the Onion Field (1973)

by Wambaugh, Joseph

  "Sure."

  "Okay. I say it's all right, keep the stuff. It's a bunch of petty junk anyway. For God's sake, stop worrying about it. It doesn't mean anything."

  "I can't. I feel so guilty."

  "What do you feel guilty about?"

  "About the stealing. Of course. About the stealing, what else?"

  He was to see doctors, seven of them. He couldn't understand it. The city just kept sending him to one doctor after another. Some of his friends suggested that the department must be hoping to hit upon a psychiatrist who would say his emotional problems were not service-connected. That his stealing was not a direct result of the murder, so the city wouldn't have to pay a pension.

  The psychiatric interviews were similar. The patient would list his many physical ailments and tell of his terrible crimes and how guilty he felt about them.

  "I worry a lot that I'll meet policemen I know, sir. And what they'll think of me. About my stealing. That I was a thief."

  And then he was invariably asked if he felt guilty about anything else.

  "No sir, what else is there? I stole so many times!" "Did you ever feel guilty about something before you began stealing?"

  "No sir. There was nothing to feel guilty about. If I could just get over these feelings about the stealing. If I could just understand what made me do it." The diagnosis read:

  It appears that Mr. Hettinger is an intelligent honest man who has a history of not having good, close, stable relationships to his parents or other people. The trauma of the Bakersfield incident threw him into a psychological regression. This resulted in the formation of incapacitating psychological symptoms. (Loss of self- esteem, obsessive thinking, compulsive stealing, diminished sexual response, withdrawing from friends.) He denies any guilt about the shooting, but evinces unconscious guilt which leads him to be self- defeating and self-punishing. He shows a remarkable lack of insight into his problems. I do not . Believe his compulsive stealing is a basic characteristic of him, but rather reflects his need to manipulate the environment to agree with his obsession that he is an unworthy person, to punish himself and relieve the anxiety of unconscious guilt, and to unconsciously avoid his police colleagues whom he felt looked critically at him. Had he received intensive psychiatric care earlier, it is likely much of the psychological regression could have been avoided.

  Karl told another doctor: "And I stole bigger things, sir. I stole a sewing machine! I stole ..."

  "Yes, Mr. Hettinger, and is there anything that made you get these same bad feelings before you began stealing all these things?"

  "No sir, I had bad feelings. I had dreams. I had pains. But I didn't feel the same way I feel about the stealing."

  "And how do you differentiate your feelings about the stealing?" "I feel guilty about the stealing, sir. I never felt guilty before. Just bad."

  The doctor wrote:

  Mr. Hettinger is a well developed, neatly dressed, pleasant and cooperative man who looks somewhat older than his stated age of thirty-two. He verbalized quite freely, however he frequently became tearful and occasionally cried when describing the incident of the murder of his partner four years ago. He appears to be unable to escape obsessive ideas which were mostly concerned with the death of his partner. The general picture suggests an individual who is undergoing a severe depressive reaction associated with compulsive behavior which takes the form of ruminative thinking about the murder of his partner masked by the compulsive need to steal. Because of the excessive self-criticism and self-devaluation, he seems to behave in a way which is crying out for help, as well as showing his desire to be punished. The possibility of suicidal behavior should be seriously considered.

  He is experiencing a considerable amount of unconscious guilt, which is not expressed overtly, but which he associates with his lack of having done all that was possible the night of the murder. As such, therefore, his present condition should be considered as service-con- nected. Intensive psychiatric care is recommended.

  The reports were all quite similar in their findings. All recommended vigorous psychiatric treatment. One report represented the findings of several doctors of the Julius Griffin Clinic. It was a psychiatric evaluation in great depth. The doctors took an intense interest in this unusual patient, making an extensive check into his physical history as well.

  The doctors discovered that the patient evinced certain textbook symptoms. His shrinkage for example was not a perception but real, only partially explained by his tendency to hunch his shoulders. He was unable now to stand erect. It was a classic Lilliputian reaction reflecting his view of himself.

  His patient poured out his heart to Dr. Griffin. He told of as many thefts as he could remember, described in detail the horror of his crimes. Tried to remember every peccadillo in his entire life. To reveal all to this confessor who broke down the barriers. He told of the erasers he and another little boy had stolen. Of the fishing plugs he and a young friend stole from a Sears store so many years ago. Of one benny he had swallowed while in the marines. He dragged it out, all of it. Every sin of his life, everything which might be a sin. Every inadequacy. His failure to be able to support his family, his recent impotence, which itself was a crime against the girl who had been his first and only love, and which shamed him almost as much as his crimes. Of his striking a helpless baby. All of it. All the terrible unspeakable things he had done to everyone who trusted him. And he spoke of the rumors of a coming retrial for the killers.

  The patient says that he would almost refuse to appear at another trial. He is considering running out of the state and will resist extradition back. As he spoke of this he cried. Mr. Hettinger admits that he cries frequently and has episodes of severe depression. He also has great guilt feelings as to whether he deserves a pension. He realizes that from a financial standpoint it can make a great deal of difference in his future security. He has always wanted to work a farm, and he hopes that he can go into farming work. He is extremely depressed because he does not know where his life will lead him.

  The Griffin report presented an interesting chapter entitled "Patterns of Vocational Interest" which was not found in the other evaluations.

  His interest clearly lies with the care of growing things. Within this group, the destruction of anything is most traumatic, and of any living thing especially so. Very often, people with this pattern of interest care excessively about the welfare of people and all living things. Often they are shy in interpersonal relationships, and show the degree of their care through service or making useful objects.

  Under "Aspects of Personality" he was described:

  Mr. Hettinger is a man of high-average intelligence. His shyness and determination to achieve would lead others to believe he was an extremely self-sufficient individual. He feels a need to conceal his softer feeling. His rather peculiar combination of strength and shyness would render him a dependable and basically kind individual who would work rather hard for the good of a group. He would be a very dependable husband and father.

  Mr. Hettinger is showing a marked and severe depression that appears to be reactive, that is, resultant from a situation or occurrence, rather than as a chronic condition. It results from his deep belief that he has failed to meet his own standards of excellence. There is the suggestion that he is near his limit for emotional stress. The patient became aware in February of this year that the two convicted criminals had appealed on the basis of recent Supreme Court rulings. The patient is extremely depressed, apprehensive, frightened, confused, and bewildered. He feels that he simply cannot go through the horror of the trial again.

  A reasonably compulsive thoroughness in work habits, moral standards, and general approach to life tends to make people of this sort drive themselves exceedingly hard. And because of this, they are generally considered very reliable persons. Because of a high general level of anxiety, which is normal for them, when their tolerance for stress has been exceeded, they are subject to excessive, obsessive and compulsive thinking and beha
vior which exceeds the normal range. This reaction makes for a vicious cycle. The neurotically controlled behavior is beyond their understanding and leads them to behave in such a way that they further contradict their normally excessively high standards in that their behavior is beyond intellectual control.

  Further into the report the doctors wrote:

  We see extreme anxiety and depression with the antisocial behavior serving as a frantic signal for help. The fact that he could reconstitute in a protective environment such as an aide to the chief of police signals a competent strength. The fact that he is threatened by an impending retrial is more than he can bear. This man needs urgent psychological assistance and probably will need it for at least several years.

  The final paragraph read:

  In an unsolicited opinion by this examiner to the police department, may I humbly and respectfully suggest that a careful assay be made of procedures that are presently being used to assist officers who suffer severe physical or emotional trauma. It is unfortunate that this man was not given an opportunity for psychologically working through his fear, shame, guilt, desperation, and panic, occasioned by the event. In my opinion, this man's emotional equilibrium could have been much more stable if immediate attention and opportunity had been given to him for psychological assistance. Perhaps all he needed at that time was some cathartic ventilation and perhaps also some restoration of his self-confidence. To assume that a man can just resume a normal way of life after such an overwhelming episode is asking too much of most of us. I do not know of the arrangement which the police department has for psychological assistance, but I urge that very careful consideration be given for the prevention of mental and emotional disturbances arising from traumata in the line of duty.

  Karl Hettinger listened to the things the doctors told him. Some of it made sense, some of it didn't. He had confidence in Dr. Griffin and decided to return. Then he began worrying about the cost to his family of psychiatric visits. He had already punished his family enough and could not inflict a financial burden on them. So he stopped seeing the doctor after only a few visits. He reasoned that he was feeling a little better about things after seeing the doctors. That was all he could probably expect anyway, all he had a right to expect.

  Sergeant Norm Moore waited outside at the pension hearing. The detective argued and raged at everyone who would listen.

  "He should get a seventy-percent pension, goddamnit! Who can quibble? How can you measure somebody's hurt? Did you read the psychiatric report? Well, baby, those shrinks didn't even know about the goddamn memorandum. They don't have any idea that this department overtly criticizes this boy, lays the blame square on his shoulders. Did. anybody in the hierarchy have the guts or brains to officially tell him, Tou should have given them your gun under the circumstances. You did the right thing'? No, they wrote an order. You can't write that kind of order. I blew my top and called the chief's office back then as soon as I found out he was being asked to tell it to the rollcalls and letting them pick him apart. And then when he got in that shoplifting thing. It was pathetic! But the department just wrote him off like a common thief so we could maintain our integrity. Jesus Christ!"

  Norm Moore knew he had won when he heard a voice in the hearing room say, "I don't care. We're going to give this boy seventy percent."

  It is unknown whether Dr. Griffin's unsolicited recommendations to the police department were ever heard in the chief's office.

  Internal Affairs Division still worked much the same as always, considering it their job to get antisocial policemen to resign as quickly and painlessly as possible to avoid criticism of the department. The bad-apple theory would endure.

  The training which purported to prove how an ex-policeman named Karl Hettinger had allowed his partner to be killed was still regularly given. The command never to surrender a weapon under any circumstances was made part of the department manual. It was most official.

  One man connected with the granting of the pension ironically observed, after reading all of the psychiatric reports, that the police hierarchy was in a sense much like the two condemned men who started the misery. He said the archetypal police mentality and the psychopathic mind were both utterly unable to identify with their victim in this case.

  One of the pension doctors he saw, not the last, just one of many, wrote a very different kind of report on Karl Hettinger.

  The doctor was George N. Thompson, well known in the Los Angeles area to lawyers who needed a psychiatric expert to testify. His report on Karl Hettinger, based on one visit, described the event of the shooting inaccurately.

  He and his partner were fighting with two suspects and one of the suspects shot his partner.

  The findings of the doctor were also markedly different:

  He seems to have a minimum feeling of guilt with regard to what happened on the police department and his episodes of petty theft go back into even his childhood. It may be said, of course, that his childhood petty theft episodes are not unusual, that they are in fact rather common with children. On the other hand, I can see no direct relationship between his episodes of shoplifting and any factors at his employment. It is the opinion of the examiner that his present disability is a result of the internal causes within his own personality and not due to the factors at his employment.

  The paragraph under "treatment" was perhaps the most startling in light of what six other doctors had said.

  There is no indication for any specific treatment. Reexamination is indicated in a period of one year. Thank you for the kindness in referring this case.

  After his signature, Dr. Thompson did decide to add a paragraph.

  PS. I might add that although some of the history would seem to indicate that the type of character disorder from which he suffered is kleptomania, on the other hand there is not specific indication in the examination of him that this compulsive stealing is sufficient to be diagnosed as kleptomania.

  Dr. Thompson's minority report would be culled from the rest and this particular doctor would be called into court to discredit Karl Hettinger.

  All the faces of all the doctors had merged in his mind. He couldn't remember any of their names or any of the faces. The pensioned ex-policeman during the remainder of that year became in every sense a gardener. He did such a good job of putting his former life out of his thoughts that sometimes when he-wanted to remember police work he was unable to. He would of course remember the events of the night in the onion field, would still relive it in his dreams. And he would still remember his crimes. They were impossible to forget. He doubted that he'd ever forget his crimes. But everything else concerning his former life he came to forget except for his service revolver. He began thinking of it more and more.

  He even forgot the doctor who had won his confidence. Even Dr. Griffin's face had faded from his mind. He had hated sitting in psychiatric waiting rooms with sick neurotic people, but he occasionally thought that perhaps he would go back one day if the thoughts of the crimes didn't go away. At least he didn't dream about his crimes. He only dreamed about the killing of Ian Campbell. He never believed the doctors who said he felt unconscious guilt about Ian. They didn't understand. He only felt guilt about the stealing.

  It had confused him when one of them asked: "Do you ever dream about the stealing?"

  "No sir."

  "You only dream about the murder?"

  "Yes sir "

  "The thing which you feel no guilt about?"

  "That's right, sir."

  They were trying to make him say he felt guilty about Ian. It wasn't true. He'd never say that. If it were true it might mean there was a reason to feel guilty. That they were right. All of them. All those who implied he killed Ian the moment he surrendered.

  But this was crazy. He mustn't think like this. After the retrial had come and passed, then he'd feel better. Then at least he'd stop thinking about the gun. The gun he had surrendered to Jimmy Smith. The gun he now so often longed to press to his head.

>   Chapter 16

  The case was given to Deputy District Attorney Phil Halpin even before the California Supreme Court reversed it. After the Dorado decision there could be no doubt it would be _ reversed.

  Halpin was glad to get a head start. The transcript was 7,735 pages long making it a lengthy murder case. The young prosecutor could not have dreamed at this time that the transcript would eventually contain nearly 45,000 pages, the longest in California history.

  Halpin was thrilled when Joe Busch, the assistant chief of trials, picked him to try the case. Busch was the number one trial lawyer on the staff and this case would go a long way toward establishing the young prosecutor's reputation. Halpin had all the tools. He had youthful good looks, a convincing baritone voice, was articulate and bright, a most promising trial lawyer.

  Phil Halpin was twenty-nine years old when the important case was given him. He was thirty-one when he quit the district attorney's office because of it. But in 1967 he was enthusiastic. He was ready.

  The prosecutor had been divorced in December, just months before being handed the notorious case which was to him more important now from a legal standpoint, after having been reversed by the Supreme Court. He was ashamed of divorce, had always felt there was some stigma to it. And no one at the District Attorney's Office even knew when it happened. Halpin lived alone in an apartment in the hills over Silverlake. He lived quietly, did not own a television, and against the orders of his employers, did not have a telephone. The Powell-Smith case afforded him a blessed opportunity to become totally immersed in something.

  His had been a teenage marriage to a girl he had known since the second grade, and now he was alone. He had two daughters and a normal share of divorce's guilt. He wanted to lose himself in this assignment. The Powell-Smith case would do that for him, to an extent he had not dreamed possible.

  Judge Alfred Peracca was, like Judge Mark Brandler, a patient man, but more gentle and kindly. He had a thin sallow face and a long upper lip, often pursed. Judge Peracca looked like one's image of a Victorian public school headmaster. He gestured often with his large hands.