What Led Candy Montgomery To Kill Betty Gore?

Candace "Candy" Montgomery murdered one of her friends in 1980, and yet she walked free after being acquitted of the crime. What could have caused her to kill Betty Gore?

As The Dallas Morning News reports, Candy was 30 years old and married with two children. She became close friends with Betty Gore ⁠— who had kids around the same age ⁠— after the two families met at their local church. Their children became friends too, and Betty's daughter even slept over at the Mongomery household the night before her mother was murdered.

On June 13, 1980, Allan Gore was away on a business trip, and he was worried that he hadn't heard from his wife all day, so he asked several neighbors to check on her (per Audacy). Upon entering the Gore residence, the three neighbors first noticed one of Betty's young kids, who was crying in a crib and had not been fed all day. They then discovered a grisly scene and initially thought Betty had been shot because of the severe mutilation to her face and body. Betty was, in fact, brutally murdered with an ax, and she had been attacked repeatedly.

People immediately wondered — what could have caused such a tragedy?

Candy Montgomery, who was reportedly sexually frustrated with her husband Pat, hid a double life from both her own family and Betty Gore (via Texas Monthly). She and Betty's husband, Allan Gore, had been meeting in secret. They had an affair together, sneaking around to different cheap motels for months, but Allan Gore later called off the relationship.

Months later, in June of 1980, one of the Gore children slept over at the Montgomery's but forgot her bathing suit, so Candy went to retrieve it from the Gore household. When she arrived there, Betty brought up Candy and Allan's relationship and asked her directly if the two had been sleeping together (via The Dallas Morning News). This is when the two women reportedly began to fight.

In court, Candy Montgomery's lawyers argued that Betty Gore grabbed an ax and began swinging at Candy, hitting her in the foot and prompting her retaliation. But experts later testified that Betty had been hit dozens of times after she was already unconscious. And after killing Betty, Montgomery reportedly washed herself and tried to clean up the crime scene — ignored Betty's crying infant — before going about her day as usual.

Candy argued in court that she had suffered a dissociative episode and acted in self-defense, and a jury acquitted her of the charges. As Oxygen reports, Candy moved to Georgia three months later and changed her name. She and her husband divorced, and today, she is reportedly working as a mental health therapist.