters, Miriam and Ununice. Um they were born several years earlier. I know Ununice and Miriam.

They were all planned births, but Carl was a little bit of a surprise. A happy accident like me. It was also a happy accident. You know, we're all doing great out here. Happy accidents. Um, and his arrival on this earth, as far as, you know, his father was concerned, was a little of an inconvenience, I would say.

Oh. Um Elsie Hedinger on the other hand adored Carl. Adored him and they were inseparable for a long time.

Mama and son. Yeah. Especially in his early years. Now despite growing up in a very big, very busy like bustling city of Los Angeles during one of its biggest growth periods too in the 60s,

Carl had dreams of becoming a farmer when he grew up. Farmer Carl. Yeah. He now he because he wanted this because he was inspired by these like really romantic stories his mother told him of about her idyllic childhood on a large farm in Germany where she grew up and she would say how beautiful it was and what a peaceful life it was and he was just like wow this just sounds amazing.

He said I long for that. Yeah. Now well Elsie obviously she seemed to have endless time for her son. She was always around him you know doing on him. Carl's father was another matter entirely I would say. Um, so they were immigrants to California and Francis Hedinger was a very hardworking man who labored for very long hours every single day at whatever job he could find. He was a very hard worker.

Uh, he was an experienced carpenter. He was a very good woodworker, very skilled. And when Carl got older, he did want to be like his father. He saw

how hard he worked and what he got. Unfortunately, Francis Hedinger was of a generation that hadn't been raised to be involved in the lives of their children.

I was gonna say it wasn't really like the era for fathers. No, it really wasn't. And his attempts to bond with his son were never really successful. They just didn't jive really. Carl really wanted to learn the skills that his father possessed. And like it seemed so effortless to his father. But Francis was not a great teacher cuz he didn't really have a lot of patience. So, their quality time together kind of ended in frustration and really like disappointment on both sides, which is sad.

Yeah, that is sad. So, having an emotionally distant father, while disappointing for Carl, wasn't like we just said, all that uncommon in mid-century America at the time. This was kind of the norm.

Yeah, it's kind of not uncommon in general. An emotionally distant father. Um, I think it's really like millennial dads are out here trying to change that [ __ ] like thorough out here being like, "Sure,

truth. Do my hair, paint my nails, I'm coming to your dad's recital. I'm just talking about John."

And uh but and it wasn't as though Carl was lonely or desperate for attention. In addition to his mom being like really doing and giving him a lot of attention. Carl's older sisters often became like they acted like kind of like second and third moms to him. They would lavish him with attention, like really good older sisters. Um, and also the neighborhood where they lived was full of young families, newly married couples. So, he had a lot of like people to play with during his formative years. It wasn't like he was just like

sad cuz my dad's not playing with me. Yeah. Uh, and as a result, Carl developed a very easily likable personality. He was around a lot of people

and he's been raised by ladies. And he's been raised by ladies who like lavish him with attention.

That's kind of the dream. And it made him popular with adults and children. Like everyone loved him. They were like Carl for life. Oh no. After graduating from high school in 1950 at 16 years old.

Wow. Early. Carl enrolled at Pierce Junior College in the San Fernando Valley, which was one of the few schools in the area that was known to have a strong agricultural program. He said, "I'm going to get me that farm. I'm going to be a farmer."

It was there that Carl really stepped into his own. He kind of shed any hint of shyness that was there and he was embracing his academic success. He had pride in what he was doing. And it turned out that Carl's interest in farming wasn't just a romantic idea just from those like stories that his mother was telling her of when she was growing up. But it was something Carl was like actually really good at and interested in.

All right. But his success wasn't just limited to the farm. He was also a really good student in other academic like more academic subjects. He was a good student athlete. He was active in student politics and he became student body president. Okay, Carl. Car roll after two years there at Pierce where where you know he was so happy the entire time he was there.

But then he had to end up moving on of course cuz it's junior college two years. Yeah.

Um he found that not everything was going to be as like perfect as that junior college experience was. Not all academic environments were going to suit him like that. After graduating from Pierce, he enrolled at uh Fresno State College, which was a very popular choice among the, you know, his peers at Pierce. A lot of them went there, but Fresno State was not like Pierce academically or socially. Not long after enrolling, he and his friends found themselves struggling to keep up academically. Author Joseph uh Wamba, who we will talk about later, he wrote the book um The Onion Fields about this story. Uh he wrote, "Though most of the old Pierce boys stayed together, they played too much and the grades began falling. So I think they were very social at Pierce and it wasn't the same case."

Yeah. Now, after a little more than a year at Fresno State, Carl dropped out early in his senior year and joined the Marines and ended up based uh stationed at a base in 29 Palms, which was a small desert town in San Bernardino County. So to go from the life of a farmer to that of a soldier wasn't uh exactly what anyone saw for Carl. They were just like damn.

But to many of his friends, it made like his friends said he was around all the time. Like they they were like it did kind of make sense to them because according to his friend Terry McManis, he was like so many of those farm boys I met at Pierce. Stubborn, quiet, and determined about right and principle and just about 30 years out of touch with the city life of Los Angeles all around them. All right.

So, I can see it. You know, beginning in his earliest years, Carl's parents had instilled in him a sense of right and wrong that likely seemed antiquated and charming in this kind of city like Los Angeles that had not only increased significantly in size since the end of World War II, but the crime rate had also skyrocketed. So, this black and white sense of right and wrong was definitely antiquated at that point. Now, after serving a few years in the Marines, Carl was honorably discharged and found himself kind of floating around aimlessly without a lot of structure.

None of that rigidity from the military that he actually ended up kind of liking.

Yeah. And that's tough to go from like complete structure to complete unstructure. Yeah.

Until a friend convinced him to accompany him to city hall where he was planning to take the admittance test to enter the police academy.

Okay. So, he'd spent his youth dreaming again, peaceful life on the farm. Never thought about joining law enforcement. That was just never a thought about for him. But Carl decided that, you know what, why don't I just take the test and just see? I'm bringing you there. I might as well take the test, too.

I love happened to be bringing someone there and was like, yeah, I'll go for it.

He was like, why not? And he passed. Sick. And he was accepted into the academy. Uh, and Whima later wrote he wasn't at all certain this was to be his life's career or even how he got there, but typically he put forth maximum effort and did well and was named class validictorian in the police academy.

Wow. So, he was a student body president in the regular junior college and class validictorian at the police academy.

He's thriving. He is. Now, Carl spent the first couple years on the force doing, you know, the mundane and often boring work of patrol before he ended up being transferred to Hollywood's vice detail in 1962.

Unlike the, you know, kind of like I said, mundane work of a patrolman in the central division, there seemed to be no end to the work or the excitement quote unquote of Vice in Hollywood.

Hollywood. Yeah. Uh, so a friend of his said, "I always liked to work with Carl because he had more jokes than any man I'd ever met in my life.

He took everything with like humor." Yeah. The next major change in Carl's career came the following year when he was taken off Vice and assigned to the felony car division.

It was a squad that dealt mostly with crimes obviously involving vehicles. No way.

I know. It's crazy. Imagine if I was like, "It has nothing to do with cars." Uh, the new assignment also came with a new partner, Ian Campbell. I remember that name.

Like Carl, Ian had grown up in Los Angeles during that period of very big urban expansion, but he also had this like m, you know, romantic sense of wonder about the world just like Carl. Like they had the a similar outlook on everything.

He was, according to his mother, a dreamer who loved reading and would quote doawtle for hours by the pits and stare into the tar until he vividly imagined great pleaene creatures there.

What is pleaene? Oh, they're like like creatures from like long ago, you know, with like when like glaciers were boopping about everywhere.

Fun, you know. So, he was he had a great imagination. He just sit there. Yeah. He's just vibing. I like that he wasn't looking at the clouds. He was looking at the tar.

Yeah. He was like, "What kind of creatures can I see?" And the black tar. Now, Ian had been a good student in high school and after a few years in college, he too had joined the Marines. He worked in communications and just as Carl had,

he found that he really liked the rigidity. Okay. Um, and the similarities didn't stop with all that between them. Like Carl, Ian had also been interested in animals cuz Carl really loved animals and had been pursuing a degree in zoology.

Oh, [ __ ] So, that's it's funny that like Carl was pursuing a degree in like agriculture. He was pursuing like two very different things to law enforcement,

but it's also like link up and start a farm together with a petting zoo, the animals, the farm like let's go. Um, but he ended up dropping out in his final year to join the Marines. So, it was similar to Carl.

Uh, when he was discharged from the Marines, he briefly considered returning to school for zoology, but instead found himself rather unexpectedly taking the police exam.

Weird. And it led him to a career in law enforcement. Random. While he might also not have envisioned himself as a police officer, Ian had a strong work ethic and like his new partner Carl tended to excel at whatever the [ __ ] he put his mind to. After a few years on the force, he started taking criminology courses at night and he was hoping he would advance to the rank of detective in the next few years.

Now, a few years into his time on the force, me Ian met um Ada, a former Las Vegas showgirl, and the two were immediately in love. Shut the [ __ ] up.

Yeah, too cool. At first, Ada was afraid of him is what Wamba said. Uh, the manners he got from his mother intimidated her, but at the same time made him terribly attractive. Home in no time. They married. They found a small apartment in Hollywood. And, you know, Ian's mom Chrissy was a frequent guest there. It was just like a nice little life.

Cute. By almost any measure, things were going very well for Ian Campbell at this point. Sounds like it. He had a promising career, a beautiful young wife. He was very likely to be promoted to detective in a few years, but there was always something about Ian that suggested that he like wasn't totally satisfied.

Okay. Um, uh, Ada said, uh, Ada once told a friend, he was always unrealistic about helping people and always expects more from life than he gets. I'm afraid police work will somehow awaken a person like him too harshly. Hm. So, like it's going to be too like real, I think, for for this like cuz he's a dreamer. Yeah.

Now, in time, Ian and Ada moved from their small Hollywood apartment to their own home and they ended up having their first daughter, Valerie, who was soon followed by another daughter, Lorie.

Great name. Over time, Ian lost some of that restlessness that he'd probably felt in the early years of their marriage and eventually settled into a pretty quiet, peaceful, middle-class life. You know, he did have one that was punctured by a lot of violence and chaos in his day job, but he got to go home to a nice peaceful home with two daughters and a wife.

Now, Carl and Ian weren't just similar in their interests and personal histories, but also in their demeanor and constitutions. They were both bookish. They were pretty intellectual, much more intellectual than the like ordinary cop on the LA Beat at the time, to be quite honest. Like

that's just the way it was. and both had very strong convictions when it came to right and wrong. Okay. This was something they like really shared. Yeah.

Uh this meant that while they were made for good partners at work, they were also really well suited to be good friends. Yeah.

Which was a really rare thing for the average cop to find in their partner, especially in Los Angeles in the 1960s. To be partnered up with someone you click with that that well.

Yeah. like well just like working on things that are so intense at work and then you're probably gonna need some time away from that person. You would think if if you especially if you're not really clicking

and they genuinely like each other and everything lines up. So like when they go about doing things they page like they're kind of like in lock step with each other. So, while Ian was settling into his more peaceful era at home, Carl was also finding love. During one of the many parties held by fellow officer Bob Burke during his early years on the force, Carl met Helen Davis. Now, from the moment they met, Carl was just so into Helen.

I love love he was into her quick wit, her decisive personality, her good sense of humor. He loved her

like a a great girl. Like a woman. Yeah. Now, while many of the women who attended Bob's parties were pretty timid and very much of this era because that was the time. Yeah.

Helen was like very bold, very self-possessed. A hot ticket. And most importantly, she was equally as attracted to Carl.

Let's go. And they dated for several months. And in December of 1962, they ran off to Las Vegas and got married.

Shut up. Which is funny because Ian's wife is a Vegas show girl. Yes. Again, their lives are just like interlocking. It's so weird.

Now, like his new partner in the felony car division, Carl had started to envision a very bright future for himself where he would be promoted to detective as well and assigned to one of the more prestigious divisions like homicide or major crimes. Like they were like ready.

Yeah. And they got that and then everybody lived happily ever after and we don't even actually know what we're talking about.

What a great story everybody. I'm rooting for the onions. Who who who forget the onions. Now, by then, he and Helen would have moved into a little house of their own, and in time, they would have started a family. Like, he was envisioning this whole thing.

Yeah. Unfortunately, what neither Carl nor Ian or their respective wives envisioned was that in a matter of just a few months, all of those plans were going to come crashing down around them in the wake of a really, really inconceivable tragedy.

Oh, no. Now, this all started with a simple traffic stop. On the early This scares the [ __ ] out of me.

On the early evening of March 9th, 1963, just nine days into their new partnership, Ian got behind the wheel of their unmarked police car, and Carl settled settled into the passenger seat next to him. That night, they were working undercover, so they were dressed in old, comfortable sport coats and casual pants. That night, like the eight nights before it, the officers were headed out on patrol looking for anyone committing a crime behind the wheel of a car.

The most obvious offenders were drunk drivers, the car thieves, the hit and runs. They were easy to spot.

Yeah. But they weren't necessarily the types of people that they were on the lookout for. So like a lot of the major cities around the country, Los Angeles in the 1960s was definitely undergoing a big social and cultural shift in terms of marginalized communities. Yeah.

Up and down the coast, activist groups were demanding equal treatment and better opportunities while also simultaneously demanding an end to the brutality experienced by the members of their communities at the hands of the police and the public.

I thought that's where we were headed. Yeah. inspired in large part of those by those movements. At this point, gay, lesbian, bisexual individuals like that in whoop whoop in this uh in the San Francisco and Los Angeles area started mounting their own campaigns for equality just demanding among other things the decriminalization of same-sex relationships.

That'd be pretty dope. That would be pretty sick. Big fan of that. In an end to the anti-gay violence that had resulted from the increased visibility.

Yeah, that's also good. So this is great like this is all good stuff. This is thing you know things moving forward.

Now in a somewhat ironic twist the officers who just a few years earlier had spent countless nights accosting harassing and busting sometimes gay men in the parks. They were now tasked with hitting hitting the streets and protecting those same individuals from violence and anything else that might occur. the flip the script had flipped very quickly in the best kind of way. Yeah. It's just like it's very ironic to see that like you were tasked with this and now good luck.

Yeah. Um but now it's important to note that while it may have been the job their job to protect

every resident of Los Angeles from the jump. That was their job. That's the oath they took. Many if not most of the men on the force had a particular disdain for particularly gay men

and weren't exactly thrilled to be dealing with them at all much less now having to protect them which is like they think that makes them gay

which is like imagine how terrible not being thrilled with having to protect humans.

No, your fellow humans. Hold on. Hold on. No point. Imagine that. Uh, regardless of their personal feelings though, Carl and Ian because like I'm I'm not saying that's how they felt. I'm saying that was the general consensus on the force at the time.

Carl and Ian were both men of integrity. So when the reports began coming in that various, you know, men were being assaulted and robbed and, you know, in their cars, especially when they were together and and somebody thought they were like a gay couple. the officers accepted the assignment that they had to go take care of this and they did that without any protests, without any complaints as many of the other officers did.

Now, I'm not saying give them a medal for that, but I'm just saying no, it's just it's nice to know that they were on the right side of things.

I just want to be clear that like we're not talking [ __ ] here. Yeah, that's all. I'm not trying to give anyone a medal or say that that's like going above and beyond to like protect your fellow person,

but this is just who they were. Now, that night before Hedinger and Campbell left the station to patrol, they ran into Lieutenant Max Hurlbot, who remembered them saying something about how they'd been assigned to quote, "work up suspects in a string of crimes against gays." That's a quote.

Okay. Uh the officers set out and spent hours driving around Los Angeles without seeing even a traffic violation. And it was a very slow night until about 1000 p.m. when they noticed two young men in a 1946 Ford coupe driving slowly down one of the city's major roads. Now, the men in the Ford, they were 29-year-old uh Gregory Powell and 30-year-old Jimmy Lee Smith. Both of them were career criminals with long wrap sheets that included, you know, various forms of theft and robbery, a ton of drug charges, just a bunch of stuff. Like Carl and Ian, Powell and Smith had met just nine days earlier, which is weird.

When a fellow exconvict introduced them and suggested they could work together on a few small robbery jobs,

terrible. Uh Smith said of Powell years later, "This just a wild way to describe someone." He was a funnyl looking guy. I mean, you could tell he wasn't eating right. Kind of lean and hungry looking, but then so was I.

What? What? It's like, excuse me. Drew and I just watched Fargo for the first time, which I thought was like going to be similar to The Case.

Yeah. Not The Case. It's literally like a completely different movie. But they keep describing one of the I think it's Joe Peshy as or sorry, not Joe Peshi. Duh. Steve Bushi as a funnyl looking guy.

Funny looking guy. Yeah. Funny looking guy. That's it. Just a funny looking Now, like Hedinger and Campbell, Greg and Jimmy quickly learned that they had more than the usual things in common. Both had grown up in unstable and sometimes even unsafe homes. Yeah.

And of course, both had spent the majority of their adult lives in and out of California's various jails and prisons and all kinds of things. Sad. And if anything, while they were there, they just learned to become better criminals.

Uh the two men hit it off immediately and agreed to work together. But very quickly, they also developed possibly a more intimate relationship.

Okay. It's always been somewhat unclear, and that's why I don't want to put any kind of label on what they were or weren't, what their relationship was. That's just a part of who they are.

Um now, it was just past 10 p.m. and Carl and Ian were discussing where they were going to go for dinner. Carl and Ian are the police officers.

Uh and that's when they spotted the 1946 Ford driven by Powell as they came out of an alley.

Now again, they were out looking for suspects in a string of pretty violent crimes committed against gay men in the area. The quick flash of light that fell over the men in the car was enough to catch the attention of the officers. In Joseph Wamb's retelling of the incident in the Onion Field I mentioned earlier, it's uh cited in the show notes. He speculates that Powell and Smith maybe aroused the suspicions of the officers like pretty quickly. And he says it was patently obvious Powell and Smith were not ordinary out of town tourists. The snap brim leather caps were rare enough, but with matching leather jackets, they were almost absurdly suspicious, even contrived.

Wow. Yeah. But Hedinger and Campbell couldn't pull the men over simply because they looked like Nardwells.

They could not pull them over simply because they had matching jackets. like, you know, that's not supposed to be the case. At least they needed something more concrete that at least resembled a crime. So, they pull out behind the Ford and boom, they get what they need because a burned out rear license plate light. That's all it takes.

That'll do it. Uh, then just moments after, Campbell noticed the burned out plate light. Greg Powell gave them even more of an excuse to pull over when he made an illegal U-turn. So, they were like, "We got him.

You can't bang a UI." No, you can't bang a UI. Not in Los Angeles. Oh, you can always bang a UI and bastard.

Always. Now, continuing to follow behind the Ford, Campbell threw his arm out the window and put the flashing red light, cuz they're undercover, on top of the car, then blew the horn, letting the driver know that he's got to pull over.

When they saw the light in the rearview mirror, Jimmy panicked, pulling the 38 caliber pistol from his jacket pocket and dropping it on the floor and then kicking it over to the other side of the car where it landed next to Greg Powell's foot. Uh, now although his eyes were fixed on the car in the rear view, Greg felt this thing hit his foot and without looking, he knew exactly what he had just kicked over to him. And with his eyes still in the mirror, he tried as best he could to calm uh Jimmy down. He was reminding him like, "There's no need to panic. This is a traffic violation. Don't [ __ ] go crazy.

Don't kick me a gun." Yeah. Like, what are you doing? Greg Powell looked in his side mirror and watched as Ian Campbell approached the car on the driver's side.

He'd been through all this before. Obviously, he's a career crim criminal. Yeah, he's been stopped in traffic.

So, he kept his hands firmly placed on the wheel and didn't make any sudden movements. Now, at the time, however, he was moving the gun on the floor into the space between the seat and the door.

So, yeah. So, he wouldn't see it. Trying to get it out of sight. Yeah. He But he was like, I wanted it to be accessible cuz I don't know what's going to happen and I'm a career criminal. So,

as he approached the door, Campbell announced himself as a police officer and Powell said, "Oh Lord, I know what I'm getting a ticket for this time." because this happened to him often. But in his head, he also knew that undercover police officers didn't give traffic tickets,

right? And it was unlikely he would be able to bluff his way out of this situation. But the two men just kind of talked to each other, exchanged, you know, ordinary traffic stop [ __ ] Uh Campbell asked to see Powell's ID, asked a few questions like, "When did you get into town?" And then asked the question that Greg Powell and Jimmy Lee Smith were hoping not to hear. Would you mind stepping out of the car? No.

Powell protested and he was like, "What are we being stopped for? Why do I need to get out of the car?" But Campbell just said, "It's just routine." Now, as he slowly opened the door, Powell could see that Ian Campbell was holding a flashlight. And while he presumed the officer had a gun on him, it would have taken him at least a few seconds to get it because he couldn't see it from where he was.

So, Greg opened the door a little faster, which was when Ian looked down and saw the 38 caliber pistol in his hand because he grabbed it. He wanted it accessible. was right there. But by the time everything clicked into place in Ian's mind, it was too late. Powell was already out of the car and had managed to spin Ian Campbell around, holding him by his sports coat and pressing the gun into his back,

using Campbell as like a shield essentially. Now, from the passenger seat of the police car, Carl Hedinger watched everything happening and was like completely confused by what just occurred.

Yeah. I just stopped you for a traffic violation and he couldn't see the details. So he's just like, "What the [ __ ] is going on?" From where he was sitting, it appeared Ian and the driver were walking towards the back of the car. But it occurred to Carl that Ian was walking in front of the driver, not behind him, and protocol did not dictate that.

Yeah. By the time he was out of the car and closer to the suspects, Jimmy Lee Smith was also out of the car, and a bewildered Carl stood before all three of these guys, still confused by what the [ __ ] was happening here. And Carl snapped back into focus when he heard Greg Powell tell Smith, "Take his piece." Carl stepped back and put his hand on his revolver, ready to pull it out of the holster. But he heard Ian Campbell, his partner, say, "He's got a gun on me. Give him your gun."

Oh. Now, at this time, and we'll go further into this later, there wasn't protocol for this. This didn't happen a lot. So, this wasn't pro there was no protocol. They weren't taught what to do in this situation.

Yeah. I mean, what do you do? I don't know. That's the thing. By this point, Carl had removed his gun from his holster and was pointing it in the direction of Powell, who was still shielded by Campbell.

Yeah. And Ian's just trying not to get shot, so that's why he's like, "Give him your piece."

And Carl later said, "I didn't want to give up my weapon, but my partner had a gun to his back and asked me to give it up several times." The men all stared at one another for probably what seemed like an eternity, all while cars are whizzing by them.

Hello, by the way, Los Angeles. Yeah, for real. They're like, "Uh, I got to go about my life." And Carl is sitting there trying to quickly mull over what his options are. If he didn't put his gun down, the driver might shoot Campbell. But if he did surrender the weapon, it was entirely possible he might shoot them both.

Right. So Carl was now pointing the gun at Smith who was standing by the back of the ford completely still as a statue. Then he heard a voice from the other direction and swung the gun the other way. It was Campbell and he was begging Carl to give up his gun

cuz he's like, "I don't want to get shot." With no good options left, Carl could feel the grip on his revolver loosening because he was like, so he was still holding I guess he like loosened it to just like kind of hold it in two fingers and he just raised it like dangled it from his fingers and Smith stepped forward and just plucked it out of his hand.

Okay. Now, all four men stood perfectly still, just standing there, staring at each other for a few moments.

And then Carl started to move like slightly, like making circles on the ground with his flashlight beam.

Okay? Cuz he was trying to signal to any passing drivers that like something is happening.

And he later told a jury, he said, "We stood at the side of the street with our hands in the air and flashlights in our hands." and he said, "We stood there for about 15 seconds in silence trying to wave around my arm and draw the attention of someone. I saw cars going both directions. Many of the drivers saw us waving our arms, but no one stopped." Wow. Finally, whatever was going on here, the silence spell was broken and Powell like snapped back to life and directed Smith to move the unmarked police car further away from the road.

While Smith turned off the flashing red light and moved the car, Powell instructed Campbell to get behind the wheel of the Ford and he motioned for Headinger to get in the back seat.

Okay, so all four men had piled into their car now and Greg Powell became very agitated. He said more to himself than them, I think. He said, "I've already killed two people. I didn't want to get in this business, but now that I'm in it, I got to go all the way."

Oh, [ __ ] Like, what the [ __ ] Hearing that. Yeah. No. So Powell instructed Ian to drive to in the direction of the Hollywood Freeway and not do anything to attract attention. Powell told them the plan was to drive them out to some remote location in the north where they would let the two officers go. He said, "We'll take you guys up on the ridge road, turn off on a side road, drop you off, and make sure you have to walk a long way back to the highway." Powell said that's what Powell told them. Greg went a step further. Greg Powell, telling them that he would quote, "throw the officer's guns into the brush where they could be found after he and Smith had left."

Okay. Powell even went so far as to return a small amount of money he'd stolen from Campbell earlier as a sign of good faith.

Okay. So, they're as they're driving, Powell and Smith are carrying on a very quiet, whispered conversation that neither Campbell nor Hettinger could hear. When the kidnappers weren't talking to each other, Carl and Ian tried to engage them in conversation. They told them about their families and how both were eager to return safely to them. So there should be no concern about either of them trying to escape or flag down help because they said, "We just want to get back to our families."

And the talk of the officer's wives and children seemed to agitate Smith, who constantly told them to stop talking,

which means he has a plan to kill you. But Powell seemed unbothered and even a little amused by the whole thing

because he's crazy. Yeah. It seemed, at least for a time though, that it was at least having the desired effect of like relaxing the tension in the car a little bit. So to Ian and Carl, it felt like the tension in the car maybe decreased a little bit as they were driving north, but it didn't really have a lot to do with the conversation that they were trying to have. Years later, Jimmy Smith would recall the conversation between he and Powell as they were driving. He said, "Jimmy, I told you it was only a matter of time before it would come to this."

That's what Powell said to him. What the [ __ ] have they been doing? and he said, "It's either them or us. Remember the Lindberg law." He didn't come right out and say it, but when Greg mentioned the Lindberg law, Jimmy knew exactly what he meant.

What is that? They had kidnapped two police officers at gunpoint, and if they were caught, they would almost certainly be given the death penalty.

Oh [ __ ] And the only way to ensure that they didn't get caught was to get rid of any witnesses. It came from the Lindberg baby kidnapping, which we have not covered yet, and I do want to cover it.

I know. It's so weird that we haven't covered that. I always think we have always Yeah, it's always on my list.

Um, we talked about it on Crime Countdown once, I think, and that's why I think we covered it all the time,

but it came from that that case. It also makes me think of the Solder Children cuz I think we briefly talked about it when we went over that case, which was like one of the first episodes, I think.

Now, they continued driving north for a very long time, passing out of Los Angeles. More than an hour had passed when Powell spoke up again, and he said, "We've changed our plan. We're going to hold you guys until we stop a family car. We need hostages. When we get some, we'll let you guys go. We know you're cops and have a job to do, but if you turn us in, we'll kill every member of that family.

Okay. Carl and Ian both promised not to take any action. And Carl said, "We're both family men and want to get back to our families alive."

Yeah. Now, after about an hour and a half, they've reached the valley just out of Bakersfield when Powell said he knew of a dirt road nearby and instructed Ian to pull off the highway at the next exit. So, they drove down this dark country road and Powell pointed to the farmhouse off in the distance and said, "That's the farmhouse you're going to hike back to to make your call." It seemed like they were actually giving them, they're like, "Okay, we're going down here. That house right there you can go to and you can make your call. You're not going to turn us in. at your call to get back to wherever you need to get back to. It seems like they're setting them up as like we are going to let you go. Carl looked out the window and saw what looked to be farmland as far as he could see in every direction, which must have been

sad because he loves farms. And Powell said, "Stop the car. Turn off the lights. This is where we're going to let you go."

So Jimmy Smith turned and looked at Carl Hedinger, who had spent the entire ride squished into the back compartment of the car, by the way.

Who did? Sorry. Uh Carl. Okay. And Jimmy recalled uh he was breathing funny again. Couldn't get enough air. So he was like stressed out back there like trying and um Jimmy was remembering how Greg had told him he didn't want to tie the hostages up earlier that night and his comment about the Lindberg law and he's like I don't think we're letting them go. like that was he was like but if Carl and Ian picked up on Smith's anxiety or the fact that that previous plan that they were said they were going with wasn't happening and that like they weren't going to kidnap a family and like all that [ __ ]

Neither of them let them know that they knew okay that the plan was being abandoned kind of thing that they had a totally different idea like later Jimmy was like it seemed like they thought we were going to let them go

like they thought we were being real. Now Powell instructed the two men to get out of the car. And Ian opened the door and slid out while Carl struggled to get out of the seats and out into the front. And outside the car, they could smell the dirt and acres of onions planted in the fields on both sides of them. It is a massive onion field.

Um they said it even caused all their eyes to tear up. It was that much like the pungent stench.

Yeah. Uh were not for the moon that night and a lot of stars, it would have been pitch black. Oh, so freaky.

The only sound they could hear was crickets. Oh, yeah. With their arms raised high above their heads, Ian and Carl stood before Powell, who was still holding Ian's gun in his hand. And Powell said, "We told you we were going to let you guys go, but have you ever heard of the little Lindberg law?" "Oh, no." Ian had barely begun to open his mouth to say the word yes when Powell raised the gun and fired and shot him directly in the mouth. Oh my god. The blast knocked Ian off his feet, sending him into the air briefly before landing hard on his back. He laid there moaning on the ground, and Powell walked over and stood directly over him and fired four more shots directly into his chest.

And Jimmy Smith said later, "I can only remember his arm and his hand. Each time a bullet hit him, his hand would jerk and jump up like he was grabbing for you."

Oh, yeah. now and he's a father of two ch two daughters like it's just who had just been newly married wanted to become a detective studied zoology like that [ __ ] breaks my heart and all they did was stop these two [ __ ] for a traffic violation

yeah also what the [ __ ] are these two doing that's they're [ __ ] crazy like these are career criminals that it's it's just it's senseless. Completely senseless. That's what makes this so sad is like that this is a completely completely senseless crime.

Yeah. Although he didn't remember doing this, Carl let out later they told the jury that Carl let out a long loud scream the moment his partner hit the ground.

Yeah, of course he did. That's it must have been horrific to witness. And that's like his friend and his partner. Like they've worked together.

Yeah. The noise broke the kidnapper's concentration and they looked up just in time to see Carl lurching away from them in the direction of the onion field. He just managed to hurl himself through the bramblepacked barbwire fence, ripping his hands and face in the process and was trying to catch his breath when he heard the sound of footsteps and heavy heavy breathing coming. They were chasing him.

Yeah. He knew they were after him and they were intending to kill him just as they killed Ian. And he had nowhere to run and nowhere to hide at this moment. And the realization that he might die was all the motivation he needed. And just seconds after he'd made it through the fence, he was on his feet and he was running harder and faster than he ever ran before.

Sure. Now back on the road, Jimmy had run back to the car to get the flashlights, which he handed over to Powell as soon as he got back to where Greg was standing. And in order to get a better view, Powell climbed up on top of one of the fence posts and swept the flashlight beam back and forth across the fields, expecting to find Hettinger crouched in the low leaves of onions in the ground.

I'm like, no, he's running, honey. And imagine being like I like cuz at this point Carl started running, but he's trying to hide whenever that beam comes. So, he's out of breath, not wanting to give away his position, and he made himself as small as he could to try to catch his breath while this light is sweeping around.

When he looked at his watch, he saw that it was 12:15 a.m. It had been over 2 hours since they last checked in with the dispatcher and their fellow officers at this point were definitely going to be looking for them because if they're not hearing from them, something's wrong right?

But there was no way they would find them because they're 2 hours onion field. They're in Bakersfield in an onion field. As he lay in the field watching the beam of light sweeping back and forth, he said he remembered that farmhouse that he'd seen about a mile down the road, the one Powell said they could walk to once they let them go.

And that seemed like the most logical place to look for help. But it also seemed like the first place that Powell and Smith would look. So he was like, "I'm not going to go there."

Okay. Yeah. Now, Carl was just getting his energy back and thinking of a plan when a large group of clouds passed over him and it blocked out the moon, which is probably good. Yep. If ever there was a moment to make a break for it, it was when it was pitch [ __ ] black. So, he quietly stands up and just starts running again. This time towards the south, which he hoped was the last place they would think to look. And as he crept along the fence,

do you even know where you're running at that point? That's the thing. You're in a giant.

What if you just run right back into them? Yeah. Carl could see though as he's creeping along the fence that Powell was back behind the wheel of the Ford and was driving slowly down the road, flashing his flashlight into the fields.

Oh my god. At the same time, Jimmy Smith was still walking back and forth along the perimeter of the field, looking for any movement.

Mhm. In the meantime, Carl had run south, then west, then doubled back, hoping he could shake them.

Being literally hunted. Literally hunted. He ran until he saw some lights off in the distance. But without his glasses, cuz he lost his glasses in all this, by the way, everybody,

he lost He needs his glasses. He needs his glasses. He couldn't and without them, he couldn't know whether they were a sign of safety or danger at this point.

Yeah. Um, finally, after running for a few more minutes, he spotted something that he'd seen a million times and made him feel so much better. It was a caterpillar tractor parked in a field adjacent to the farmhouse because he was like, "I know how to work one of those if I have to." All right. But he didn't have to because Emanuel McFaden had been working the late shift in the fields that day and was just wrapping up a little before 12:30 when he saw a shape come shambling out of the fields towards his house.

That must have been [ __ ] horrifying. Oh yeah. By then, Carl had covered nearly 2 miles at a pace faster than he'd ever run before and was exhausted. He was operating on sheer terror and adrenaline at the time

and the will to live. But McFatin, the farmer, said, "I was so scared. At first, I thought it was an animal coming up like that." And I picked up a shovel I carried on the cat and I was ready to hit it when it came up on me. And it was a minute.

I'm sorry. Can you imagine if after all that he just gets [ __ ] taken out by a shovel

with a shel with a shovel? Not a shower. Not a show. I thought of a tel for some weird reason. Um, but he said, "I I I saw it was a man with his clothes half tore off."

Not wanting to get involved, McFaten at first tried to ignore Carl. He was like, "I don't know who this is. Just run through my farm. Go."

They said, "You go right ahead." But it soon became clear that he could not ignore him. Because Carl tried to explain what had happened, telling him that he was a police officer and two men had killed his partner. As Carl talked, they noticed a light coming through the field. So, both men broke out into a run.

Oh god. But by then, Carl could barely stand, let alone run. Not wanting to die, McFatin continued to run away from the killers and from Carl. But eventually, he realized he couldn't leave Carl behind. So, he returned and together they slowly made their way to civilization together. So, this dude was about to get the [ __ ] out of dodge and then was like, "Can't leave this guy." And went back and got him. fat in.

He had a moment of like not great and then he said, "No, I got to go get him." Which I give him credit for.

Now, if Greg Powell had ever thought to look to his right at various points as he drove down the road and back, he would have definitely seen them huddled in the rows of onions.

But Luck seemed to be on Carl's side at this point, and neither of his pursuers had caught sight of him or

so happy, but like you didn't think to look to the right. didn't see him on that side. After 10 or so minutes of searching, Powell and Smith decided to give up and Smith got back into the Ford and Powell then drove to the uh Maricopa Highway and they were hoping they would be off. They're just on their way

after killing a police officer in a field. Now, with McFaten's help, our farmer friend, Carl made it to the nearby home of local rancher Jack Fry, who listened very patiently as they explained what had happened. When the two men finished telling the story, Fry said, "I'll get my guns. You go ahead and make your call." Iconic. Well, Fry loaded his guns. His teenage son went about the house dimming lights and pulling curtains, and his wife tended to Carl's wounds.

A Yeah, we love community. We love community. Farm community especially. It was a little past 1:00 a.m. when Carl got through the Kern County Sheriff's Office and he gave the deputy on the other's end a truncated version of the story and asked him to get the description out of to law enforcement across the state and in the surrounding states. And Carl also asked that the deputy get in touch with the Hollywood division of the LAPD on his behalf, completely unaware that after already having found the unmarked car abandoned an hour or so ago, they were already desperately searching for them.

Now, around the time that Carl was on the phone uh with the deputy from the sheriff's office, Jimmy Smith and Greg Powell had officially split up.

Oh. After ditching the Ford a few miles from the onion field, Powell stole a car from a nearby farm and was well on his way to Los Angeles, hoping that he could beat Jimmy Smith back to the city because he said if Jimmy made it before him, Greg Powell knew he would go straight to the police and tell them that Greg had killed a police officer. What?

Isn't that crazy? He knew that Jimmy Smith would have turned him in. That's why I'm like, why are you [ __ ] working with me?

Which I wonder if it's because and and I wonder if it's because Jimmy didn't have as active of a role in this and he was like, I'm not going down for this, so I'll turn, you know, now.

Holy [ __ ] That's actually I did not see that. Meanwhile, Jimmy Smith, this sounds like a It's like It's awful, but like this sounds like a movie.

No, it literally does. It doesn't sound real. Like, this does not sound like something that actually happened.

In fact, it actually sounds kind of like um so he's hoping So, meanwhile, Jimmy Smith is like despondent over everything that has happened that night, and he's furious with himself for allowing Greg Powell to drag him into murder. uh alone in an unfamiliar city and unsure what to do with himself, he started walking towards the nearest town, which happens to be Bakersfield. Now, if Greg Powell hadn't been in such a big hurry to get back to Los Angeles before Jimmy Smith's, it's entirely possible he could have gotten away with it,

but he got pulled over. But he didn't think things through when he stole the car near Bakersfield and switched out the license plate on the car in case it was reported stolen. By the time he made it to Los Angeles, the report with Powell and Smith's descriptions and the car they were driving had already gone out across the state and nearly every cop in California were looking for them. And meanwhile, by that time, Greg Powell was already in a different car. Had it not been for the license plates that he took from the stolen car that was already reported and put it on the new stolen car, they would have not noticed him at all. Why would you even do that? Because in his idea, like this is how so Greg Powell, he he bails on the Ford

cuz obviously they're looking for the Ford and he steals a new car. But what he doesn't know is that so and and he steals the new car and he takes

the license plate from the Ford and puts them on the new car. Why would you do that?

He thinks they're going to report that family is going to report their car stolen with their plates on it.

Okay. So, he's putting his plates on it thinking that no one knows what we did. No one's reported us.

But it's like you're taking you're taking the license plate from a cop car that you stole.

Yeah. Well, it's from their car. They're okay. But but still, it doesn't make any [ __ ] sense.

No, it literally like you can see in some sense in his dumb thinking that he's like, "Oh, well, when this family wakes up and their car's stolen, they're going to report it and they're going to be looking for their license

pl so I'm going to put this license plate on." I guess I kind of got and I'm going to be smarter about it. But that's the problem. He was thinking too quickly of like I got to get there before Jimmy does cuz he's going to report me and he wasn't thinking about the fact that hey dummy they've probably already figured out what you've done.

So what was he going to do? Was he going to turn Jimmy in for it? No, I think he was just going to get the [ __ ] out of there. He was going he was getting out of dodge. He was going to pretend he was never there in LA and

if Jimmy goes down for it, Jimmy goes down for it. All right. All right. Yeah, it's wild.

It is. So again, had it not been for the license plates, the officers parked at Mirage Station at this point, probably wouldn't have noticed him at all. But when the plate came up as belonging to that of a different vehicle, officers ODM and and Chris figured they'd better check that out just in case. Cuz again, this is Bakersfield. This car goes by, they run it, different license plate. They're like, "What the [ __ ] that about?"

Yeah. Like that's weird. It immediately put him on Suspicious. Yeah. That's suspicious. Now, at first, Greg tried to be like, you know, normal and chill when he got pulled over. He was like, "Have I been speeding officer?" Like, "What?" Like, "What?" Like, "Not did you steal a car, though?"

Yeah. Uh, he was doing the same law-abiding citizen act that he had done with Ian Campbell earlier that night, but after a minute or two, he started to get anxious and his tone changed a little bit. Not only was Greg Powell carrying an unlicensed gun, uh, by the time they asked him to open the trunk of the car, which took a few tries until they found the right key because this is not his car,

it was obvious that Greg Powell was not the owner of the vehicle, and he was taken into custody on suspicion of car theft.

One of the officers said the following day, he didn't try to resist. He seemed pretty calm until we noticed a gun and a flashlight that had said Headingure LAPD. And then he started shaking all over.

Oh man. Now, Greg Powell was still in the backseat of the patrol car when the arresting officers realized he was one of the two men they'd been looking for in connection with the Campbell shooting. When the news went out over the radio, it drew several others to the scene where Powell was still seated in the police car. With the police car surrounded by very angry officers, Powell timidly asked that the windows be locked up.

No. Cuz now suddenly he's scared. Oh, that's nice. How do you think Ian felt? Yeah. And then he asked if they if they thought he could quote get a break if he talked.

No, I don't think shooting an officer in the mouth, you'll ever get a break. Chief Deputy Foot replied that he would not be getting a break and then began rereading him his rights.

Yeah, nice try. Now, despite being told that he was unlikely to get a deal, Powell started talking anyway. Um, he told the police that he and his partner Jimmy Young Bloodood, which was a known alias used by Smith,

not Jimmy Young Bloodood. not Jimmy Young Bloodood had been on the lookout for a place to rob when they were stopped by the officers. Then he proceeded to lay out the story in more or less the same way that it actually happened. Except in his version of events, Jimmy was the aggressor and had been the one that fired the shots that killed Ian Campbell.

According to Powell, once Jimmy started shooting, he got scared and ran off into the fields and didn't stop running until he made it to the farmhouse where he found the car. He wouldn't have stolen it, he insisted, but he was terrified that Jimmy might be looking for him. and he desperately wanted to get away.

Mhm. Now, the next day, Jimmy was arrested at a rooming house in Bakersfield after the owner of the house heard the description and turned him in.

Oh, so he didn't even go and turn Greg in. Interesting. When they arrived at the house to arrest him, Jimmy confirmed that he was the man they were looking for, and he made no attempt to resist. He even pointed them in the direction of Hettinger's gun, which was still in his jacket on the bed.

Yikes. He was not the least bit surprised that Greg had pinned everything onto him. In fact, he had expected exactly that from the moment they split up. So, as one would expect, this night has been incredibly traumatic for Carl Hedinger.

Yeah. Who not only watched helplessly as his partner was executed, but also he had been hunted through onion fields and fully expected to be killed.

Yeah. He like lived the most dangerous game, literally. But that night turned out to be just the beginning of Carl's terrible ordeal. What? Because the kidnapping of a law enforcement officer was such a rare occurrence that like I had mentioned earlier, at the time of this abduction, there was no protocol for officers who found themselves in these situations.

Yeah. In fact, the very idea that one would find themselves in that position seemed inconceivable to police officers. The LAPD, like many police departments then and and now, was steeped in a tradition of hyper masculinity.

The kind that regardless of the circumstances would have seen surrender as the highest form of cowardice.

Like, okay, so all of you saying that, tell me what exactly what you would do in this situation.

Precisely. As soon as he got back to Los Angeles and had cleaned himself up from the night before, Carl Hedinger sat down to give his statement. He said, "I could have shot the other suspect, but Campbell would have been shot." He explained that Ian had all but begged him to hand over his service revolver and how against his better judgment, he'd done so in order to prevent any further risk of anyone being killed. That's the other thing. Even if he had like shot uh the other guy, what was it? Jimmy, who didn't have

Ian, he Ian still would have been shot probably in the lower back, which also could have killed him or paralyzed him.

Yeah. But to his captain and many of his colleagues, none of that mattered. As far as they were concerned, Carl was a coward who caved.

That's just so irrational. It's disgusting is what it is. He They believed he was a coward who caved in the face of danger and as a result, his partner was dead.

Are you kidding me? Carl's former partner told the author uh Joseph Wim, "You can always do something. I just don't see giving up your gun to some crook under any circumstances. And even after that, you can do something."

Are you joking? Let's put you in the same situation and see how you come out. Yeah. Now, the author of The Onion Field, Joseph Wamba, was an LAPD officer at the time and remembered a heading's return.

I didn't That was a twist I didn't see coming. He said everybody was talking about the shooting. It was the first time a policeman had been summarily executed and it was quite shocking.

Unfortunately though, most of the talk that was focused on Carl and was just rife with speculation about what he should have done or could have done in that moment. It sounds like he just got completely ostracized.

A more enlightened and compassionate person would have recognized the absolutely impossible situation that Carl Hedinger had found himself in on that night and wouldn't have judged him for his decision that he'd made. Especially since, like you just said, none of them had ever been in that situation and couldn't honestly say what they would have done. No.

Cuz you haven't been in the situation. No idea. And again, there's no [ __ ] protocol.

There's no protocol. In 1963, it seemed the LAPD was short on um enlightened people and compassion,

evident by the number of people who very much weren't shy about sharing how they felt about Carl after Ian's death. While Carl struggled in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, Greg Powell and Jimmy Lee Smith were both talking to detectives, each telling their own version of the story. In Powell's version of events, he went so far as to nearly portray himself as the third victim. a simple stickup bandit who'd been roped into a murderous scheme by a bloodthirsty partner who he barely even knew.

Okay. Jimmy's version, on the other hand, was more closely aligned with what Carl Hedinger had said in his statement. The contradictions between the two men's stories was very obvious from the start, but it became even more so when the coroner's report showed that Ian Campbell had been shot with two different guns. Oh. Once in the mouth with one gun and then four more times in the chest with another. And Powell's the only one that had two guns because he had his own and Ian.

Well, and according to the coroner, the first shot wouldn't have likely killed him, assuming he could get medical attention, but but shot through the mouth.

Yeah, he was still like making noises. Right. I remember you said that. Um, but any one of the four additional shots to the chest could have been fatal within just a minute or two.

Now, with the release of the coroner's report, Powell's story began to change in different ways. Of course, Greg Powell.

Uhhuh. Particularly in the way he described his own participation. Yeah. He told Sergeant PR Brooks, "We had guns and we were hot. When the cops stopped us, we had the guns ready. I jumped out of the car and threw down on this cop before they had a chance to take us." While Pal did eventually stop trying to portray himself as an unwilling bystander to the events, he continued pointing the finger at his partner, identifying Jimmy Smith as the primary shooter. that such a claim was even remotely believable was due in part to Carl Hedinger's faulty memory. In his statement, Hedinger recalled seeing both men holding guns, but admitted he was too far away to see which of the two men had stood over Campbell and fired the four bullets into his chest. He did however distinctly remember seeing Powell shoot Campbell the first time.

Okay. Hedinger said pointing to when he was taken to the scene after the shooting, he pointed to the bloodstained patch of road.

I can't believe they had to take him back there. Yeah. He said, "Right there is where Powell fired on the officer." Finally, after days of questioning, Greg Powell admitted to investigators that it was he who fired the initial shot at Campbell that hit him in the mouth, but he maintained that it was Jimmy Smith who fired the fatal shots.

Okay. Now, given the sensational nature of the case, stakes were high going into Powell and Smith's trial, which began in early July 1963. In his opening statement, Deputy District Attorney Marshall Schulman laid out the facts of the case as they knew them, explaining that to the jury that because they believed they'd be prosecuted under the Little Lindberg law, Powell and Smith decided to murder their captives rather than leaving witnesses over the course of

up the ante to murder because you could also get caught for that and suffer the same consequences like is literally happening right now. They thought they could get away with it and if they had left if they had left witnesses, they figured those witnesses are gonna identify us and we're gonna get caught and then we're gonna get the death penalty.

No, totally. But if we murder them, we're so smart that we're going to get away with it and no one's left to point the fingers at us.

Totally. Yeah. Uh but over the course of the trial, they intended to show through evidence and testimony that both men had acted with malice and could have at any time reversed course.

For those reasons, they were seeking the death penalty. Now, throughout the trial, the jury heard testimony from all key players, including Hettinger, Powell Smith, and Emanuel McFaten, the the farmer on the tractor. Um, while also being shown reenactments of the crime and seeing detailed photographs of Campbell's injuries. During his testimony, Jimmy Lee Smith denied having any idea that Powell was going to pull a gun on the two officers during the traffic stop. And he said he did not know that Powell planned to kill both men once they reached their destination in Bakersfield. When Pal was called to the witness stand, he told a new version of events. This time claiming the whole thing had been an accident.

Oh, that's an interesting accident. Yeah. He said, "I raised my gun to cover the officers and the gun went off."

What? Yeah. What does that even mean? That's not even a good lie. Cover them. Yeah.

After months of testimony, the jury retired for deliberation in early September. spent more than five days pouring over the evidence. But when they did emerge, they found both Gregory Powell and Jimmy Lee Smith guilty of first-degree murder.

I feel like you would have to find them both. You can't just find one. Yeah. When asked whether he had anything to say on his behalf, Greg Powell said, "I admit responsibility to some extent because I put the man in the position to be killed." A week later, Powell and Smith were back before the judge in superior court and the jury voted unanimously in favor of the death penalty.

Yeah. I mean, that's you can it makes sense like you killed a police officer. Well, I can understand how at the time that was the that was it.

Well, I mean it's 1960 something and you killed a police officer. That's what I mean at the time.

Huge. That I would expect that to count or what? That's huge. Yeah. Now, in the wake of their sentencing, Powell and Smith were sent to San Quentin State Prison and placed on death row. But that was hardly the last time anyone was going to hear from them. Oh.

In the few years that followed their sentencing, Greg Powell made multiple attempts to escape from San Quentin. Stop it.

Including one incident in which he tried to smuggle guns into the prison. In 1972, they were among several California inmates whose death sentences were commuted to life in prison after the death penalty was deemed unconstitutional. In the decades after that, Powell and Smith's names would occasionally appear in the press, usually when parole came up appeals

the idea of parole. In 1982, Smith, who had been a well- behaved and mostly productive inmate, Jimmy Smith, was granted parole.

Wow. However, just a few months later, after failing a drug test, he was returned to prison to serve six more months. In the years after that, Jimmy Lee Smith would cycle in and out of prison again on various charges, including one, and this will this will make you think, in which he kidnapped a woman and held her captive for several days.

The [ __ ] So that innocent act he was playing of like, I would have never done that. Really?

You held a woman captive. But you know what? He died on April 6th, 2007 from a heart attack.

Damn. Bye. Greg Powell also came up for parole in the summer of 1982. However, the parole board reconsidered their plan to release him after they Yeah. They said no. No. After they received a petition signed with more than 30,000 California residents objecting to his release,

he went on to appeal the decision, but was ultimately unsuccessful, as were his future bids for parole.

I think we got 30,000 signatures one time. So, including a request for compassionate release in 2011 when he was diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer. He died in the state prison uh on August 12th, 2012.

Wow. Now, in the aftermath long, that's a long prison stint. Now, in the aftermath of all this, Carl Hedinger tried to return to life as usual.

How do you including trying to return to his job at the LAPD, but sadly, he would spend the rest of his life dealing with the consequences and trauma that he endured that night. His return to work at the department was met with protests and ridicule by his fellow officers. such [ __ ]

They all blamed him for Campbell's death, not the guy who killed himself. Um, his feelings of guilt and shame were further compounded when he was forced by his commanding officer to give a public apology for his actions.

Eventually, I don't even know what to say about that. Like, come on. Eventually, Carl was transferred to various different departments before being let go from the force entirely after he was arrested for shoplifting.

Oh, that's really sad. In the years after his firing, Carl became active in local politics and was appointed to the Kern County Board of Supervisors where he served from 87 to 93.

Wow. Despite his political successes, he really continued to struggle psychologically and suffered PTSD.

Yeah, of course. Which he often coped with by drinking heavily. On May 4th, 1994, Carl Hedinger died in Bakersfield from liver failure. And in Bakersfield.

Yeah, that's horrible. From the moment the news broke about heading and Campbell, everyone seemed to have an opinion on what Carl should or shouldn't have done. And in the world of law enforcement, the case became a motivating factor in certain policy changes, including the wide circulation of a memo that stated in no uncertain terms that officers were never to relinquish their weapons, which is a good protocol to have. But when the protocol is not in place, you're leaving it up to somebody in that moment of life and death to try to figure out

and at least if the protocol is there, you know it's there. You know it's there and it's it's a good one to have, but still the same outcome might have might have happened. You know what I mean? Like it's like I said earlier,

he could have been shot in the back and killed or paralyzed. Like Well, and it's just like having the protocol at the very least allows him to sit there and say,

"I can't." And also since Carla was such a right and wrong, he just he would have been like, "Well, that's the protocol. I'm not giving this up." And it would have led him to only consider that path, which

might have like I don't know, narrowed what could happen there. Yeah. But like you said, it doesn't take away the fact that these people have guns too and now everyone has a gun.

It's just like I anything could have happened. Would could the same exact outcome have happened? Maybe, maybe not. Because if you you're not getting in the car likely,

but it's like you can't sit here and everyone would have been fine here or that Ian would have lived no matter what. Of course, you want that to be the outcome as Carl did. That's what kills me. I'm like, you're all treating him like this. The last thing he wanted was for that to happen,

right? You're punishing him for being human. It's like, this isn't his fault. It's the murderers who did it.

It's like the definition of toxic masculinity. Yeah. just gross behavior to treat him like that, like when he's going through it as well. Now, 10 years after the murder, the story was in the headlines again when Joseph WMA published his non-fiction account of the event, The Onion Field. This book was a big success, like huge, and was adapted into a popular feature film, both of which did little to improve the crushing weight of guilt and shame Carl Hedinger experienced every day for the rest of his life.

Yeah. Many years later though, in an interview with the Washington Post, Wamba expressed a deep sense of regret for how he presented the story and the impact it had on Carl and his family.

Oh, he said Carl minded terribly, but I just exploited him. I used money as my weapon to get the story. I offered him money that for the sake of his family he couldn't refuse. I acted that way because I thought the story was more important than Carl Hedinger. more important than me. That it was a story so important that I would have done almost anything to get it written.

Wow, that's dark. That's what I mean when I say no one won here. Yeah. Like everyone like you got this story out there but at the cost of your own personal dignity.

Like it's just what a that's a dirty end. Yeah. Like that's just that's so yucky.

That's so bleak. And then later to to realize that you sort of ruined someone's life

to then finally come to that conclusion after it's already been done and nothing can be fixed. It's like

Yeah. Woof. Like that is just really sad. Yeah. And Carl seemed like such a good guy that just like

he did got put in a [ __ ] situation that had no protocol. He had never been trained for this. And also like there should have been a [ __ ] protocol for that from the jump. That's one thing that we didn't even talk about. Like

it kind of makes sense to have a protocol for that. Even though it had never happened that no officer had been

kidnapped like that. That's the culture of that type of work. Especially back then it was very much like a hyper masculine like well ne we'd never be abducted. We're we're too strong for that. And it's like just plan for everything, man. And if you never use it, then who gives a [ __ ] I always at least it's there.

Overreact more than underreact. Over [ __ ] react. If you never use it, you never use it. At least you have it.

Plan for the worst, expect the best. Exactly. Obviously now it feels like that's more like

the idea of like let's just plan for the worst [ __ ] Even though we're hoping that never happens. But again, if a protocol had been in place, Carl would have had a blueprint to go off of and it would have narrowed his thinking a little bit. When you are sitting there in a situation like that where there's endless possibilities and endless paths to take

and your partner is of course you're not which I can't believe and Ian I'm going to get shot just hand your gun over. Poor Ian was put through all of this [ __ ] and now he's and I know for a fact that Ian would not want everybody to be sitting here blaming his friend who he begged to give them his weapon. He's sitting there being like I told them to do it.

Yeah. I thought I would like and none of us expected this. It just makes me I'm like come on people just got to be stop being so shitty to each other.

That's a goddamn story. I'm glad policy changed because of it and that like there's more

for this kind of situation so nobody is put in a situation where they have no guidelines to go off of

because that's such a horrible position to be in. And I hate when people sit there

that's why like when we'll say like we'll we'll say a situation we'll be like well if I was there like I feel like I would have done this always back

I always try to sit there and go but I've never been in that situation so I don't [ __ ] know. I'm sitting here saying it but like who the [ __ ] am I? I don't know. I have no [ __ ] clue what I would have done in that situation.

I think we both had the experience of being in situations we didn't expect ourselves to be in and being like, "Oh, [ __ ] I thought I would have done that, but I did this."

You know, 100%. And that's the thing, that's what we need to be a little more cognizant of as humans here

because everybody's real quick to give their opinion about what they would do or what somebody should do. And it's like

everybody's just so holier than that. Maybe just like let people have their own experience and deal with the aftermath of it.

Yeah. It's just I feel horrible for Ian Campbell and his family. Like he's a father.

I'm sure that added to it too. It's like he left these two children behind and Carl didn't have any children at that time and I'm sure people were like

oh you have nothing to come back to, you know. Yeah. which it's like and I feel compounded wife and family Ian Campbell's

because it's like they both seemed like such good dudes. Yeah. And like they somehow were put together. They would have been probably an amazing pair.

I think they would have like from the sounds of it they had all the makings of great detectives and like would have done really well together.

Well, just what a shitty event this was too that a freak event they just put like just a regular traffic stop. And it did not need to go that way. Yeah. Like look what happened. You were trying to get out. Greg Powell and Jimmy Lee Smith didn't want to get in trouble for a gun, an unlicensed gun,

and they didn't want to go back to prison. They didn't want to go back to jail, which they've been in and out of forever. Look what happened. You got put on death row, you idiots. Like that's Did it was that worth it? And in the process, you took away a father and and husband away from

which it sounds like Powell really didn't give a [ __ ] about that. It almost seemed like he was like lethal to do that.

Yeah. Just humanity is the worst. Just yucky, yucky people. And I feel awful for Carl Hedinger and his family. And I feel awful for

Ian Campbell and his family. I'm just really sad. Yeah. But Yeah. So I don't really know how to transition out of that one. gets harder and harder every time we tell these stories.

It does. It really does. But we hope you keep listening. We do. And we hope you

keep it weird. But that's so weird that you judge others for a situation that you yourself have never been in.

Yeah. Don't keep it that weird. That's not even weird. That's just gross. Don't be gross.

Icky gross. Yuck. Bye.

Questions about this episode

What is discussed in "Episode 735: The Onion Field Incident"?

In order: 0:00 Carl Hedinger, Dan Campbell, The Onion Field; 10:00 Dan Campbell, Fresno State College, Pierce Junior College; 20:00 Gregory Powell, Jimmy Lee Smith; 30:00 Greg Powell, Dan Campbell, Jimmy Lee Smith, Carl Hedinger; 40:00 Jimmy Smith, Lindberg law, Carl Hedinger, The Onion Field; 50:00 Greg Powell, Jimmy Smith, Dan Campbell, Carl Hedinger; 1:00:00 Greg Powell, Carl Hedinger, Jimmy Lee Smith, Jimmy Smith; 1:10:00 Carl Hedinger, Dan Campbell, Greg Powell, Jimmy Lee Smith.

What is mentioned in this Morbid | Podcast episode?

13 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Greg Powell, Carl Hedinger, Dan Campbell, Jimmy Smith, Jimmy Lee Smith, The Onion Field. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Episode 735: The Onion Field Incident"?

The episode runs 1 h 20 min; the transcript is about 16,151 words in 366 timestamped sections.

More from Morbid | Podcast

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated January 24, 2026.