Going West: True Crime - Betty Gore // 208

Starting point is 00:00:00 What is going on True Crime fans, I'm your host Teehan and I'm your host Daphne. And you're listening to Going West. Today's case is one that you may have heard of recently because there's actually a Hulu show based on it called Candy. Heathen I have not watched it is on our list. We have just been obsessed with Severance lately. If no one has seen it, please go watch Severance. Oh, it's so good. And we're just watching so many shows, but Candy is definitely on our list because this case is just insane and that show looks so good. And I just want to say thank you so much to Petra

Starting point is 00:00:45 for recommending this case. You actually recommended it months before this show came out on Hulu. So we wanted to kinda wait to give people time to binge the show and not have any like spoilers, if you wanna call them spoilers, from the episode today. And I'd say just personally,

Starting point is 00:01:01 it's better for me to get into the research of the actual case and then go and watch and see how I can compare it. I agree. Then, you know, doing it opposite. Yeah, totally. So now, I think after this episode, we will be very much wanting to watch Candy, because I'm just excited to hear what you guys think of this case, because there is some controversy.

Starting point is 00:01:22 There's a lot of controversy. So, you know, without further ado, let's get into today's episode. All right, guys, this is episode 208 of Going West. So let's get into it. Thank you. In the summer of 1980, a beloved 30-year-old schoolteacher, wife and mother was murdered with an axe in her Texas home while her husband was away on a business trip. This killing and the subsequent discovery of her killer were so shocking that both Hulu and HBO Max have shows based on the case, though the story of Betty Gore. Betty Eileen Pomeroy was born on January 9th, 1950, to parents Bertha and Bob Pomeroy

Starting point is 00:02:57 in Harper, Kansas, which is a very small city about an hour outside of Wichita and in the southern part of the state. Betty was raised in a very traditional working-class family in the 50s and was the oldest of three siblings, later joined by a younger brother Ron and then another younger brother named Richard. Their father Bob worked as an insurance salesman while Bertha cared for the home and the kids as a housewife. Her parents also owned a gas station, then an office, and then eventually a restaurant that they called Bertha and Bob's Cafe. Betty's brothers describe her as warm, bubbly, and highly motivated. In high school, she was in plays, band, and student council, and was popular, social, and a good student.

Starting point is 00:03:46 Since childhood, she had dreamed of becoming an elementary school teacher, and teaching is exactly what she worked towards doing. So immediately after graduating high school, Betty moved out of her family home and started college in Kansas, where she grew up, studying elementary education. While at college, she met a man named Alan Gore, who was a graduate student working as a teacher's assistant in one of her classes. And soon after meeting, the pair started dating, and pretty quickly fell in love. Then on January 25th, 1970, shortly after her 20th birthday,

Starting point is 00:04:24 Alan and Betty were married in her Kansas hometown, and Betty Pomeroy became Betty Gore. Alan Gore was a career-minded go-getter, and he secured a job as a defense contractor at Rockwell International, which is a manufacturing company specializing in aircraft, space, and electronics located in the state of Texas. And thus, the young couple relocated to the comparably larger city of Dallas. Betty's small community in Kansas remembered this fondly.

Starting point is 00:04:55 She was the bright young girl who got out of her small town and headed off to the big city. In 1975, Betty and Alan had their first daughter, Alisa, and they knew that she wouldn't be their only child. So, wanting more room for their growing family, the Gores purchased a $70,000 home in Wiley, Texas, a little over 30 minutes northeast of Dallas. Wiley now has over 40,000 residents and is a popular suburb of Dallas, but at the time it was a quiet bedroom community of about 3,000 people. Wiley had been formed along the Santa Fe Southwestern train route and was known for its farms and for being both safe and quiet. The gores purchased a three-bedroom, two-bath ranch-style home in the heart of Wiley at 410 Dogwood Drive.

Starting point is 00:05:47 Now Betty secured a job teaching fifth grade at a local elementary school and the family quickly settled into life in Wiley, making friends with their neighbors and joining the local church. The gores started attending first United Methodist Church, about 15 minutes away in Lucas, Texas, and they became very involved, attending religiously, no pun intended there, sending Alisa to Sunday School and making lots of new friends who were also parents in the area. One of these friends was Candice or Candy Montgomery. Candy and her husband Pat lived in Fairview, which is about 25 minutes northwest of the Gore's house in Wiley.

Starting point is 00:06:26 So not very far. And their church conveniently sat right between the two couples homes. Candy and Pat had a daughter named Jenny who grew close to the Gore's daughter, Alisa, going swimming together in the heat of the Texas summer, and attending Sunday school while their parents attended church. You might call Candy the it's girl of first United Methodist Church. She was described by others in the flock as like outgoing and likable. She sang in the choir, she taught Sunday school,

Starting point is 00:06:56 and she organized activities for the parents, so she was super involved. However, she also had a bit of a rebellious spirit allegedly that she kind of hid behind her chest and church-going exterior. Candy had been an army brat who had lived all over the country with her family, and then left home right after high school like Betty did and never looked back. Compared to many of her suburban peers who had never left the Dallas area, she had seen and done a lot. So she craved this excitement and just external validation, especially for men.

Starting point is 00:07:32 Pateed and blonde, she dated around and kept her options open, but she set her sights on someone with money. And she found him, Pat Montgomery, an electrical engineer at Texas Instruments, which is a technology company headquartered in Dallas, Texas. And we probably all had one of their calculators in high school. Yeah, I was just about to say that. If you don't know who they are, you probably had one of their calculators. Yeah, totally.

Starting point is 00:07:56 So at this time, Candy had been working as a secretary. But when she and Pat married in the early 1970s, Candy quit her job to fulfill her dream of being a stay-at-home wife and mother. And this is when the couple had a daughter named Jenny, who I just mentioned, who was the same age as Alisa, and then they had a younger son. The Montgomery family settled in Fairview in 1977, so a few years after the goers settled in this area of Texas themselves. So a few years after the goers settled in this area of Texas themselves and since I brought up the fact that Pat made good money Or at least candy kind of seemed to marry him for money It's worth mentioning that he was earning $70,000 a year or what would be considered $400,000 a year today So he's not doing too bad for himself. Absolutely not

Starting point is 00:08:41 So when Betty Gore had her second daughter Bethany and late July of 1979, so four years after Alisa was born, things between her and Alan were floundering a bit. Betty's once dream career was in peril. She claimed her classes were unruly and that they had taken the joy out of teaching for her. So it wasn't really necessarily the teaching itself that made her job tough, but it was kind of the handling of all the young children that she really didn't enjoy.

Starting point is 00:09:09 Yeah, and at this point, she was now working as a, I guess they technically called it a middle school, but she was a fifth grade teacher. So I don't know why they said it's a middle school, but they did. I don't know if that was like misinformation, but she was a fifth grade teacher at this point.

Starting point is 00:09:24 If you're wondering what grade she taught. Well, I'll just have to jump in real quick and say that my middle school was fifth through eighth grade. Oh, really? Oh, mine was six to eight. Oh, I guess it does. It does vary. So it does vary.

Starting point is 00:09:35 Very, yeah, totally. So she also struggled with severe postpartum depression after Bethany was born, and she also had chronic pain. She and Alan had trouble communicating verbally and physically, and sleeping together was off the table. They decided to attend a weekend gathering, put on by their church called Methodist Marriage Encounter, which is supposed to help rekindle romance in a relationship and make marriages thrive. Candy watched the kids for them while they spent the weekend at a hotel, and they were

Starting point is 00:10:05 forbidden to leave each other's sides. Now during this weekend away, they took workshops, wrote each other letters, and talked about their feelings. And one of her letters to Alan about it, we're so lucky to have each other. Let's not let anything come between us. And actually, things began to get better between the two. Betty had perked up a bit, and they even planned a European getaway for the following summer.

Starting point is 00:10:42 But less than a week before they were set to leave on this trip, Betty would be dead. The summer of 1980 was blistering in central Texas as you can imagine. Alan Gore had recently taken a new job at a smaller tech company that was in competition with Texas Instruments and his former company Rockwell, and he was traveling a lot. One June day, Allen was headed out to St. Paul, Minnesota on a work trip. He first went into his office in Dallas and then headed to the airport. To alleviate Betty's nerves while he traveled, something that had come up in their counseling weekend, he made sure to check in with her very frequently.

Starting point is 00:11:26 So Alan called her from the airport before boarding the plane, but he didn't get an answer. When he called again from his hotel room hours later and still received no answer, he apparently began to worry. So Alan called their neighbor, Richard Parker, to check on Betty, wondering if something had happened. With that, on Friday, June 13, 1980, Richard and two other neighbors, Lester Gayler and Jerry McMahon, headed over to the Gore House. The entire house was dark, and they could hear a 11-month-old Bethany screaming. dark, and they could hear a 11-month-old Bethany screaming. One of the wives of the three men immediately retrieved Bethany, who was wet and crying in her crib, but otherwise she was okay.

Starting point is 00:12:14 As they proceeded cautiously through the house, they started to notice what looked like droplets of blood on a few of the door knobs, and the only light was coming from under the door to the utility room at the back of the house. It was a small room 12 feet by 6 feet or about 21 square meters that housed a washer and a dryer, a freezer, and a storage cabinet of things for the children. cabinet of things for the children. Lester Gailer slowly opened the door to what he described as a scene from a horror movie. Thirty-year-old Betty Gore was lying face up in a pool of blood an inch deep around her body. The initially thought Betty had shot herself in the head, They initially thought Betty had shot herself in the head, but what had actually happened to her was so much worse. Thirty-year-old Betty Gore had been struck 41 times with an axe, 28 of which were in the head, and many of which were after she was already deceased.

Starting point is 00:13:25 There were even axe indents in the floor where the killer missed the target. Lester Gailer, one of the neighbors, also said that there were ax marks up around the ceiling like they hit the wall. One of the other neighbors, Richard Parker, was the one to call 911 upon the gruesome discovery. Before Betty's husband, Allen could even be notified, he happened to call Richard to check in, and police answered the phone. They told Alan what had happened to his wife and questioned his whereabouts, but Alan was able to confirm that he was indeed in St. Paul, Minnesota, around a two and a half hour flight away. Alan said he became concerned when it had been hours since he had heard from Betty, which

Starting point is 00:14:05 he claimed was extremely rare for her. After hanging up with police, Alan found a return flight for the same evening to get back to Texas. Now I'm sure you're all wondering what Alan's reaction was to learning this extremely gruesome and devastating news, and police took note of his behavior on the phone. Strangely, they felt that he seemed very even keeled for someone whose wife had just been brutally murdered, although he was cooperative. As we always say, people react differently to very bad news, but police did kind of scratch

Starting point is 00:14:39 their heads at this. They began investigating the murder scene immediately, but it had already been compromised with so many people in the house. Now their initial appraisal was that it was a random stranger, or perhaps even a vendetta killing, because the revenge angle did seem plausible considering the killing seemed angry and personal. And we heard this with the Katie Jen S case in episode 195. It's pretty rare for a random violent stabbing to mutilate the face. You know, that's a very personal attack. Right, because

Starting point is 00:15:12 like you're saying, it's not, it wasn't just that it was 41 times, which is a huge deal, but also the fact that so much of it was to her head and to her face. So that really does tell us, this is somebody who is very angry with her. Or at least that seems like the most likely scenario. Yeah, definitely. And as you can imagine, word of the Friday the 13th Axe murder spread like wildfire in the small town.

Starting point is 00:15:37 And Betty's brothers, Ron and Richard, as well as their families, came to Wiley, Texas from Kansas right away. There weren't many clues left behind aside from the victim and the murder weapon. As the axe was discarded, very carelessly near Betty's body, which is also kind of rare because usually people take the murder weapon, but to leave such a large murder weapon at the scene, as well as other evidence which we will get into is very careless. We also have to think about the fact that this is before DNA testing, so maybe this person thought, oh, well, you know, they're not going to catch me.

Starting point is 00:16:12 There's no way they're going to catch me. Right. Totally. I do see it that way too. Yeah. So like you're saying, I mean, this was 42 years ago before iPhones and ring cameras and all the advancements that we've made in DNA tracing. But miraculously, police were able to find a thumbprint in blood on the freezer in the

Starting point is 00:16:30 laundry utility room where Betty was found. Detectives said they usually couldn't lift a physical print from a device like that, but they were able to get a photo of it. And to me, this isn't as accurate if you can match it to a photo, but this isn't my line of work, but that is kind of an important note that they didn't lift the print, they just took a photo of it.

Starting point is 00:16:53 Right. So after a search of the house, police began turning up more small details that could walk us through what happened to Betty in her final hours and in the moment after she was gone. So it seemed as if the killer had attempted to start cleaning up the excessive amount of blood at the scene, then got scared or discouraged when they realized that it was impossible or was going to take way too much time and stop before making much progress.

Starting point is 00:17:22 So it seemed almost as if the killer might have been in a bit of a hurry, actually, if they were trying to clean it up as quickly as they could, realized, hey, this is not going to happen as quick as I think it's going to. I got to get out of here. Right. And especially because her body was found in almost an inch of blood, that's a lot. And considering the nature of her murder and how she was murdered, it is a very big crime scene.

Starting point is 00:17:44 So it does make sense that the killer was like, I'm just gonna leave this. Yeah, almost just too much blood to even begin to try and clean. Right. So investigators also found a bloody footprint of a flip flop in the laundry room. And in addition to the drops of blood on door knobs

Starting point is 00:18:02 that the neighbor spotted, police found blood on a tile in the shower wall, or a tile of the shower wall in the bathroom, and hair and blood in the shower drain, which indicated that the murderer had showered off afterward. There was also a newspaper with a droplet of blood on it that just happened to be open to movie times for the shining that had been released in theaters three weeks prior to Betty's killing, which if you don't know, also features a brutal ax murder. So incredibly ironic, but even more terrifying, I think.

Starting point is 00:18:37 Totally agree. So investigators removed the linoleum tile that Betty was found on as evidence and began questioning people in Betty's circle. They started looking at her husband first, as we know, no investigators always do. Then moved on to neighbors, and anyone who was working nearby at the time. Burnt coffee was still in a pot from the morning of Betty's death, an investigator's theorized that maybe Alan had killed her in the morning hours and then left for work and the airport, but he continued to deny any involvement and even passed a polygraph test. The day after her killing, people started calling the house stating they had killed Betty,

Starting point is 00:19:18 and someone even threatened the gores daughters saying that they were next. So messed up. Like what the hell people? This happens in so many cases and it always just blows my mind that there's this many assholes out there. Yeah, it just makes me lose a little bit of faith in humanity. It does. And due to all these calls, police tapped the gore's phone, hoping that it would lead in the direction of the killer.

Starting point is 00:19:41 One call even came in from a mental hospital, but when police rushed there to question the caller, it turned out to be a fake lead after none of the confessor's details added up. Local justice of the piece, John Buddy Newton, claimed that he spotted a suspicious looking pickup truck at the Gore's church in Lucas on Monday, June 16 after services were held for Betty, but police had no other information to go off of. I wonder what this even means. Like, this is days after her murder and you see a pickup truck that, how does that look

Starting point is 00:20:13 suspicious? Maybe because they don't recognize it and this is a church where they know everybody else that goes to the church, but why would that have something to do with Betty's murder? Yeah, that feels kind of random. Like, I can see how it would maybe be suspicious to you, but I don't know how it's suspicious to a Betty's murder. Right, yes, exactly. And the thing about her murder is that, you know, it's supposedly happened after Alan left for work

Starting point is 00:20:39 and for the airport, which seems pretty convenient. Like, if it's's not Alan then the person knew that he was going to be out of town. And as we've stated, just the brutality of the murder seems rare. 41 axe wounds. And I don't mean to paint too much of a picture, but it's important to really think about that. Like hoisting a three foot wooden axe up over your shoulder and swinging it down 41 times. And something I couldn't, or actually, at least 41 times because there were misses as well. And those who don't know the story are probably wondering where the acts came from or who's it was since someone arriving to the Gore's house with a giant axe looks very suspicious, especially in the

Starting point is 00:21:21 morning time, but it appears to have come from the gore home. So it almost seems like the killer went in there and then found a weapon, just any weapon. Right. Happened to be an axe, you know? Yeah, and we're gonna talk about this a little bit later too when we kind of speculate what happened, but it is weird. Yeah, unless you knew that where the axe was in the house, correct? Right. Or you, and that also means that you went in there without a weapon.

Starting point is 00:21:49 So did you go in there to murder Betty, or did you go in there for another reason and one thing led to another somehow? So the community really reeled in shock at the loss of one of their own and at the sadistic nature of the crime. Police scrambled to find a lead in the direction of the killer, but then one came in the form of a five-year-old girl. She was a neighbor of the Gore's daughter who was playing outside on the street, the morning of Betty's death. She'd even knocked on the door that morning looking for Alisa Gore, who was also about five years old at this time, but no one answered.

Starting point is 00:22:28 This five-year-old girl claimed to have seen Candy Mont Gummery leave the house later that Friday morning around 11 a.m. So on June 15, two days after Betty's murder, police asked Candy to come into the station for questioning. And remember, Candy is very close to the family. They're all friends. They all go to church together. The kids are friends. So off the bat, this seems like a weird choice. But she was allegedly seen coming out of the house, which is just not a good look. So Candy claimed to police that she had been at church on the morning of Friday, June 13th, and then left to run in Ayrind. Around 10.30 or 11 a.m. she says she stopped by the

Starting point is 00:23:14 Goreshouse to pick up a swimsuit for Alisa, who was going to spend the night at the Montgomery home. Candy told them that she went into the laundry room to get Alisa's bathing suit, the same laundry room where Betty Gores was found murdered later, and then she went into the laundry room to get Elise's bathing suit, the same laundry room where Betty Gore was found murdered later, and then she went into the bathroom to comb her hair and wash her hands, which could conveniently explain how her hair and fingerprints and footprints would be at the scene, but not how they could have been bloody if they even matched her. Well, I know that, you know, whenever I go over to my friend's house, I usually comb my hair and then stuff it down the shower drain.

Starting point is 00:23:48 Oh, right, right, because it wasn't the shower. It makes no sense. Yeah. Candy then stated that she returned to the church around 12 p.m. to pick up her son, her daughter, Jenny, and Alisa from vacation Bible school. Alan also went in for questioning that day and admitted that he and Betty had gotten into an argument the morning of her death,

Starting point is 00:24:10 although he continued to deny that he had anything to do with it. But the next morning, Allen called back and told investigators that there was something he had been keeping from them that he had to get off his chest. He admitted he'd been having an affair with a woman from church, a woman with whom the couple and their children were close friends with. A woman named Candy Montgomery. So before that quick break, we learned that Alan Gore was having an affair with Candy

Starting point is 00:25:05 Montgomery. So according to Alan, Candy followed him out to the parking lot after a church volleyball game one day and proposed an affair. She reportedly wanted something to shake up her boring life with her husband Pat, a man she admittedly married for money. She said Pat was lacking in the looks department. How? Yeah, pretty fucking rude. And it never experienced what she called transcendent sex. As she explained quote, I want fireworks. For a year and a half during the week days when Betty

Starting point is 00:25:39 was teaching and Pat was at work, Candy and Allen would meet at the Como Motel in nearby Richardson Texas and have sex. And for reference, this was around 6 months before Betty and Alan attended that Marriage Encounter Weekend. But a few months after attending the Marriage Encounter Weekend, and 7 months before Betty's death, Alan and Candy mutually decided to end their affair. Now investigators started to wonder if maybe Candy and Alan planned the murder together, with him being out of town as a quick and easy alibi.

Starting point is 00:26:14 But Alan maintained that he had nothing to do with his wife's horrific death. And again, if this even means anything, agreed to and passed a polygraph test. The town erupted in rumors and speculation, the quiet neighborhood wondering how Candy Montgomery, this perfect wife, doding mother and godfuring Christian, could have been embroiled in an affair, and potentially had something to do with such a heinous crime. The families were friends, their kids were friends, candy had brought food and shown sympathy and mourn alongside Betty's family the day after the murder. So how could she have been involved? It was speculation for now, but the revelation of the affair created new interest in candy as a suspect. Candy and Betty's friend Nancy Crandall, who also attended church with them, said that

Starting point is 00:27:05 she had seen Candy shortly after the murder would have taken place at the vacation Bible School at first Methodist Church, picking up her children, which is what she told place she was doing. But she remembered that Candy was a bit more quiet than usual and had changed clothes from when Nancy had seen her that morning. And I mean, people are free to change clothes as they please, but this can be looked at as suspicious since the murderer's showered

Starting point is 00:27:33 and absolutely changed clothes after the killing. Yeah, and we always say this in different cases, like people are free to do certain things, like people are free to move, people are free to change their clothes, but it also makes it suspicious when you are a potential suspect in a murder. Yes, I agree. Because yeah, of course, and anybody can change their clothes just because you change your

Starting point is 00:27:55 clothes doesn't mean you're killer, but that definitely kind of makes it look more like hmm, interesting. On June 17th, so two days after her initial questioning, Candy was asked to return to the station for questioning again, and again, complied willingly but offered no new information. However, when they asked her to complete a polygraph test, she declined. So they ran her prints instead and found that her thumbprint matched with the picture that they had captured from the bloody print on the freezer in the Gore's utility room. They also learned that Candy wore a size 5 shoe, the same size of the shoe print found

Starting point is 00:28:37 in blood at the scene. So on Thursday, June 26, 1980, 30-year-old Candymont Gummary was arrested for the murder of her friend, Betty Gore. And I think the flip flop. The flip flop shoe print, though not a perfect science, is pretty important because with a case like this, you may assume that it was committed by a man. But a size 5 shoe in women's is a size 3 in men's. Not that men can't be a size 3 shoe, I'm sure they can. But for reference our guy Heath over here is what like a size 11 in

Starting point is 00:29:17 men's. So the fact that such a small footprint was uncovered at the scene in blood to me is an important detail. I have to agree, and I think that there's just a lot of circumstantial evidence here, not so much physical evidence, but I would agree that the size 5 flip-flop, it just doesn't seem likely that it's going to be a guy's flip-flop. Right, and also with the circumstantial evidence, it just seems to be adding up for candy, you know, so it's all these little things like the shoe and the thumbprint and she was wearing a different outfit.

Starting point is 00:29:52 It's like all these things just add up and it just makes the case against her feel stronger. Yeah, and the tough thing is that that fingerprint was a photograph, so that doesn't help as much either. Right. Like how accurate was that match? I wish we knew. Right, so at the station, Candy Montgomery was stripped and photographed for evidence.

Starting point is 00:30:13 And investigators found multiple cuts in bruises, including a deep cut on her toe, that had probably needed medical attention that she had not sought out. See, that's weird to me too. If you have a cut on your toe and you didn't seek medical attention and you probably should have, but also just the whole thing that the shoe print at the scene was a flip flop. So it's like, if she was there wearing a flip flop and she's swinging an axe and we know she or the killer missed, it could have easily gently hit her toe.

Starting point is 00:30:46 Yeah, absolutely. That was my first thought when I read that detail. I was like, oh, so she has this deep cut on her toe. There was a flip flop found at the scene and you're swinging and acts repeatedly. Right, and we did post a photo of her foot with the wound. It's not gruesome, by the way.

Starting point is 00:31:03 It just looks like a proper slice from the bottom of her toenail and halfway down her toe into the wound. It's not gruesome, by the way. It just looks like a proper slice from the bottom of her toenail and halfway down her toe into the side. It just looks like a slice. So a slice or a blade, something along those lines. But also, I will add, it doesn't look like her toe was in danger of, it doesn't look like it's infected. It doesn't look like it was hanging off. You know what I mean? So it didn't look like it's infected, it doesn't look like it was you know hanging off you know what I mean so it didn't necessarily need medical attention

Starting point is 00:31:27 it looks like she could have just patched up herself so I do want to make that know that it's not that weird to me also that she didn't go to the hospital yeah it's not like she chopped off her toe yeah that would be very suspicious they brought her to the hospital to have the wound checked and asked her to consent to an examination. She refused, but a deputy signed for her and they completed the examination anyway, snapping more pictures. She was initially held in denied bond, which Colin County Sheriff Jerry Burton claimed was

Starting point is 00:32:00 because she was to be handed over to a respected bonding company in Dallas County, more equipped at handling crimes of this nature. So Candy walked free on a $100,000 bond the day after, which was Friday, June 27, paid for by the lawyers the Montgomery selected to represent her case. One was an attorney that she knew from church named Don Crowder, who worked at the District Attorney's Office, and the other was a Dallas Criminal Defense lawyer named Robert Udition. Candy and her husband Pat attended church services that very Sunday, where her attorney

Starting point is 00:32:38 Don claimed, quote, �Almost everyone in the church went up to her and hugged her and told her they believe as we do that she couldn't have done this. Their pastor at first Methodist Reverend Ron Adams claimed quote, that she would be guilty of what they say she is is incomprehensible. She's not capable of committing murder. She's a very creative, very talented, very highly intelligent person. Because he's intelligent creative people cannot commit murder, right?

Starting point is 00:33:10 Absolutely. It really seems like they're just like... Just giving her ass. What is your proof, you know? Yeah. So Candy was described as a pillar of the community and the community and everyone's best friend, like the least likely suspect apparently.

Starting point is 00:33:26 The lawyers teamed up and claimed that they were conducting their own investigation including hiring a private investigator. Don claimed that they had reason to believe that a man committed this laying telling reporters quote, we would hope that they would come to their senses and look for a real murderer. So here's where it gets really hypocritical and why this is total bullshit. So Candie's legal defense team initially said that, but then when the trial began,

Starting point is 00:33:55 they submitted a claim of self-defense. Yeah, this is where the entire thing falls apart because it's like, oh no, I didn't do it. Okay, yeah, no, I did do it, but I did it in self-defense. Right, so, but that's what's frustrating as we'll get into as well, that here they are saying she's not capable of murder

Starting point is 00:34:15 and then they're like, actually she did do this, but it's not her fault. Yeah, no, no, what? So dumb. So Candice Trial began in October of 1980, just months after the murder. Regarding the affair, Don claimed that Alan and Candie were just intelligent people who had made a mistake. Now Candie said that it had been the last thing on her mind, and that she was not even aware that Betty knew about it. So she is saying that the affair means nothing to her,

Starting point is 00:34:44 she doesn't think about it anymore, it's not even a factor of her life. Right. By Candy's account, a despondent and vengefully jealous Betty confronted her after discovering the affair, and even though it was no longer happening, Betty was enraged. Candy assured her that she wanted nothing to do with Alan and that it was over, and had had been for some time, but Betty was inconsolable. Betty retreated to the utility room and returned with an axe to confront Candy, who tried to leave out the back door, but it was blocked by Betty.

Starting point is 00:35:20 After this, Betty swung the axe down and missed Candy, but hit the linoleum. The axe bounced off of it, cutting into Candy's toe. She then claimed that she begged Betty to let her go, saying, please don't, and that Betty only said, shh. A struggle ensued, and Candy managed to get control of the axe. At this point, she claims that Rage took over her and that she blacked out, not even able to see Betty or what she was doing. This is ridiculous to me because Candy is acting like she is incapable of murder and that she was essentially a victim of Betty.

Starting point is 00:35:57 But if that's true, how was she able to black out and act Betty 41 times? Like, if you want nothing to do with swinging a weapon at someone and just need to get out of a situation, 41 times is literally overkill. Like maybe whacking her ones to incapacitate her and then flee, but not this. And to say that rage took over when you allegedly were not upset with Betty, and you don't care about having an affair with Alan anymore, and she was the one upset with you, it doesn't click. Yeah, no, it doesn't click at all. And the fact that you could just, I mean, if you're holding an axe, you literally have, you know, the deadly weapon in your hand, I would assume that Betty would be the one retreating at that point, but that wasn't the case apparently? Right, it's just, this doesn't make sense

Starting point is 00:36:50 and that's why it's so frustrating that she originally was like, I didn't do this and acted like she wasn't involved in this crime at all. Then comes forward and say, I actually did do it, but I'm not taking responsibility. And that's only to cover her ass for the thumbprint and the footprint and the fact that her hair was found at the scene and all this stuff. But it's like, this is so weak. Yeah, and you just cannot make an excuse for 41 acts swings. Right. So it

Starting point is 00:37:16 seems like she is like, it's apparently candy did commit this murder, but it's a question of whether or not she did it in self-defense or she did it, I guess, intentionally. And prosecutors agree, countering that the brutal nature of this crime grossly overstates self-defense. But the defense countered this by claiming that as a child, Candy had once been struck with a sharp object and was badly bleeding, but that her mother just shook her and shushed her. So she claims that after Betty shushed her,

Starting point is 00:37:52 apparently, she shushed her as she tried to explain and defend herself. She had a disassociative reaction from past trauma. So I guess shushing someone is worthy of 41 acts swings. It's silly to me. So in Candy's words, quote, I hit her. I hit her and I hit her.

Starting point is 00:38:13 She fell slowly almost to a sitting position. I kept hitting her and hitting her. I felt so guilty, so dirty, I felt so ashamed. This is oddly detailed for somebody who blacked out, you know, mentioning that she slumped down. True! You know what I'm saying? Yeah, it seems like she recounts every moment of that.

Starting point is 00:38:34 Yeah. Interesting. So after declaring self-defense, Dawn explained that a five foot two petite and lean candy versus Betty's broad and five foot eight frame, that candy was at a physical disadvantage. She has a three foot ax in her hand. I think you're fine.

Starting point is 00:38:53 The legal team also came after the local authorities handling of the case, claiming that quote, there has been a tremendous violation of civil rights because candy was initially denied bail. a tremendous violation of civil rights because Candy was initially denied bail, and that strip-searching and photographing her was illegal and inappropriate. Prosecutors countered by saying that Betty had no defense wounds, did not appear to run from the attack, and that it was absolute overkill, not to mention the fact that Candy tried to cover it up, and may have never owned up to it if she hadn't been caught. So this kind of tells us that maybe Betty was caught off guard.

Starting point is 00:39:31 She wasn't cornered. She didn't see this coming that she was just attacked. I don't think there was a struggle that ensued. If you don't have any defense wounds and you've been hacked by an axe, that speaks volumes to the situation. But there also is kind of this conversation that maybe, you know, Candy didn't necessarily go over there to murder her or maybe she did and they had a conversation first about the

Starting point is 00:39:58 affair and then the murder took place. So maybe Betty was aware that Candy was in the house, you know, but it doesn't seem like, um, Betty had the axe, then Candy got the axe and then murdered her at a self defense. You know what I mean? Yeah, this doesn't appear to be the case. So they believe that by they, I mean, the prosecutors believe that it was a crime of opportunity that one of them confronted the other about the affair that candy had cornered Betty in the utility room grabbed in here by acts and then struck and killed her so that is what they believe happened She then attempted to clean up her involvement from the scene

Starting point is 00:40:35 Showered went back to church and hoped for the best The jury only deliberated for four and a half hours and reached a verdict of not guilty, like you have to be fucking kidding me. The courtroom roared, and Betty's family and friends were outraged, understandably. Her brother Richard said later that the fact that she was killed the way she was was hard enough, but knowing that it was someone that she knew made it excruciating, and they believed justice was not served. Yeah, they fully believed that Candy did murder her and it was not in self-defense. Right.

Starting point is 00:41:12 In the aftermath of these harrowing events, Alan Gore met a woman named Elaine and remarried within three months of the trial, moving away from Wiley, Texas. He eventually divorced Elaine as well, but has since found a new partner named Lindy, and lives with her in Maine. He granted custody of his children to Betty's parents, Bertha and Bob, and the girls moved to Norwick, Kansas, where their mother had grown up. This is sus, like, your wife is brutally murdered, you remarry very quickly, and then relinquish custody of your kids. I personally feel like the evidence matches up with candy, so sorry if we've been kind of biased throughout this

Starting point is 00:41:52 and you don't believe it's candy, I mean, I don't know how you couldn't, especially because she admitted that she did murder her, so- But everybody has an opinion and that's okay. I just mean if she didn't do, if she did not commit the murder, whether self-defense or not,

Starting point is 00:42:04 I don't know why she would admit to murdering her, you know, I'm saying sure But Alan is just giving me motive right now overall I really think that maybe she went over there and she did not want her affair with Alan to end because she was miserable in her own Marriage who and this is a man she was still with at that time so she went over there and the murder occurred I don't know if she went over there and the murder occurred. I don't know if she went over there planning to murder Betty, but I think she knew that Alan was out of town. And I know that there are people that think that Alan and Candy work together. And I don't know. I feel like if they did, she probably would have thrown Alan under the bus. Yeah, that seems pretty likely. But I just think it's bizarre that he

Starting point is 00:42:42 seemed to move on from his life so quickly like why would you give up your children? Yeah that that one kind of threw me because I was like I can understand maybe remarrying somebody even if it seems a little sus like maybe you're lonely. Yeah a couple months later and we know that he and Betty had marital problems. True. So that's understandable but then why give up your kids? I don't get that. That just, that feels very weird to me.

Starting point is 00:43:10 It feels wrong, but, you know, to each their own, I guess. And Alan and his daughters were initially estranged, but they're all now Facebook friends. So hopefully that means that they've gotten some sort of closure here. Alisa now goes by Lisa and is married and has two children, and still resides in Kansas, while Bethany is married with three children and lives in Las Vegas.

Starting point is 00:43:34 Both understandably changed their last names and both became teachers just like their mom. Dawn Crowder, one of Candie's attorneys, took his own life in 1998. The Montgomery family moved to Atlanta and Candie became a counselor. Pat and Candie eventually divorced and Candie Montgomery reverted back to her birth name of Candice Wheeler. She's still practicing in Dawsonville, Georgia today. Blows my mind. Just blows my mind. In 1984, Dallas authors Jim Atkinson and John Bloom

Starting point is 00:44:10 wrote a book about this case called Evidence of Love, which was later turned into a movie called Killing in a Small Town. They also contributed to an episode of snapped, detailing Betty Slang, along with her brother's Ron and Richard and Candie's attorney. Two series, retelling the case, will be released this year, Candie, which is already out

Starting point is 00:44:31 and on Hulu, I think as of last month or almost a month ago, starring Jessica Beale and Melanie Linsky, and Love and Death, will be on HBO Max, starring The Wonderful Elizabeth Olson and Lily Raib coming out later this year. We'll never know for sure what happened on that hot summer day in Texas, but this small community will never forget the crime that showed to this episode of Going West. Yes, thank you guys so much for listening to this episode and on Tuesday we'll have an all new case for you guys to dive into. So now those of you who have watched Candy know the real story, that was another reason

Starting point is 00:45:21 we didn't want to watch Candy before doing this case because you know they of course dramatically sized things and it's just based on the case so we didn't want to get mixed up with fiction and truth. Yeah fiction and facts. Fiction and facts, yeah so so thank you guys so much for tuning in I'd love to hear what everybody thinks about this story. Yeah I know that there is a lot of controversy over whether or not she was responsible for this murder, but we really do want to hear what you guys think. In my personal opinion, I don't see how it couldn't have been candy, but I would love to hear

Starting point is 00:45:53 what other people think about this case. Yes, me too. And obviously, this is such a devastating story, but he was only 30 years old, and she had her whole life ahead of her. She had two extremely young children who had to grow up without her. So just very devastating and then the fact that Candy is out of prison, even though she admitted to murdering Betty, it's just wow. Also, I just wanted to say thanks to everybody who shares this show

Starting point is 00:46:17 and leaves us nice reviews. We really appreciate it. We see your reviews and it makes us feel great about doing this show. So please continue to do so, please continue to keep sharing. We love you guys. Yes, and also if you want to check out photos and just more information about cases,

Starting point is 00:46:32 we do a lot of case updates on our Instagram and just social media and general things that aren't big enough to do an episode on. We share a lot of missing persons cases that are active. Go check out our socials. Our Instagram is at going West podcast, Twitter at going West pod, and then on Facebook we have a going West true crime group

Starting point is 00:46:50 but then we also have a going West discussion group which is where Heath and I jump in and talk to you guys about cases. All right guys, so for everybody out there in the world, don't be a stranger. Thank you. you

Going West: True Crime - Betty Gore // 208

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