They traveled to Mina from Reno on the 18th or 20th of August, reportedly being seen by deputy sheriff W. J. Hammill asking about work at the local Palace Café.

By then Hammill had heard rumors that the men he had seen were Tong members in town to kill Tom Quong Kee and were pretending to be job-seekers on their way to Tonopah as a cover.

Gee and Sing were apprehended the same day in Reno after Hammill phoned chief of police John Kirkley about two possible murder suspects driving back from Mina.

During interrogation, Sing confessed to his role in the murder and implicated Gee as the one to fire the fatal shots, under the belief that this would lead to his immediate release from custody.

[5][7] A bill authorizing the use of lethal gas had passed the Nevada State Legislature in 1921, making Gee eligible to become the first person to be executed by this method.

[16] The Supreme Court of Nevada instead complimented the state legislators for "inflicting the death penalty in the most humane manner known to modern science".

[14] Gee was incarcerated in Nevada State Prison at Carson City and initially intended to be gassed alongside another murderer, Thomas Russell, whose sentence was commuted to life imprisonment a day before the execution date.

Warden Denver S. Dickerson sent his assistant Tom Pickett to Los Angeles to personally pick up 20 lb (9.1 kg) of lethal gas, which was contained in a mobile fumigating unit that cost $700.

Gee, who had fasted for ten days before his execution date, agreed to have a last meal, consisting of ham, eggs, toast, and a cup of coffee.

[5] A guard transporting Gee to the gas chamber reportedly muttered "Die like a man, Jon" to the inmate as he was tied onto a metal bench while the cyanide was being prepared.

[6] Just after the execution, one of the physicians who examined Gee's body, Dr. Delos A. Turner, a Major of the U.S. Veterans' Bureau in Reno, asked for permission to perform medical experiments "in the interests of science."

However, the San Jose Mercury News printed, "One hundred years from now Nevada will be referred to as a heathen commonwealth controlled by savages with only the outward symbols of civilization.