At just after midnight on Aug. 2, 2017, Bedford County Sheriff’s deputies were called to a residence in the Deason community off Highway 231 North by a panic alarm where a home invasion and robbery at gunpoint were in progress.  

The perpetrators fled on foot just as deputies arrived. By 2:22 a.m., deputies had one of the alleged perpetrators, John Wilburn Gooch, of Antioch, (now 25 years old) in custody.  

Within days, investigators were investigating two other suspects identified by Gooch: Olin B Kicklighter, III, of Antioch (now age 46) and his son, Olin B Kicklighter IV, of Savannah, Ga. (now age 26). Both were later arrested.  

All three suspects were later charged with aggravated burglary and aggravated robbery. All three, if convicted on both counts, faced sentences of 3-15 years for aggravated burglary, with a possible fine up to $10,000, and 8-30 years for aggravated robbery with a possible fine of up to $25,000.  

The plea deal  

The younger Kicklighter was first to accept a plea deal, on June 25, 2018. The aggravated burglary charge was dismissed and the aggravated robbery charge was reduced to facilitation of armed robbery for which he was sentenced to serve 10 years in prison.  

According to court documents, he was to become eligible for early release after serving 35 percent of the sentence (4 years.) According to the state’s Felony Offender Information website, Kicklighter is currently on parole.  

Next up for sentencing was Gooch.  

He accepted a plea deal on July 23, 2018. He pled guilty to both charges. For aggravated burglary, Gooch was sentenced to six years in prison and would be eligible for early release after serving 30 percent of his sentence (two years).  

For aggravated robbery, Gooch was sentenced to 10 years in prison and would not be eligible for early release until he served 85 percent of the sentence. He will be eligible for early release on July 31, 2024. He is serving the two sentences concurrently. He is currently incarcerated at the Northeast Correctional Complex in Johnson County.  

Olin Kicklighter III was the last to be sentenced and got the lightest sentence despite the fact that he was said to have planned and initiated the crime.  

He was sentenced on July 28, 2021. Prosecutors agreed to dismiss the aggravated robbery charge and in the plea agreement.  

Kicklighter accepted a sentence of 4 years for facilitation of aggravated burglary. He had to serve 35% (one year) of the sentence before becoming eligible for early release. He is currently eligible for early release. He is, however, still incarcerated with Bedford County Corrections.  

No crime information for 4 years 

Until the older Kicklighter was sentenced, just over two months ago, there was virtually no information about the crime available to the public.  

No one in this community were informed of how the crime had been enabled by a worker who had cased the home and allegedly given the information to the older Kicklighter.  

“Specifically, Judge Richard Dinkins said that if your local police or sheriff’s department claims information is relevant to an ongoing investigation, they should be able to keep that information confidential,” wrote Deborah Fisher, executive director of the Tennessee Coalition for Open Government.  

“If there was a sexual assault reported in your college daughter’s off-campus apartment complex, under the rationale adopted by the Dinkins opinion, you and your local media can’t find out unless police decide they want to tell you,” Fisher wrote.  

“This is not about not trusting your local police or sheriff’s department. This is about retaining a citizen’s right to see public documents that help us to know if our government is operating the way we want. It’s about citizens having a right to know about crimes occurring in their communities in a timely way. The legislature has never given local police supreme authority to withhold any document they want from the public after a crime has happened. Our Tennessee Constitution doesn’t give them this power.”  

Crime reports, years later  

Now that all three defendants in the Deason home invasion case have pled guilty and are serving their sentences, the crime reports are available. It’s not clear if there was any investigating going on for 3 years after the first defendant pled guilty in 2018.  

According to sheriff’s department investigation reports, the first perpetrator caught (John Gooch) was apprehended within two hours of the crime.  

They found him walking on Highway 231. He initially denied any involvement in the home invasion, telling deputies he was in Bedford County visiting a friend but he couldn’t remember the friend’s name or where he lived. He told investigators he was walking to a store and had been walking for two hours.  

There was one other suspect on the loose (the younger Kicklighter) and he was believed to also be on foot.  

A Rutherford County police dog and a Tennessee Highway Patrol helicopter assisted in the search but the younger Kicklighter was not found that night.  

Gooch told investigators that someone who had done work at the victims’ home told the older Kicklighter that there was a big safe there “with money stacked all the way to the top.”  

He told investigators that the Kicklighters enlisted him to help with the “job” in Shelbyville.  

As they drove to Deason, Gooch said, the older Kicklighter told them how the house was laid out. Gooch and the younger Kicklighter were dropped off along the road and walked through the woods to the back door of the home. The pair wore black ski masks and black gloves.  

Gooch said he kicked the door twice but it didn’t open and “we seen the old lady standing there.”  

Gooch said the door was finally forced open when the younger Kicklighter kicked it in. According to Gooch, the female homeowner ran into an office area and shut the door but Kicklighter broke a window to gain access and pointed a firearm at her demanding that she tell them where the safe was.  

According to Gooch, the homeowner said there was no safe but told them where there was some cash.  

The younger Kicklighter searched the home for a safe, Gooch said. Gooch told detectives he grabbed cash from a desk drawer and the woman’s wallet at which time law enforcement arrived and he and the younger Kicklighter ran out the back door and fled into the woods. The homeowner told investigators that Gooch and the younger Kicklighter stole around $4,000.  

Two days after the crime, on August 3, 2017, Gooch accompanied investigators and took them to the older Kicklighter’s home in Antioch.  

Investigators subsequently obtained a search warrant on Aug. 18, the probable cause to support the warrant being Gooch’s statements and cell phone records indicating Kicklighter’s locations at the time of the home invasion.  

In Kicklighter’s home, investigators found two weapons, including a Smith and Wesson 9mm handgun believed to be the one used in the robbery and other items that were also believed to have been used in the crime.  

Lawsuit filed 

Olin Kicklighter III, in April 2019, while being held in the Bedford County Jail, filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the county for what he alleged was mistreatment.  

He alleged “When I first got here they didn’t have all the requirements that you need when you come to jail. They made me sign a paper saying I did. Then they put me in D pod where there were 39 other inmates. That pod is only for 20 inmates. So I had to sleep on the floor with no mat, blanket, nothing. Then they only had one toilet that worked, one shower for 40 inmates, they have electrical conduit hanging off the wall. With live wires sticking out where we can touch them. I have not been outside since I’ve been here for outside recreation.  

“There is black mold everywhere,” he said. “Multiple spider bite incidences and it is infested with bugs. This building is supposed to be condemned. I’ve seen state inspector come through and pass things that I knew for a fact that shouldn’t pass.”  

Kicklighter wrote that he should be compensated for violations of his human rights. That suit was dismissed for failing to properly file his case.  

Bedford County Jail inmates were moved to the new correctional facility on Harts Chapel Road in January 2020.