Lloyd Gomez

Gomez was born on December 6, 1923, in Caliente, Nevada, to Native American-Mexican parents. His mother died when he was very young. Little is known about Gomez's childhood, but once leaving his parents' house in 1939 lacking formal education, he was never able to afford substantial living conditions leading to him becoming homeless. He is known to have traveled extensively around the west coast through freight trains. Later in his life, Gomez started to go under the pseudonym of Harry Jenks. In 1942, Gomez was arrested but later released by Sacramento County deputies on suspicion of dodging the draft, since at the time the United States was at war with Germany and Japan during World War II. On March 26, 1942, Gomez accosted a 10-year-old boy in a field near Caliente. Armed with a knife, Gomez forced the boy to hand over his rifle, and once in hand of it threatened the youth before fleeing the area. He was later arrested in Cedar City, Utah, and was extradited back to Nevada, for which he was sentenced to two-and-a-half to 20 years in prison for armed robbery. Lloyd was paroled in 1946, but was returned to prison after being convicted in 1948 for assault. He was brought to a prison camp, but one day when guards were not looking Gomez simply walked off, not to be seen again for the next two years. As time passed, Gomez became more and more motivated by financial gain, eventually causing him to begin robbing and killing people. Gomez chose fellow homeless men as his victims, roughly middle-aged whom he often preyed on while wandering around railroad cars. He used numerous methods in his murders, including shooting them, beating them with a wooden plank, smashing them with a bottle, and bashing their head's in with rocks. One interesting detail is that Gomez appeared to have taken a 7 1⁄2 month break from killing during his spree. During the first series, it took Gomez over four months to kill three people. ==Murders==

The first victim, an unidentified man, was killed in the summer of 1950, the cause of death being a wine bottle smashed against his head. The second victim was 42-year-old The only witness to the killing, John Kapusta, could not identify Gomez based on the fact he was blind in one eye. Just eight days later, on November 18 or 19, Gomez wound up in Mojave. While there, he murdered 50-year-old Earl Franklin Woods by bashing him to death with a large rock. On January 15, 1952, Gomez was arrested after police stumbled upon him walking the streets with a large slash across his face. == Victims ==

While Gomez described all nine murders in meticulous detail, police focused in on Warren Hood Cunningham, the second victim of Gomez. Gomez agreed to help investigators, and took them to the crime scene. He claimed: He went after me with two pocket knives, some guy down there had squealed on me and told him I stole his two cans of beer about four days before that. I ran. Boy, how I ran, and he was still after me. I got away and I waited about three hours, I guess. I got mad. I got so mad I couldn't stop. I had a gun buried over by the American River and I went back to his place with it. I knew what I had done, I ran. I went to Fresno. Then to Los Angeles. The idea was to go somewhere. Just keep going. Three state mental health specialists, R. B. Toller, Theo Miller, and Walter Rappaport, were appointed to see whether or not Gomez was capable of premeditation. Gomez' defense argued that due to the publicity surrounding the case, it would be impossible to select an impartial jury, and requested to superior court judge Raymond Coughlin that trial be moved elsewhere, something that he refused to do. The district attorney of Sacramento sought the death penalty for Gomez. The trial began in June 1952. On the first day during the trial, Gomez ran out of his seat after seeing a guard opening an unlocked door, but was tackled before he could leave the building. On June 10, 1952, Gomez was sentenced to death and was transferred to San Quentin State Prison to await execution. ==Execution==

On October 15, 1953, Gomez sat with interviewers and gave his final interview, in which he began eating his final meal, which was fried chicken, fried potatoes, peas, a tomato and lettuce salad, toast, apple pie and coffee. The next day, nine hours after the interview, Gomez was executed by the gas chamber. He initially declined a final statement, but his last reported words were to a prison guard, being "I don't want to live anymore." == Manuel Gomez ==

On January 2, 1943, Gomez's father, Manuel Gomez, was arrested in Nevada for the murder of 47-year-old Jesus Maria Garcia, who was beat to death with a pick handle on New Year's Day. For the killing he received a life sentence after the jury recommended mercy. == See also ==