Murder of Betty Gore

On the morning of June 13, 1980, Candace Montgomery drove through the quiet streets of Wylie, Texas, and pulled up to the home of her neighbor Betty Gore. What happened inside that house over the next hour would end one woman's life, send shockwaves through a tightly knit suburban community, and launch one of the most polarizing criminal trials in Texas history.

The Montgomery and Gore families had been neighbors and friends since the mid-1970s. Both couples had settled in Wylie, a small town northeast of Dallas, and found their social footing at the First United Methodist Church of Lucas. Betty Gore, 30, raised her children at home while her husband Allan worked as an engineer. Candace Montgomery, 30, and her husband Pat appeared by all outward measures to be a conventional suburban family. The two women knew each other well enough to exchange favors, swap childcare, and worship in the same pew.

But beneath that surface, something had gone badly wrong. About eighteen months before the murder, Candace Montgomery and Allan Gore had begun a covert affair. By early 1980, Allan had ended it — he wanted to repair his marriage to Betty. Whether Betty knew the extent of her husband's infidelity on June 13 remains one of the case's enduring ambiguities. What is known is that on that Friday, Allan was out of town on a business trip, and Candace came to the house.