Allan and Candy: The Affair, the Killing, and the Hypnosis Doubts

The Candy Montgomery case is the 1980 Texas killing of Betty Gore, who was struck 41 times with an ax inside her Wylie home by her friend and church acquaintance Candace “Candy” Montgomery. Candy had been having an affair with Betty’s husband, Allan Gore. She was charged with murder, claimed self-defense, and was acquitted by a Collin County jury after roughly three hours of deliberation. The verdict remains one of the most disputed in Texas criminal history.

The Affair Behind the Killing

Candy Montgomery and Allan Gore met through the First United Methodist Church of Lucas, a congregation in the suburban stretch between Northeast Dallas and Richardson known as the “Silicon Prairie.”¹ Both men worked as engineers at Texas Instruments. Candy later told interviewers she was “bored crazy” in her marriage and looking for excitement.²

She approached Allan after a church volleyball game in late summer 1978 and told him she found him attractive. He initially resisted, but the affair turned physical on December 12, 1978. They met roughly every other week at motels near Allan’s office in Richardson, splitting gas, food, and room costs, and agreed on ground rules: either could call it off if things got too emotional or too risky.³

Allan testified at trial that he ended the affair by late 1979 because he “could not share myself with Candy,” and described the breakup as mutual. The two continued to see each other at church.⁴

What Happened on June 13, 1980

Allan was traveling on business in Minnesota that day. Candy drove to the Gore home at 410 Dogwood Street in Wylie.⁵ What happened inside became the central dispute of the case. Candy later testified that she confessed the affair to Betty, and that Betty reacted by retrieving a three-foot ax from the utility room and attacking her. Candy said she wrested the weapon away and struck back in self-defense.⁶

Betty Gore was struck 41 times. Thick pools of congealed blood covered the utility room floor. The couple’s infant daughter Bethany was found alive in her crib, crying and soiled from having been alone for hours.⁵

The crime was discovered because Allan, unable to reach Betty by phone all day, asked neighbors to check on the house. Lester Gayler and Richard Parker broke in and found the body. They initially thought Betty had been shot; police later confirmed the ax as the cause of death.⁵

After the killing, Candy showered at the Gore home before leaving and joined friends for a social outing that same day.⁷ Investigators struggled to establish a motive until Allan admitted the affair during questioning. Candy was arrested on June 26, 1980, and charged with murder.⁶

The Trial and the Self-Defense Claim

The trial ran eight days in Collin County before a jury of nine women and three men.⁷ Judge Tom Ryan moved proceedings from the new Collin County Courthouse to the old 1876 courthouse in McKinney to handle the crowds.¹

Candy’s lead attorney was Don Crowder, a civil lawyer from her church who had never tried a criminal case. The actual criminal strategy was handled by 27-year-old Robert Udashen, the only criminal defense specialist in Crowder’s firm. Elaine Carpenter rounded out the team.⁸

The defense argued self-defense but had to explain 41 blows. To do so, they retained Houston psychiatrist Dr. Fred Fason, who conducted clinical hypnosis sessions with Candy using a technique called “age regression.” Fason claimed to have uncovered a buried trauma from when Candy was four: an incident in which her mother “shushed” her on a doctor’s examination table. At trial, he testified that Candy experienced a “dissociative reaction” during the killing, arguing that when Betty shushed her during their confrontation, the sound triggered 26 years of suppressed anger and caused Candy to lose conscious control.⁹

The defense also called polygraph examiner Don McElroy, who testified that his examination indicated Candy was truthful about acting in self-defense and about not arriving at the home intending harm.⁷

The prosecution emphasized the sheer violence of 41 ax blows as incompatible with defensive action. Dallas psychiatrist Clay Griffith testified for the state and disputed Fason’s dissociative-reaction theory, saying it was “impossible to pinpoint the reaction to a specific incident.” He pointed to Candy’s behavior after the killing as evidence of a clear, calculating mind, describing her showering at the scene and going to lunch with friends as “very goal oriented in manner, not someone wandering around not knowing what to do.”⁷

One important omission: the prosecution never objected to Fason’s hypnosis testimony. Under the legal standard then in effect, they could have challenged the technique as lacking general scientific acceptance. They did not, and the jury heard it essentially unchallenged.⁹

Allan Gore took the stand on October 21, 1980. He testified that Candy had initiated the affair, described the motel meetings, and said he broke things off because he could not continue sharing himself between two relationships. He also testified that on the day of the killing he called Candy after failing to reach Betty, because Candy had been babysitting one of his daughters. Candy claimed not to know where Betty was. After Betty’s body was found, Allan said Candy was the first person he called, and she expressed “surprise and shock.”⁴

The trial produced its own courtroom fights. Judge Ryan imposed a gag order that Crowder violated almost immediately by speaking to reporters, drawing a contempt citation. A second contempt finding came after Crowder and the judge clashed in open court, and Ryan ordered him jailed at the end of the trial day. Udashen petitioned the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in Austin and won Crowder’s release, arguing that jailing a defense attorney mid-trial was not permitted under Texas law.⁸

The jury returned a not-guilty verdict after roughly three hours.⁹ Spectators outside the courtroom shouted “Murderer! Murderer!” as Candy left the building.¹⁰ Betty Gore’s father, Bob Pomeroy, later said of the verdict: “We don’t know what happened and we never will know what happened.”¹¹

Why the Hypnosis Testimony Is Now Questioned

The acquittal rested heavily on Fason’s dissociative-reaction theory, and the science it relied on has not aged well. Research has found that hypnosis does not enhance memory recall and frequently produces “confabulation,” in which subjects fill memory gaps with imagined events they believe to be real. Psychologist Michael Nash published findings in 1987 concluding that hypnotic age regression does not meaningfully increase memory accuracy.⁹

The law followed. In 1988, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals set guidelines requiring courts to evaluate a hypnotist’s training, session recordings, the absence of leading questions, and corroborating evidence before admitting hypnosis-related testimony. At least 22 states now bar testimony from witnesses or victims who have undergone forensic hypnosis. The Texas Department of Public Safety ended its forensic hypnosis program in 2020, and state lawmakers have pursued bills to ban testimony derived from law enforcement hypnosis sessions.⁹

Where the People Involved Are Now

Three months after the verdict, Candy and her family moved to Georgia, where her parents lived. She and Pat Montgomery divorced a few years after the move.¹⁰ She returned to school, obtained a therapist license under her maiden name Candace Wheeler in 1996, and has worked as a mental health counselor in Georgia.¹² She has refused almost all interview requests, telling the Dallas Morning News in 2000: “I’m telling you in big bold letters: I’m not interested.”

Allan Gore remarried while the trial was still ongoing, though that marriage did not last. He did not retain custody of his daughters, Alisa and Bethany, who were raised and eventually adopted by Betty’s parents, Bob and Bertha Pomeroy, in Norwich, Kansas.¹³ Allan is retired and living in Sarasota, Florida, with a domestic partner.¹⁴

Both Gore daughters graduated as salutatorians and earned college scholarships. Alisa studied accounting at Kansas State and became a chief accounting officer. Bethany studied elementary education at Wichita State, taught for nearly a decade, and has worked as an assistant principal in Las Vegas since 2015. Bethany named one of her own daughters Betty. In a 2000 interview, Bethany said, “I just wish I knew what really happened,” and Alisa said of Candy: “I don’t know if I could forgive her.” The sisters were estranged from their father for years but have since reconnected with him.¹³

Robert Udashen, the young lawyer who ran the criminal strategy, built a prominent Texas criminal defense career, taught for two decades as an adjunct at Southern Methodist University, and served as a consultant on both Hulu’s Candy and HBO’s Love and Death.¹⁵ The definitive book on the case remains Evidence of Love: A True Story of Passion and Death in the Suburbs, by John Bloom and Jim Atkinson, first published in 1983.¹⁶

1
CandysDirt. The Most Famous House in Wylie, 43 Years Later
2
Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Candy and Pat Montgomery
3
Texas Monthly. Love and Death in Silicon Prairie, Part I
4
UPI. Allan Gore Testifies in Trial of Woman Accused in Wife’s Slaying
5
Texas Monthly. Love and Death in Silicon Prairie, Part II
6
People. Where Is Candy Montgomery Now
7
UPI. Candace Montgomery Testified She Had to Defend Herself From Ax
8
Lakewood Advocate. An Unabridged Conversation With Candace Montgomery’s Defense Lawyer
9
Texas Monthly. Candy Montgomery, Hypnosis, and Junk Science
10
Biography. Where Is Candy Montgomery Now
11
Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Allan and Betty Gore’s Daughters
12
Today. Candy and Pat Montgomery Now
13
People. Where Are Allan and Betty Gore’s Kids Now
14
Men’s Health. Love and Death: Allan Gore Now
15
Lakewood Advocate. Robert Udashen
16
Texas Monthly. Behind the Story: Candy Montgomery Murder