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BETTY GORE’S STORY — THE BRUTAL AX KILLING THAT RATTLED THE QUAINT TOWN OF
WYLIE, TEXAS

By okaybliss — ON May 12, 2022


The 1980 killing of Betty Gore in Wylie, Texas by a fellow suburban friend and
neighbor, Candy Montgomery, is experiencing a resurgence in interest forty years
after it all went down. With the story being recently retold on Hulu’s ‘Candy’,
there is little surprise as to why the case is being remembered.

The brutal incident is notorious for the number of chop wounds inflicted on the
victim: a total of 41 ax blows. Though forensic experts have later found that
most of the blows occurred after Betty had died, the unusually extreme act
committed by Candy became a prolific murder case in the country.


KEY TAKEAWAYS

 * Betty Gore and Candy Montgomery were friends who met at the church and lived
   near each other in Wylie, Collin County.
 * Betty’s husband Allan and Candy began an extramarital affair while Betty was
   pregnant with her second child.
 * The neighbors discovered Betty’s murdered body on the night of June 13, 1980.
 * Candy was arrested and charged with Betty’s murder after the affair came to
   light during the investigation.
 * At the trial, Candy confessed to killing Betty in self-defense after the
   latter had confronted and attacked her about the affair.


BETTY GORE MET CANDY MONTGOMERY AT THE METHODIST CHURCH OF LUCAS IN COLLIN
COUNTY, TEXAS

Betty Gore was born in the 1950s to Charles Robert “Bob” Pomeroy and Bertha
Larean Pomeroy. She grew up in Norwich, Kansas, and had two brothers, Richard
and Ronnie.

In January 1970, she married Allan Gore, who was her math teacher in college.
The couple settled in the suburbs of Dallas, Texas, and gave birth to their
first daughter, Alisa, after four years of marriage.

Betty, Allan Gore and their first daughter, Alisa

In 1976, Betty worked as a teacher at R.C. Dodd Middle School in Wylie, Collin
County, teaching fifth-graders while Allan worked at an electronics and defense
firm, Rockwell International. Nothing was out of the ordinary for the suburban
family.

Betty met Candace ‘Candy’ Montgomery at the Methodist Church of Lucas and struck
up a friendship that would eventually cost her life. The pair grew close and so
did their families with their children spending time together. As per Texas
Monthly, the Montgomery family, Candy, Pat and their two children (a son and a
daughter) had moved to the area in 1977.


ALLAN GORE AND CANDY MONTGOMERY BEGAN AN EXTRAMARITAL AFFAIR IN 1978 WHILE BETTY
WAS PREGNANT

Candy’s dissatisfaction with her stale marriage led her to initiate an
extramarital affair with her friend’s husband, Allan Gore. While Betty was
pregnant with the couple’s second child in the late summer of 1978, Candy and
Allan began to form an attraction.

In search of a thrilling adventure, Candy made a proposition to Allan. Despite
Allan’s initial hesitancy at being unfaithful to his wife, he gave in to the
idea within a few months. Hence, shortly after Candy’s 29th birthday, the pair
began discreetly seeing each other.

As their affair gained traction, they became sexually active on December 12,
1978, at the Continental Inn located in Richardson. According to Texas Monthly,
they made weekly visits to the Como Motel nearby to continue their relationship.

Candy Montgomery

In mid-June of 1979, Candy even threw a surprise baby shower for Betty whilst
secretly seeing her husband. After Betty gave birth to her daughter, Bethany
Gore, in early July, she and Allan began to work on their marriage. They
attended a counseling weekend in Dallas known as the Methodist Marriage
Encounter which somehow improved their relationship.

Wanting to focus on mending their respective marriages, Candy and Allan ended
their one-year affair in November 1979. It is known that Allan initiated the
breakup.


ON THE NIGHT OF JUNE 13, 1980, BETTY GORE’S LIFELESS BODY WAS DISCOVERED BY THE
NEIGHBORS IN HER HOME

On the fateful day of June 13, 1980, Allan was away on a business trip to Saint
Paul, Minnesota. Betty, who would usually fret every time he was away, did not
respond to his calls.

Unable to reach her any other way, a worried Allan asked his next-door neighbor,
Richard Parker, to check on his wife.

Allan also called on his neighbor down the block, Jerry McMahan, to look into
the house. At this point, the seriousness of the situation compelled another
neighbor, Lester Gaylor, to accompany McMahan. The three men were surprised to
find the front door unlocked and entered the home.

The hoarse cries of an infant Bethany, who was barely a year old, rang through
the house. Parker picked her up from the crib and went to call the police.

Gaylor and McMahan searched the house and found the lifeless body of Betty in
the utility room.

Betty Gore

“I went in first. We went down the hall to the bathroom, turning on the lights.
A little old baby raised its head up out of the crib, out of the baby bed. It
began to cry. It’d been there all, nearly all day, hadn’t been fed or nothing. I
opened the door and it was a bloody mess,” Gaylor recounted the incident to The
Dallas Morning News.


CANDY MONTGOMERY WAS NAMED A SUSPECT AFTER THE AFFAIR CAME TO LIGHT AND WAS
ARRESTED AND CHARGED WITH MURDER

At a first glance, due to the mangled remains of her head, the neighbors
presumed that Betty had been shot or that perhaps she had shot herself.

Allan was informed that his wife had committed suicide. However, the police
inspection later confirmed that Betty’s death was caused by another weapon: an
ax. She had repeatedly been hit with a three-foot-long ax all over her body and
an overwhelming number of 41 chop wounds were detected.

The police found further evidence of the culprit in the form of a bloody
footprint and fingerprints at the crime scene. After Allan disclosed his
adulterous past to the investigation team, the police found a possible motive
for Betty’s murder and named Candy Montgomery a suspect in the crime.

Although Candy was arrested and charged with the murder of Betty Gore, she was
released on a $100,000 bond. The community and the church believed the police to
have made a mistake and showed their support to the Montgomery family despite
the media’s release of evidence.

Though Candy had destroyed and discarded her rubber sandals from the crime
scene, she left strands of hair in Gore’s bathroom, where she had taken a shower
after killing Betty. With the mounting pile of evidence against her, Candy was
represented by Don Crowder, a small law firm partner she knew from church,
reported Texas Monthly.

Candy Montgomery

This high-profile case was Crowder’s first murder case and he presented the
self-defense plea for Candy Montgomery.


DURING THE EIGHT-DAY TRIAL, CANDY CONFESSED TO KILLING BETTY GORE IN
SELF-DEFENSE

Defense attorney Crowder alleged that Candy could not recollect the incident of
the killing because of a “dissociative reaction” caused by trauma. She had to
undergo hypnosis conducted by Dr. Fred Fason, a Houston-based psychiatrist, to
extract her memory.

Under hypnosis, Candy admitted to hating Betty for ruining her life.

“I hate her. She’s messed up my whole life. Look at this. I hate her. I hate
her. I won’t let her hit me again. I don’t want him. She can’t do this to me,”
said Candy, as reported by Texas Monthly.

The three long sessions with Dr. Fason also uncovered her childhood trauma and
its associated deep-seated rage that surfaced during her last moments with
Betty.

At the trial, Candy confessed to the crime and said that she had no intention of
murdering Betty at all. On the morning of June 13, she visited Betty to get
Alisa’s swimsuit as her children and Alisa were going to spend the day together.

Betty asked Candy about the affair and in a confrontation gone wrong, attacked
Candy with the ax. Candy sustained injuries: an open cut at the hairline on the
right side of her forehead and a deep gash on her left foot’s third toe. She
later gained control of the ax and hit Betty in self-defense.

“I hit her. I hit her. I hit her. I stood back and looked at myself and I was
covered in blood. I felt so guilty, so dirty. I felt so ashamed,” Candy said in
her testimony, The Dallas Morning News wrote.


IN A CONTROVERSIAL VERDICT BY THE JURY, CANDY MONTGOMERY WAS ACQUITTED OF ALL
CHARGES

The defense justified that Candy’s 41 ax blows on Betty occurred as a result of
a rage induced by her childhood trauma. It was claimed that something Betty had
said during the encounter triggered Candy’s rage. She also went through a
polygraph exam to solidly her statement as the truth.

“We determined it never had a bearing on the verdict at all – whether it was one
gunshot or 1,000 whacks. Adultery was no factor either. A lot of those people in
the courtroom think she should have been convicted on a morals charge. But this
woman wasn’t on trial for adultery,” said Juror Alice Doherty Rowley to The
Dallas Morning News.

On the other hand, prosecutor Tom O’Connell argued that Candy had many chances
to flee the house instead of axing Betty more than forty times, a number more
than necessary to defend herself. He further talked about Candy’s abandonment of
Betty’s infant daughter at the home and her subsequent lies after the murder to
her friends and Allan.

However, the prosecutor’s arguments fell weak in comparison to the defense as
they could not deny that the murder weapon was procured by the victim herself.

The eight-day trial came to an end on October 30, 1980. After three hours’ worth
of deliberation, the nine women and three men jury gave their verdict of not
guilty to Candy Montgomery. When District Judge Tom Ryan read out the verdict,
it was immediately met with criticism from citizens who shouted ‘murderer’ at
Candy as she left the courtroom.


CANDY LEFT TEXAS AFTER THE TRIAL AND SETTLED IN GEORGIA UNDER HER MAIDEN NAME
CANDACE WHEELER

Crowder, who faced four days in prison for being cited twice for contempt of
court during the trial, said that they were very pleased with the judgment and
“proud that the jury had enough courage to stand up”.

Bob Pomeroy, Betty’s father, talked about the seemingly unfair judgment to
United Press International:

“As far as I’m concerned, justice will be served. She has to live with it. I
wouldn’t say I was happy with the verdict. We don’t know what happened and we
never will know what happened,” he said.

Candy Montgomery has since left Texas and settled in Georgia where she lives to
this day as Candace Wheeler, under her maiden name.

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