Gooch was the only person sentenced to death and executed by the federal government of the United States[2] for a kidnapping in which the victim(s) were not killed. Gooch and another man, Ambrose Nix, kidnapped police officers R.N. Baker and H.R. Marks[3] in Texas on November 26, 1934, and released them in Oklahoma.[4] Baker was badly injured after being shoved into a glass case, which then broke during the kidnapping. This made the crime a capital offense since the victims had not been released unharmed.[5]
Nix was shot and killed while resisting arrest on December 23, 1934.[5]
Although the electric chair was the only method of execution in Oklahoma at this time, Gooch was executed by hanging. The sentence was carried out by Oklahoma's state executioner, Rich Owens. According to the witnesses Gooch's hanging was botched, Gooch reportedly struggling for 15 minutes before dying. Many blamed Owens for this failure, as this was the only hanging he ever performed and the first hanging in Oklahoma since 1911.[6]
His last words were reported to have been, "It's kind of funny—dying. I think I know what it will be like. I'll be standing there, and all of a sudden everything will be black, then there'll be a light again. There's got to be a light again—there's got to be."[7] Gooch was 27 years old at time of his execution.[1]
