by John Bloom
When it came time for each woman to make a choice in her life, they diverged at last. Candy followed her own instincts, tried to “rediscover me,” sought refuge in the lives of her children, in civic affairs, in going back to college, and ultimately in the self-absorption of sexual adventure. Betty sought a more private refuge. It depended on no one but her. Through Marriage Encounter, through her devotion to perfecting the daily routine of life, she hoped to win her husband’s love. Had Candy chosen any other man to have her harmless fling with, the Greek tragedy would never have happened.
What really happened in the utility room?
As late as three years after the killing, this was still a very pertinent question to the general public of Collin County and environs. Perhaps never before had there been such widespread disagreement with a jury verdict, and such a universal feeling that something important about right and justice had been sacrificed when Candy Montgomery was allowed to walk free. The trial had asked all the right legal questions, but somehow it seemed that a lot of larger moral questions had gone begging. Even after Candy’s story had been picked apart by lawyers, analyzed by psychiatrists, held up to the cold light of logic, there was something missing. Perhaps it was something that only Betty Gore could have explained.
Still, it was possible to know a great deal about Betty’s mental state on the morning of her death. She was depressed over her late menstrual period. Allan had just left to go out of town—always a traumatic event for her. She felt like the entire responsibility for the upcoming vacation had been dumped on her. She had taken at least one drug—the one her gynecologist had prescribed to induce a period—and she was in the habit of taking tranquilizers and muscle relaxants for any number of psychosomatic ailments. Betty was also subject to various imbalances associated with the menstrual period and would often go into a deep blue funk during the premenstrual phase. She may even have suffered from a clinical ailment known as premenstrual syndrome, in which case her hormonal imbalances could have induced manic-depressive behavior just before her period. Into her life, unexpectedly, walked Candy Montgomery, and her mind started making random connections. Betty was probably pregnant again … the last time she was pregnant Allan became distant and disinterested … he spoke of Candy a lot … Allan and Candy … and presto!—the thought she’d been unwilling to face for months bobbed to the surface.
“Are you having an affair with Allan?”
“No, of course not.”
“But you did, didn’t you?”
Candy, far from trying to lie her way out of everything, abruptly admitted the truth. She even made it worse by blithely excusing herself.
“But that was a long time ago.… Did Allan tell you?”
On one of the lowest days in her life—the day all her fears and insecurities had come together at once—Betty’s first instinct was a mild form of vengeance: she wanted to teach Candy a lesson. Much of Betty’s life involved teaching lessons to people, whether they be misbehaving ten-year-olds or rebellious foster children or insensitive Methodist ministers or … brazen hussies like Candy Montgomery.
But in this case, as in many previous cases, Betty’s solution was awkward. Perhaps because she had just been reading about The Shining, perhaps for some other reason, she thought of the ax. It wasn’t much good if you wanted to kill someone, but it was great if you wanted to terrify them. Betty was not a violent woman, but even if she had been, there were much better weapons available. She wanted something intimidating, not something functional.
Once Betty returned to the living room-den area with the ax, though, even she realized how ludicrous the whole scene was. She didn’t raise it up over her head or rush at Candy. She said, “You can’t have him this time.” (The words “this time” indicated she connected Candy to the other time she was pregnant.) And then she quietly put the ax down. No doubt she felt foolish about the whole thing. She may have even been afraid that Candy was secretly laughing at her. The worst part of it was that Candy obviously hadn’t been scared at all. Betty tried to make small talk, forced herself to be more normal for a moment, and even helped Candy by arranging for Alisa’s swimsuit and towel. She wanted the whole thing to be over.
The crucial moment—far more important than Betty’s cryptic “Shhhhhh”—came when Candy made her feeble, patronizing apology. If Candy had simply bundled up her belongings and left as quickly as she could, the whole confrontation might never have happened. Instead, after refusing to accept any guilt because “it was over a long time ago,” she suddenly said, “Betty, I’m so sorry.” Even that wouldn’t have been so provocative, but Candy touched Betty. Betty didn’t like to be touched anyway; at a moment like this, it must have set off an alarm.
Yet Betty was still not homicidal. She shoved Candy into the utility room, gaining the obvious advantage. The normal thing to do, if she intended to hurt Candy, would have been to lunge after her with her fists, or perhaps kick her while she was falling backwards. Instead, Betty turned her face away from Candy so she could pick up the ax. Again, the act made no sense unless she was thinking, “So she wasn’t scared by the ax, huh? Try this on for size.”
Once the struggle began, Betty abstractedly said, “I have to kill you.” As any rookie police psychologist knows, real killers don’t announce their intentions. Again, the threat was a form of intimidation. Candy, in the meantime, screamed “I don’t want him, I don’t want him,” a peculiarly selfish way of describing why an affair is over. Not “I made a mistake.” Not “I’m sorry.” Not “I’ll never do it again.” But a constantly repeated phrase that indicated Betty’s husband was not even desirable to Candy; she had used him up and tossed him aside.
The sight of blood changed everything. Blood induces mild shock in even the most levelheaded people, especially when it is their own blood. Candy had no way of knowing the extent of her injury. She reached up and touched her forehead, and when she looked at her hand it was streaked with blood. She became panicky. Betty gained control of the ax and raised it over her head, as though to slice Candy in half. Candy became convinced that the fight was real.
Even at that point, it’s unlikely that Betty was trying to kill Candy. For one thing, she already had Candy cornered in one end of the utility room. She had sole control of the ax. Candy had nowhere to hide. Betty could pick her moment. And yet, in that very tiny, confined space, she missed Candy entirely. The ax blade hit the linoleum, bounced once, and gashed one of Candy’s toes. It’s possible that even in her final, desperate moments, Betty never intended to murder Candy. Yet the combination of the blood, the ax, the strange behavior, the exaggerated swing—all of these things could very well have convinced Candy that her life was in danger. And after that, all bets were off.
Finally, there is no doubt that something passed between the women in those frenzied moments that defies all the best efforts of psychiatrists, lawyers, and policemen to explain. For by the time Candy stood victorious over Betty Gore’s lifeless body, there was still within her a desire to make the other woman disappear, to eviscerate her face and make her suffer even after death for what she had done in life. At some point the issue between them ceased to be Allan Gore and became something else, something that only the chemistry between those two very different women could define. Candy the free spirit and Betty the moralist. Candy the gadabout and Betty the duty-bound housewife. Candy for whom a husband was the means to an end, and Betty for whom a husband represented everything stable and meaningful and secure about this life. Candy the woman who didn’t like the Bible because God sometimes played games with man. Betty the Marriage Encounter organizer, making a religion out of family. Regardless of what may have happened to Candy when she heard Betty’s eerie “Shhhhhh,” it can’t be denied that Betty was like the judgmental mother-figure Candy had been trying to escape all her life. Candy was independent; she answered to no one. She despised those who sat in judgment of her. Betty and Candy, Candy and Betty—two versions of womanhood, caught in a tragic collision of insecuritie
s, doubts about themselves, and the awareness, perhaps, that neither one of them had really learned how to love.
A Note on Technique
This book is a factual account that is necessarily dependent on the recollections of others. It was assembled over a period of two years, from interviews, court documents, letters, and other material supplied by more than one hundred people. But since it reaches into personal matters beyond the scope of the public trial, it could never have been completed without the full cooperation of two people: Candace Montgomery and Allan Gore. Both submitted to dozens of hours of interviews, often touching on matters very painful to them and to the interviewers alike, and willingly trusted us with letters and diaries that made it possible to get closer to the truth about the women this book describes. Those interviews were supplemented by separate sessions with the people closest to Betty Gore and Candy Montgomery, notably Pat Montgomery, Bob and Bertha Pomeroy, and Elaine Gore. Only one restriction was ever placed on the authors: it was agreed from the outset that the children of both families would not be subjected to interviews.
There were remarkably few cases of conflicting accounts of the same episode. When this did occur, always in minor instances, we chose the version that seemed most likely. One name was changed. “Tina,” the five-year-old girl who saw Candy Montgomery leave Betty Gore’s house on the day of the killing, is a pseudonym. Of all the principals, only two chose not to be interviewed. They were Barbara Green, who felt traumatized by the emotional strains of the case, and Judge Thomas Ryan, who declined requests for interviews on the grounds that it would be unethical for him to comment on the case privately.
Many of the principals had become distrustful of reporters by the time we began our research, and so we’re doubly grateful for their decisions to share their recollections and insights. Especially generous with their time were the Reverend Jackie Ponder, Dr. Fred Fason, Tom O’Connell, Don Crowder, Captain Joe Murphy, Deputy Stephen Deffibaugh, Dr. Vincent DiMaio, Dr. Irving Stone, and Reverend Ron Adams.
In addition, we would like to thank the following people who assisted with various troublesome aspects of the story: Dr. Alvin Snider, Rob Udashen, Elaine Carpenter, Alice Rowley, Betty Huffhines, Bruce Selcraig, Doug Swanson, Connie Holmes, Marie Childs, Ronnie Pomeroy, Richard Pomeroy, Sherry Cleckler, Elizabeth Ann Cline, Dr. Guy Abraham, Judy Swaine, Kathy Cooper, Chief Royce Abbott, Richard Garlington, JoAnn Garlington, Sue Smith, and Richard Parker. June Leftwich, of the Dallas Public Library, provided invaluable assistance.
All editorial decisions were our own.
About the Authors
John Bloom is an investigative journalist and the author of nine books. A Pulitzer Prize nominee and three-time finalist for the National Magazine Award, he has written for Rolling Stone, Playboy, Newsweek, and the Village Voice, among other publications. In addition to coauthoring, with Jim Atkinson, true crime classic Evidence of Love (1983), he penned, most recently, Eccentric Orbits: The Iridium Story (2016), an Amazon Best Book of the Year So Far heralded by the Wall Street Journal as “a panoramic narrative … big, gutsy, exciting.” Bloom has also written several books of humor and film criticism and hosted television shows as his alter ego, Joe Bob Briggs. He lives in New York City.
Jim Atkinson is an award-winning reporter, television correspondent, and crime writer. The founding editor of D, the magazine of Dallas, he has contributed to Esquire, Gourmet, GQ, Texas Monthly, and the New York Times, among other publications. He is the coauthor, with John Bloom, of true crime classic Evidence of Love (1983), and author of The View from Nowhere (1987), a guide to “the best serious drinking bars in America.” Atkinson lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
Copyright © 1983 by John Bloom and James R. Atkinson
Cover design by Amanda Shaffer
ISBN: 978-1-5040-4264-2
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