5 chilling details about Candy Montgomery’s brutal crimes

On June 13, 1980, a crime took place in the residence of the mother and schoolteacher, Betty Gore. Gore lay dead in the utility room of her home in Wylie, Texas, after an axe had repeatedly struck her, causing blood to flow throughout the house.

Her nine-month-old baby daughter, Bethany, lay unhurt in her crib nearby. Gore's last visitor was a close friend of hers, Candy Montgomery. She was a housewife and an active member of the church.

An argument over Montgomery's affair with Gore's husband, Allan, escalated into a deadly fight. Candy Montgomery, who had been babysitting Gore's older daughter, Alisa, that day, maintained she acted in self-defense after Gore attacked her first with the axe.

The case received national attention during Montgomery's 1980 trial, where she was acquitted after testifying under hypnosis about repressed childhood trauma. The story has been told again in Love & Death, released on December 1, 2025, on Netflix.

Love & Death: 5 chilling facts about Candy Montgomery’s case

1. The gruesome discovery in a family home

On the night of June 13, 1980, Allan Gore was on a business trip, unable to contact his wife, Betty, by telephone. He called a neighbor and asked him to check on her. The neighbor, who found the front door open, heard the wailing of 11-month-old Bethany Gore, who lay in her crib.

Following the trail of blood down the hall, the neighbor discovered the partially clothed body of Betty in the utility room, her body covered in numerous deep axe wounds. The scene was marked by extensive blood spatter, with the weapon, a wood-splitting axe from the garage, left nearby.

Police arrived to find the house otherwise undisturbed, with the young daughter at Bible school under Candy Montgomery's care. Investigators noted the brutality suggested a personal attack, not a random intrusion, as per People.

2. The affair that led to a fatal confrontation

The case roots trace back to October 1978, when Candy Montgomery and Allan Gore met at a church volleyball game in Lucas, Texas. Both were married with children and active in the Methodist Church community. Montgomery, feeling unfulfilled in her marriage to Pat, approached Allan after choir practice, admitting her attraction. 

On December 12, 1978, they began their affair, establishing ground rules that the affair should not be serious but casual and secret. And for over a year, it entailed more than 100 meetings at motels, despite Allan and Betty having their second child in July 1979.

Allan ended the affair months later to focus on his marriage, but Betty learned of it through a mutual friend shortly before her death. On June 13, 1980, Betty invited Montgomery over while Allan was away, leading to an argument where Betty accused her of betrayal. Candy Montgomery later said Betty then reached for the axe, turning words into violence, as per People.

3. The overwhelming axe strikes in the struggle

During the October 1980 trial, Candy Montgomery detailed the fight's intensity. She testified that after Betty grabbed the axe and swung at her, missing her head but cutting her finger, Montgomery wrestled it away.

In the chaos of the utility room, Montgomery struck Betty repeatedly to defend herself. Pathologists confirmed Betty suffered 41 blows—28 to the head and neck, including defensive wounds on her hands and arms. 

The attack fractured Betty's skull and severed parts of her body, with blood soaking the concrete floor. Candy Montgomery described continuing until she was too tired to lift the axe further, her arms aching from the effort.

She then washed blood from her body in the Gores' bathroom, bandaged her wound, and returned her bloody clothes to her car before picking up Alisa from Bible school. This level of sustained violence, far beyond what was needed to subdue, was central to the prosecution's argument of intent; the jury accepted it as panic-driven self-defense, according to People.

4. Police link to a recent horror film

When police came to the Gore residence, the axe murderer immediately called to mind the just-released movie The Shining -released on May 23, 1980-wherein Jack Nicholson plays a man who axes his way through a bathroom door. 

The parallel between the residential axe attack in a family setting directly influenced the initial investigators' theory that it was a copycat killing of sorts, influenced by the notable scene in the movie. Betty's body position and the use of the weapon - this theory is particularly relevant since the movie was fresh in the public eye. 

Detectives were canvassing local theatres and quizzing residents about any recent viewings, but nothing concrete materialized. Candy Montgomery's name did not come up as a suspect until Allan's admission of the affair established motive.

Although the movie angle was eventually dropped, it furthered the crime in a cultural scope with dark images from popular culture, delaying the concentration of police efforts upon the more personal conflict at the root, as per People.

5. Hypnosis reveals childhood trauma as a trigger

In the months leading up to trial, Candy Montgomery underwent hypnosis sessions with psychiatrist Dr. Fred Fason in a bid to build her defense. Under hypnosis, Montgomery remembered details of the fight, including Betty's attempt to shush her during the struggle, a sound that allegedly triggered recollections of her mother's verbal abuse in childhood. 

Fason testified that it was this post-traumatic stress that sent Montgomery into a dissociative state and accounted for the excessive force as an involuntary response, rather than premeditation. Candy Montgomery remembered blacking out briefly, only regaining awareness when exhausted. 

The jury, after two hours of deliberation, acquitted her on October 30, 1980, accepting the self-defense plea. Following the trial, Montgomery and her family moved to Georgia, where she would later become a mental health counsellor, as People reported.

Catch Love & Death streaming on Netflix.