Jimmy Lee Smith (January 30, 1931 – April 6, 2007),[1][2][3][4] also known as Youngblood,[2][3][5] was an American criminal who assisted Gregory Powell with the kidnapping of Los Angeles Police Department officers Ian Campbell and Karl Francis Hettinger on the night of March 9, 1963.
[7] The book was adapted into a 1979 feature film of the same name in which Smith was portrayed by Franklyn Seales.
[2] On March 9, 1963, around 10:00 PM, LAPD Officers Campbell and Hettinger pulled over a 1946 Ford coupe with Nevada license plates.
[5] Smith and Powell were pulled for making an illegal U turn and having a broken license plate light.
Threatening to kill Campbell, Powell ordered Hettinger to disarm his weapon.
[5] Smith kept the officers covered while Powell drove them to an onion field in Kern County.
[6] Once they arrived at the onion field, Powell asked Campbell if he heard of the Little Lindbergh Law.
[2] In 1989, on parole again, he was arrested for terrorizing a woman he held captive over a weekend in West Covina.
[2] Smith died on April 6, 2007, at the age of 76 at the Peter J. Pitchess Detention Center in Castaic, California, where he was being held for failing to report to a parole officer.