True-crime series seem to have hit a stride just as the current season of network TV comes to a close. Series likeThe Staircase,Under the Banner of Heaven,andOur Fatherhave all garnered interest and buzz, butCandystands out among them. The miniseries covers the lesser-known 1980 ax-murder of housewife Betty Gore in the small, conservative community of Wylie, Texas.
While the case has been explored in the past via a pair of articles from TexasMonthly magazine and a television film, this is the most attention the case has gotten outside of North Texas.Candyexplores the time leading up to the murder and the case after, starringJessica Bielas Candy Montgomery andMelanie Lynskeyas Betty Gore, but it’s not even the only series exploring the murder.Love & Death, also exploring the murder, will air on HBO Max withElizabeth Olsenset to star. What are the details of this case that suddenly seem to be gripping the true-crime scene? Most of the information known about the case was reported by Texas Monthly as their1984 two-part articlecovers both the affair that set the events into place and the controversial trial and acquittal. This same article is the basis forCandy,Love & Death, and the 1990 television movieA Killing in a Small Town.
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Betty Gore died at her home in Wylie on Friday the 13th of June 1980. She wasn’t discovered until later that night by her neighbors, at her husband’s behest, who was out of town on a business trip in St. Louis. Gore, who was killed in the earlier hours, was left in the house all day, with her baby, Bethany, crying her voice hoarse. The autopsy revealed that she was struck with an ax 41 times, 40 of which occurred when she was still alive. She was only 30.
Montgomery and Gore were good friends – they went to the same Methodist Church of Lucas (another town adjacent to Wylie) and they both had children around the same age. The reason Candy went to Betty’s house that fateful day was to pick up a swimsuit for Betty’s eldest daughter. It transpired that she had been maintaining an affair with Betty’s husband that lasted several months, from 1978 to 1979, allegedly due to sexual dissatisfaction in their marriages. According to Candy’s retelling of events described in the Texas Monthly, Betty brought up the affair when Candy came over to her house that day. However, not all believed the testimony given in court. Richard Pomeroy, Gore’s brother,told Oxygen, “I don’t think justice was served in the least bit. I think it was a murder.” UPIalso reportedthe outraged reactions of several court spectators to Montgomery’s acquittal.
The 8-day trial for the murder convened in McKinney, Texas, 4 months later. Candy’s attorney, Don Crowder, a man from her church, took her case and pled not guilty by reason of self-defense. He hired a psychiatrist and clinical hypnotist as an expert on the case which was still commonly used in the 80s, while generally not trusted to the same standard today. Through hypnotism, Montgomery appeared to recall the memories of the encounter. The psychiatrist testified to the struggle triggering a “dissociative reaction,” according to theFort Worth Star-Tribune. It didn’t take long for the jury to deliberate, finding Candy Montgomery not guilty of the murder.
Candytakes these events and follows the account told in Texas Monthly pretty closely, although some aspects of the series are of course adjusted to fit a 5-hour dramatic series. However, even some of the more dramatic moments of the limited series don’t stray too far from reality, including Crowder (Raúl Esparza) being held in contempt of court during Candy’s trial. Despite sticking close to the perspective, Candy Montgomery gave in her testimony which later was covered in the press, there still is no way of knowing what really happened that Friday the 13th in Wylie, Texas.
