The Femme Fatal
True Crime - Femme Fatale Style
The Femme Fatal tells the stories of women who commit crimes, blending true crime, pop culture, and astrology to explore power, obsession, and the darker side of femininity.
The Femme Fatal
Suburban Slayer: Candy Montgomery
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She was the woman everyone trusted. A devoted mother, a churchgoer, the perfect friend. That is what makes the story of Candy Montgomery so chilling.
In Wylie, Texas, a seemingly ordinary friendship unraveled into secrets, an affair, and ultimately, violence. When Betty Gore was found brutally killed in her home, the case shocked the community.
Was it calculated, or a moment that spiraled out of control? In this episode of The Femme Fatal, we explore the unsettling contrast between the woman everyone knew and the reality no one saw coming.
Love and Death HBO Max Mini Series
A Killing in a Small Town Movie
INFORMEDISH: Real life. Artificial cohost.Movies, parenting and life's absurdities. Jason and his AI cohost Heather take sides.
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Welcome to the Femme Fatal, a true crime podcast with an astrology twist. I'm your host, Stacy Dotson. Each week I'll be joined by a guest host because this femme fatale prefers not to work alone. Hey, welcome back to the femme fatal. Today I'm once again joined by one of my favorite people, and for the regular listeners, I'm sure one of yours too. It's my girl Kay. Kay, you're back. Hey, Stacy, thanks for having me back. Thanks for being here. Our bad girl is the suburban slayer. We're talking about Candy Montgomery. So, do you know anything about Candy Montgomery, Kay?
SPEAKER_01I have to be honest with you. I did not know anything about her up until uh researching this for this episode. But it's fascinating. It just occurred before our time, before we were paying attention to news, you know.
SPEAKER_00We were Texans, but we were young playing outside at that time.
SPEAKER_01Drinking out of water hoses.
SPEAKER_00That's right. Gen Xers. Well, okay, so let's just jump on in. So Candy was born Candace Lynn Wheeler in 1949 in Lucas, Texas. And her father was a military radar technician. And she grew up kind of what you call an army brat, moving from base to base, never in the same place for long, and never really putting down roots anywhere. I actually think that matters because that kind of childhood teaches you something very specific. It teaches you how to walk into any room, make friends fast, read people quickly, and make yourself belong. And Candy was extraordinarily good at that. She was irrepressibly social, warm, outgoing, the kind of person who made you feel like you were the most interesting person she had ever met.
SPEAKER_01So that's a great skill to have right there in the beginning of life, adaptability.
SPEAKER_00Yes, it is. You know, if you're gonna have friends, you have to be that way, right? So by the early 1970s, she's working as a secretary in El Paso when she meets Pat Montgomery. And he's an electrical engineer. He proposes just two months after they meet. Can you believe that?
SPEAKER_01That's kind of ew.
SPEAKER_00That's kind of fast. Red flag. Red flag. Well, they get married and then they have two kids. And in 1977, Pat's career takes them to Collin County, Texas, and specifically Wiley, Texas. I'm gonna go ahead and paint you a picture of this place before we get into the crime. Wiley is a small, deeply religious, predominantly white suburb just outside of Dallas. And this is the height of what they're calling the Silicone Prairie Tech boom. Did you know we had a silicone valley or prairie? I had no idea. Back then, I did not either. Texas Instruments is the big employer in the area, and most of the husbands in the area are engineers for TI. So I had a ton of family that worked for TI. Did you have any? Did you know any people? I just had the calculator. Everybody had the TI calculator. Yes. And Pong. The first video game Pong, yes.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I think we got it for free. I don't know. I can't remember. I was too young. I have to ask my dad, but his brother worked there his whole career. So we got TI stuff all the time. Anyway, back to the candy. Um, so TI's the big employer in the area. Most of the husbands in the suburbs there are engineers, and most of the wives stay home or stay-at-home moms. So also everybody goes to church on Sunday. The lawns are perfect, the casseroles are hot, and the smiles are wide. The casserole.
SPEAKER_01I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_00From the outside, it looks like the absolute dream, or from my opinion, my worst nightmare. Not be happy in that area. So, okay, back to Candy and the story. So when they first move there, Candy throws herself into the community. She's become a stay-at-home mom. She joins the choir at church. She also teaches Sunday school. And she's also involved at a lot of things at the church community. Volleyball, playing volleyball with the church team is one of them. And that'll come into, you know, play later in the story. But anyway, she's the type of woman you want as your neighbor. She's the woman you'd want to host your baby shower. She is warm. She is funny, the first one to show up when something goes wrong, and the last one to leave. And, you know, she just is everywhere, lives the neighborhood life. And I threw in the baby shower because I can't confirm it, but I do believe she threw Betty's baby shower while she might have been having an affair with her husband. I don't know if it's before. Yes.
SPEAKER_01Oh my goodness. This is Betty Gore.
SPEAKER_00Yes, Betty Gore, who comes into play. Underneath all of that energy and warmth and community involvement, Candy, by her own admission, was bored out of her mind. And so she made a decision, very calculated, very deliberate decision. And that was to have an affair. So before we get into that, let's talk about all the people around her and build the story. So her husband, Pat Montgomery, he was genuinely a good man. He was quiet, devoted, and hardworking. And being an engineer at TI, he was pulling in about 70 grand a year, which today's equivalent is about $278,000 a year. So upper middle class, beautiful life, doing everything right. Now the problem, according to Candy, is that he was just not exciting enough. And she felt completely normal around Pat. And for Candy, feeling normal was kind of her own kind of death sentence. I know that I'm saying all this like I'm talking, like she told me, but it was reported in Texas Monthly. But Texas Monthly did a bunch of stories on this and interviewed Candy and also a lot of people in Wiley. She was, according to Texas Monthly, bored crazy. She had all this appetite, all this drive, and life in the suburbs wasn't feeding it. And she started a decorating company with her BFF Sherry Clecker. They called themselves the Cover Girls. And Candy also started taking classes at the local school. And uh, when she brought home A papers from a writing class she'd enrolled in, Pat just glanced at them and she told investigators that that was the moment that represented everything wrong with her marriage. Not a fight, not infidelity, just a glance, and that was enough. So then we enter Betty Gore. Now Betty's Candy's friend and her neighbor and a fellow choir member, fellow church mother. So they met at the Methodist Church of Lucas and became genuinely close. Their daughters were best friends. Betty was a fifth-grade teacher, devoted mother of two, and more introverted than Candy and a little more anxious. And her marriage to her husband Alan had kind of grown emotionally distant. But they were still together. And Betty trusted Candy completely. And that brings us to Alan Gore, Betty's husband, also a churchgoer, also a Texas Instruments man, and the target according that Candy had chosen. So in the summer of 1978, after a church volleyball game, Candy walks up to Alan Gore and tells him straight out that she's attracted to him and asks if he will have an affair with her.
SPEAKER_01Wow. I know, just like that, straight up. Very ballsy of her, if you will.
SPEAKER_00Very, very ballsy. He says no initially, but then eventually he says yes. So here's the interesting part. The two of them actually sat down prior to the affair, starting the affair. The two sat down and laid out ground rules, like equal expenses. If they got a hotel, they would both pay, you know, their share. Um, they were to be sworn to total secrecy. They said no emotional attachment. If one of them started having feelings towards the other, they had to come clean and then it would immediately terminate the affair. Basically, amicable, we're on our way, right?
SPEAKER_01Right. This sounds like a very business type of a transaction.
SPEAKER_00It does sound like that. I mean, part of me is like they were doing their SWOT analysis, like so. Anyway so Alan was actually never intended to be a love interest. It was just Candy being bored and thinking she deserves something more. So this affair went on for about 10 months. And then in 1979, Alan attends a marriage encounter retreat with his wife Betty. He starts to feel guilty and comes home and ends the affair with Candy. He tells her he wants to focus on his marriage. And according to both accounts, Candy accepted this calmly. The affair ends, and life goes on. So there we go. Business arrangement, business dissolved.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, just like that.
SPEAKER_00Just like that.
SPEAKER_01Was she really okay with it?
SPEAKER_00Well, I know that comes into play later. It really, it does. So what Candy doesn't tell anyone that comes out later in a far dramatic setting is that right after Alan ended things, she started another affair. Brief.
SPEAKER_01Really?
SPEAKER_00Yes. November to December 1979 with the man she would never name publicly.
SPEAKER_01Oh wow.
SPEAKER_00So Friday, June 13th, 1980.
SPEAKER_01Friday the 13th.
SPEAKER_00I know, Friday the 13th, right? Alan Gore is leaving for a business trip, right? He leaves that morning. When he leaves, everything's Peachy Keene, Betty's home with their baby daughter, their older daughter, Alyssa, who's best friends with Candy's daughter, had spent the night over at the Montgomery's house. So she's not there. So when Ellen leaves, it's just Betty and the baby.
SPEAKER_01This is a new baby? How old is this baby?
SPEAKER_00Brand new baby, like less than one.
SPEAKER_01So they were having an affair while she was
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SPEAKER_01pregnant.
SPEAKER_00Yes. And that's why I was like, uh allegedly she was having an affair with her when she threw her baby shower. Okay, yeah.
(Cont.) Suburban Slayer: Candy Montgomery
SPEAKER_00Oh my god, that's weird. I mean, she yeah, she was having an affair with Alan when she threw Betty's baby shower. That's what I was trying to say.
SPEAKER_01That's normal. That's normal. Okay.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's normal. Like, you know, she candy gives good face, I guess. So anyway, so Alan leaves and everything's peachy keen, like I said. Candy ends up calling Betty and says that Alyssa wanted to spend another night. And Betty says, Well, no, I've got to take her to swim class and drop her off at the church because I guess they had Bible study. So Candy said, Well, I'll take her to swim class for you because I'm teaching Bible study today, right? Betty's like, Well, she needs her suit and peppermints. Apparently, Betty gave Alyssa peppermints if she would go underwater at the swim class. That was her, you know, I guess her treat, right? So they discuss that Candy's gonna come over and go to Betty's house around noon that day. Well, Candy ends up going to the church and things are getting busy, and she needs to run to the store. And she's like, you know what? Betty won't mind if I go a little early. So she gets there around 10 a.m. when she was supposed to be there around noon. So Betty lets her in, they make small talk, and according to Candy, so anything that happens here, of course, is according to Candy because Betty is not here to tell her side of the story. So according to Candy, Betty asks her flat out, Are you having an affair with my husband? And Candy admits it, but says it ended a long time ago. It's over. So according to Candy, Betty walks in the utility room and she comes back with a three-foot wood-splitting axe and says, You can't have him. I've got to kill you.
SPEAKER_01Whoa.
SPEAKER_00So this is her version again. And her version that sets up later for her self-defense plea. She says a struggle broke out, and that she said Candy was able to get control of the axe and says she hit Betty. Now she hit Betty, but 41 times.
SPEAKER_01That's some self-defense right there.
SPEAKER_00And so 28 of these blows were to Betty's face and head. The forensics expert at trial testified that 40 of the 41 strikes happened while Betty's heart was still beating.
SPEAKER_01Oh shit. That's horrible.
SPEAKER_00So investigators that responded to the scene said they'd never see anything like this in their entire careers. And you know, I would imagine small collin county, right? This was probably just insane. 41 times.
SPEAKER_01That's crazy.
SPEAKER_0041 times. It's one more than Lizzie Borden.
SPEAKER_0140 wax.
SPEAKER_0040 wax in the rime. I don't think she actually did it 40 times, but it's one more than Lizzie Borden's 40 wax.
SPEAKER_01Wow, that's a lot.
SPEAKER_00Apparently, after it was over, Candy took a shower and then left the house, drove to pick up her children, and she went to teach Bible class.
SPEAKER_01So she took a shower in Betty's house.
SPEAKER_00Yes, she took a shower in Betty's house, you know, washed the blood off of her and everything.
SPEAKER_01Again, normal.
SPEAKER_00So normal. But I'm not saying this is worse than that, but another horrible thing she did. It's not worse than I guess 41, you know, 28 axe things to the face. Betty's one-year-old daughter, Bethany, was left alone in her crib, and she would not be found until Betty was found, and that was 13 hours later.
SPEAKER_01Oh wow, that's horrible.
SPEAKER_00It is, it's so bad. So that same evening, Alan Gore's been trying all day to call Betty by phone from his business trip in Minnesota. And it's to the point where he's starting to go nuts because you know she's a stay-at-home mom and they have a baby. Where is she? Right.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And so he calls two of his neighbors and says, please go check on her. You have my permission to force your way into the house, right? And so they do, they have to force their way in and they find the scene. Baby Bethany is alone in her crib, awake, crying, and supposedly covered in feces.
SPEAKER_01Poor baby. She must have been so dehydrated. Oh, that's so sad.
SPEAKER_00I know. And they said she cried herself hoarse that she could hardly cry when they found her. I know. Terrible.
SPEAKER_01That's terrible.
SPEAKER_00It is. Anyway, so the police obviously investigate and as they normally do, they look at the husband first, right? So they looked at Alan and they asked him, Have you had any extramarital activities? And he lies and says no. So he's still a suspect, but then even though they say, you know, he has an alibi being out of town, but they do his blood type and they do his shoe size because there was a shoe print left at the scene, and they don't match. So he's ruled out.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And then a five-year-old in the neighborhood comes forward, I'm sure, urged by her parents to come forward. I don't think five-year-old reading the newspaper, like, I know something about this.
SPEAKER_01Definitely parents were involved in that one.
SPEAKER_00Yes. So she was the gore's daughter, Alyssa's friend from down the street. She tells police she tried to go to the gore's house that day and nobody was home. But that she'd seen Candy leaving around 11 a.m. Now, in addition to what I said, the shoe print and blood everywhere, they found a bloody thumbprint on the freezer door. And then what was left in the bathroom did indicate it could possibly be a female suspect, like the small shoe size, the thumbprint size, and then just I guess something in the shower scene, if you will, indicated it could be a female.
SPEAKER_01So weird she took a shower in their house after killing Betty.
SPEAKER_00It is. I mean, I guess it's broad daylight. She doesn't want to get in the car, get pulled over, and you're, I mean, 41 wax, you would think, you know, you're covered in blood, right?
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00So four days after the murder, it's Betty's funeral. And that day, Alan breaks and he calls the police and he says, I had an affair. And I had an affair with Candy Montgomery. You know, I didn't tell you the truth. And so the police ask Candy to come in to answer some questions. And they notice a cut on her foot and some bruising around her feet. Well, she denies everything when they ask her, you know, hey, did you kill her? And so she denies it and offers to help in any way. But then when they ask her to take a polygraph, she refuses. And they have to let her go. So after leaving, she goes to a family friend from the church. Now, this friend is an attorney, but he's a personal injury attorney, right? His name's Don Crowder. So obviously, he's never tried a murder case in his life, but he just Candy hires like Candy's like, sure, you're a personal injury. Help defend me on this murder charge. So she hires him to represent her. And to him, she comes clean that she indeed did kill Betty.
SPEAKER_01Wow. If I was your personal injury attorney and my friend came to me and confessed to that, I would be like, okay, let's get you a good criminal defense attorney. That would not be me.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. He's like, I'm gonna prove myself. No, anyway. So this is where it gets a little weird. So her attorney, Crowder, decides to hire a psychiatrist and a clinical hypnotist. The hypnotist is named Dr. Fred Faison. And so under hypnosis, Candy recalls that during the struggle, Betty said, shh. And just that one word, and Faison's argument is that shh was the same word Candy's mother used to use to silence her as a child. And that when Betty said that, that it triggered a dissociative episode, Candy blacked out. She was not in control of herself.
SPEAKER_01Wow.
SPEAKER_00So now Candy is officially arrested on June 27, 1980, and charged with murder. Under advisement of Crowder, Candy agrees to take the polygraph and admits to killing Betty in self-defense. So October 1980, the trial begins in McKinney, Texas. And the prosecution's case is simple. 41 blows is not self-defense. 41 blows is murder.
SPEAKER_01That makes perfect sense to me.
SPEAKER_00Coming from your prosecuting background, you're like, yeah, I get that. So the defense counters with the dissociative reaction, enters the hypnosis testimony and the polygraph that Candy had taken before trial, because the polygraph indicated she was being truthful because you know she was, she did kill her. That polygraph was admitted into evidence. And these were the hypnosis, the polygraph, they were powerful to the jury. Now, sidebar as a defense, I mean, when you were a prosecutor, did you ever come across hypnosis testimony?
SPEAKER_01Never. No.
SPEAKER_00I find that very weird.
SPEAKER_01But yeah, me too.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So the trial itself was obviously a circus, brutal murder in a small town and by a woman, you know, nonetheless. Less, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I bet it was a spectacle.
SPEAKER_00Oh, it was a total spectacle, yes. So Candy's attorney, Crowder, and the judge clashed so badly during the trial that the judge held Crowder in contempt twice, fined him, and actually jailed him after the case. You know, so Candy could get a fair trial.
SPEAKER_01Oh, wow.
SPEAKER_00Did he go to jail? He did go to jail. The Court of Criminal Appeals in Austin stepped in and freed him. So I don't know exactly how long the judge sentenced him, but it was enough where he did jail time. And there was a joke around the courthouse before the verdict was who's going to get more time, Candy or her lawyer.
SPEAKER_01Wow. When I was prosecuting, I had a coworker, a fellow prosecutor, and there was this judge that we worked with. I will not name him, but he was kind of a jerk. And he threatened to put the prosecutor in jail for contemptuously clicking his pen. What? Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Guess he needed a squishy. I have one of those. I just squish on it. Yeah. Okay, back to the trial. So in the trial, the prosecutor asked Candy a question on the stand. He asks her, point blank, was the affair with Alan Gore the last one? And so Crowder objects, gets overruled, but Candy has to admit, no, sir, she had a second affair. It was brief. It was November to December 1979, and right after her and Alan ended things. And this sort of insinuated that she had moved on and kind of takes a like a little bit away from the love moment.
SPEAKER_01Right. Like she wasn't jealous. She wasn't scorned by him breaking it off.
SPEAKER_00Right. So when asked to name the man, she refused, says it's irrelevant and she doesn't want to damage his family. So another family man is who she has an affair with. And so the name's never been confirmed, but context clues pointed hard at the husband of Candy's closest girlfriend, Sherry Clecker. And she was sitting in that courtroom.
SPEAKER_01The cover girls.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, the cover girls. So she was there. She looked visibly devastated for the rest of the trial after that part of the testimony and left the moment the verdict was read. Now, a little bit sidebar on the Cleckers and Montgomery's, Sherry knew basically everything from Candy's extramarital affairs because they were best friends and business partners and they talked and told each other everything. I mean, they babysat for each other's kids. They just, you know, there were BFFs, like I said.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So she knew why her and Alan had ended things too. And she did know that she picked up a new lover, but she didn't know that lover was possibly her own husband.
SPEAKER_01Oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_00And because of that, the entire Montgomery family actually stayed with the Clickers for a period in the immediate aftermath of Betty's murder, which, you know, makes that even more devastating.
SPEAKER_01Like Wow.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So anyway, on October 30th, 1980, Friday the 13th, murder should have been on Halloween. But the verdict. The verdict should have been on Halloween. But one day before Halloween, a jury of nine women and three men deliberated for just three hours and came back with a not guilty verdict.
SPEAKER_01Oh my. That's a shocker. 41 wax.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_01And that's self-defense, huh? Or it was based upon the dissociative disorder or whatever we're calling it.
SPEAKER_00Basically, Betty started it and then a disassociated candy finished it.
SPEAKER_01Got it. Wow. You know, it makes you wonder if there was a majority male jury. Would there have been a different verdict?
SPEAKER_00I don't know. I mean, I was thinking that too. I was gonna ask, is it that lopsided most of the time? That seems very like nine women and three men seems a little lopsided, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_01It really does. But it was a good jury for the defense. Yes.
SPEAKER_00So spectators outside the courthouse scream, murder, murder as she walked free.
SPEAKER_01I would have been one of them.
SPEAKER_00And Pat was still by her side, but Candy later asked him where Sherry had gone. And Pat, who had actually just found out about the second affair during her testimony, was apparently Oh, I know that's when he finds out, right? I'd like to see the look on his face when that came out. You know what I mean? Just like what? Well, apparently he was furious. So he said that Sherry left because she's probably trying to keep her husband away from you.
SPEAKER_01Oh my goodness. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Poor Pat. I felt so bad for him. I know. Afterwards, it only took three months for the Montgomery family to just quietly pick up and leave Texas. And they went to Georgia when Candy, you know, apparently did all these interviews and stuff. So Candy told reporters, I want to get all this behind me and be normal again. So when they go to Georgia, they make it another four years. They got divorced in four years, her and Pat. And she went back to school and got a therapist's license in Georgia under her maiden name, Candace Wheeler. And she was a counselor for teenagers and adults for depression.
SPEAKER_01Wow. I don't feel like she's the best person to give any sort of counseling.
SPEAKER_00But okay. I agree. I agree. She retired in 2012 and she's now 75 years old and lives privately in Georgia, does no interviews, no public appearances. And the last time a reporter approached her was in the year 2000, and she said, I'm telling you in big bold letters, I'm not interested. Pat is equally invisible. Some reports say he goes by the name James now and has simply just disappeared into a quiet life. Now Betty's family sued Alan for custody of his daughters, and he lost. So Betty's parents raised the two girls.
SPEAKER_01Alyssa and Bethany.
SPEAKER_00Yes. So Alan ended up leaving Texas as well. He got remarried and later divorced. Neither Pat nor Candy ever remarried.
SPEAKER_01Oh wow.
SPEAKER_00Supposedly. I mean, you know.
SPEAKER_01We may not know everything that's going on out there, but there are no reports that they've remarried.
SPEAKER_00No reports that I found. Yes. Alan, he eventually reconnected with his daughters and is reported to be living in Sarasota, Florida. Twenty years after the murder, I guess the Dallas Morning News was doing a story, you know, 20 years since the murder, both Alyssa and Bethany spoke to the press. Now, Alyssa says, now she goes by Lisa Harder, new name. She's married with two sons, and she works as a business controller in Kansas. She said, We both tried to do the best with what's been handed us. So yeah, I mean, you know, moved on, got a family, but coming from something crazy tragic like that, that's gotta be hard. Bethany said, Well, Bethany, she actually followed in Betty's footsteps and became a teacher. She was notably direct with the Dallas Morning News. She said, I just think she got away with it. I'm one of those people who are very emotional, extremely emotional. And she said, I also know that mom and dad would have gotten a divorce anyway. I think she would have left him and we would have moved back to Kansas. And I think my mother would be proud of me and my sister.
SPEAKER_01Wow, that's sad.
SPEAKER_00I know it is. I mean, obviously she was one, but that's your story.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's your story. I mean, she's you're right, she's one. She probably doesn't remember anything of that. The 13 hours sitting in her poop. I know, crying herself hoarse, but oh, how traumatic.
SPEAKER_00I know. 13 hours for a baby like that, so much can go wrong.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So what about Candy and Pat's kids?
SPEAKER_00I couldn't even find their names.
SPEAKER_01Oh wow.
SPEAKER_00Which is silly. Yeah. So I don't know about that. I would, I don't know, any listeners want to message me that know anything about that. I would think that would be good to know.
SPEAKER_01I would be curious to know if they keep in touch with their mom at all.
SPEAKER_00Actually, that I know. I forgot to mention the daughter also became a therapist in Georgia and worked with her.
SPEAKER_01Oh.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So the oldest daughter that was best friends with Alyssa. Yes. Definitely the kids went to Georgia with their mom. I know that. And you know, obviously Pat, but he left four years later. So as for Don Crowder, the man who won the impossible case, he ended up running for governor in Texas in 1986 on the back of that notoriety from that case.
SPEAKER_01Oh my gosh, that's crazy. In 1986, who was his opponent?
SPEAKER_00He was running in the Democratic primary against the incumbent Mark White.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00So he ended up not doing too bad for a political unknown. He got 11% of the vote.
SPEAKER_01That's a lot. Wow.
SPEAKER_00Yep. So it was over a hundred thousand votes.
SPEAKER_01Wow, that's a good amount of votes.
SPEAKER_00It is. But the story for him doesn't end so well. In 1997, his brother died by suicide, and Crowder never really recovered. He began drinking heavily. And in 1998, he was arrested for DUI. And on November 10th, 1998, Don Crowder died by suicide at age 56. Oh no, that's that. I know. So his brother killed himself and he was just couldn't get past it. And then he killed himself. That's terrible.
SPEAKER_01That is terrible.
SPEAKER_00But before he died, he had said the Candy Montgomery trial was maybe the zenith of an extraordinary successful career or the demise of what could have been.
SPEAKER_01Wow. Poor Don.
SPEAKER_00So some weird things about the time frame. Well, the murder happened obviously on a Friday the 13th, but it was the very first Friday the 13th after the original Friday the 13th horror movie had come out in theaters just weeks before.
SPEAKER_01Oh wow, that was the one with Kevin Bacon.
SPEAKER_00Yes, that one. Yep, another 13. But this is funny or interesting. So when investigators arrived at the murder scene, they found a newspaper open on Betty Gore's table to an article with a picture of Jack Nicholson in the shining, right? Yes. That is interesting. The paper reviewing the movie that was in theaters. So they actually thought they had a shining copycat killer on their hands because you know he obviously tries to kill his wife with an ex.
SPEAKER_01Wow. Okay. That's interesting. Gosh, I wondered, was Betty reading the newspaper or did uh Candy flip it to that? You know?
SPEAKER_00She's trying to set the scene. Like was she trying to me?
SPEAKER_01Oh my gosh. Okay.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Well, uh, do you have any more questions? Because I'm done with the story part.
SPEAKER_01That's really fascinating. I don't know if I would have been on that jury if I could have found her not guilty by reason of self-defense or insanity or disassociation, whatever the case may be. That just seems yikes. 41 chops.
SPEAKER_0041 times gives a new meaning to the word overkill.
SPEAKER_01It sure does.
SPEAKER_00But it's crazy that she was still alive through 40 of them.
SPEAKER_01Oh, it must have been a bloody mess. Well, let me tell you a little bit about the pop culture. There's a ton of newspaper and magazine articles about it. People magazine investigates Candy and Betty. That's something I was reading before we started recording. There's numerous Texas Monthly articles about the Candy Montgomery case, uh, numerous Fort Worth Star Telegram articles, numerous Dallas Morning News articles. There's a book written in 1984 by a couple of guys named John Bloom and Jim Atkinson. They're both from Dallas. They're both Dallas-based journalists, or at least they were in 1984 when the book was published. It's called Evidence of Love: a True Story of Passion and Death in the Suburbs. There was a 1990 made-for-tv movie. Remember when they had made-for-tv movies?
SPEAKER_00I miss those days.
SPEAKER_01I do too. That's when I first saw it, the one with Tim Curry. It was innocent. Yeah, it was. It was a different time. Anyway, Barbara Hershey. Oh, Barbara Hershey was in it. Yeah, and she's a phenomenal actress. And of course, she won an Emmy. She also won a Golden Globe for portraying Candy. And this made for TV movies on CBS, and it was called A Killing and a Small Town. There's also a Hulu movie or series called Candy, which stars Jessica Beale. So Jessica Beale plays Candy Montgomery.
SPEAKER_00I've seen it. I watched that one. Did you? Yes.
SPEAKER_01So I don't think I've seen anything that Jessica Beale has been in, but she is definitely one of the most beautiful people out there.
SPEAKER_00She's beautiful. She even looks beautiful dressed as Candy. So yeah.
SPEAKER_01Well, so I looked at some trailers to Candy before we started, and I'm like, whoa, that's Jessica Beale. So Candy was not, according to me, the most attractive person in the world. It was 1980, so Tootsie was like really popular.
SPEAKER_00She had the Tootsie look, the short Hermi hair and glasses, and yes.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. And and remember Kathy Whitmire, Mayor Kathy Whitmire of Houston. Yeah, she was the inspiration for Tootsie. So I really I didn't know that. I think she was. I could be wrong, but for some reason I want to say that's true. Anyway, Jessica Beale does not look like the Jessica Beale we all know.
SPEAKER_00So Jessica Beale played Candy and Melanie Linsky played Betty.
SPEAKER_01I love Melanie Linsky. I love her too. Yeah, great actress.
SPEAKER_00So the two cops that show up on the scene to investigate are played by Justin Timberlake and Jason Ritter. Justin is married to Jessica, and Jason Ritter's married to Melanie. Get out of here. I thought that was pretty cool that they did that.
SPEAKER_01Oh, that is cool. Okay, well, I'm gonna watch that tonight.
SPEAKER_00Pat was played by Sasha and Nobody Wants This on Netflix that Kristen felt so he's Sasha plays Pat, right? There's a scene when Pat, you know, he's like, it's come out, Candy did kill her. And so he's laying in bed at night looking at his wife, and he's just like, so he gets up while she's asleep. He goes and he gets an axe out of the garage, and he goes outside and he starts chopping and he's counting, and he's like wore out after like 20 something. So it makes him happy. Like he puts the axe back and he goes upstairs and he like snuggles with their like, you know, I know she didn't do it. Oh, this is when they were just suspicious of her. My bad, I'm telling it wrong. They were just suspicious of her and investigating her. He she hadn't come out and said it. So he's all happy, thinking there's no way my candy did this because I couldn't do it 41 times. I'm like, isn't that just like a man? Like, just because you can't do it 41 times, your wife can't do it 41 times.
SPEAKER_01Brings us back to your theme song of the point she can do it worse, yes. But uh yeah, when you get a chance, you should watch it. It's really good. Okay, I'm gonna watch that. And then there's also an HBO Max show called it's a series, Love in Death, and that stars Elizabeth Olson. I love her too, and she plays Candy McGovern. Yeah, and it came out in April 23. So I'm gonna watch that one too.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I haven't watched that one yet, so that'll be on my list. And that's it for pop culture. That's all I got. Am I missing something? I don't think so. I don't think so. I'm gonna jump into her chart then. So, astrology time. Woo! One of my favorite parts of this, by the way. So Candy Montgomery was born November 15th, 1949, makes her son a Scorpio. And before you're like, oh, of course she's a Scorpio.
SPEAKER_01Well, I was gonna say that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, not your average Scorpio story. So Scorpio is the sign of death, obsession, transformation, and yes, destruction. Scorpio can feel everything, like on a volcanic level. But the thing about Candy was she spent her whole life putting a lid on that volcano, if you will. The church lady exterior, the perfect suburban wife, the cheerful choir singer. That was the lid. At some point, though, pressure's gonna build on a volcano and blow the lid off, right? So, okay, we'll talk about how she loved Venus. And Venus rules your love, your passion, your sex. And her Venus was in Libra, charming, social, needs harmony above all else. These are the people who are most allergic to conflict. They want balance, they want beauty, they want things to be pleasant. And when love doesn't feel pleasant anymore, Venus and Libra checks out emotionally before they ever have a word to say about it. And this placement is of someone who could sit across from her husband at dinner, smile, and feel absolutely nothing, and think nothing's wrong with that. And Venus and Libra doesn't do messy, dramatic love, they do convenient love, which is exactly what Candy did. You know, she didn't fall apart over a passionate love story. She approached her affair with Alan Gore like a business transaction. They had ground rules and split expenses and no emotional attachment. And that's not a Scorpio in love, that's a Venus in Libra managing a situation. So then there's Mars, the action, the planet of action. It is also in Libra. How we fight, how we assert ourselves. So Mars and Libra is one of the most contradictory placements in the zodiac because Mars wants to charge forward and Libra wants to weigh every option first. So they delay, they deliberate, they avoid confrontation until they can't anymore. And when a Mars and Libra finally snaps, it's not a slow burn, it's not calculated, it's sudden, it's total, and it's disproportionate to everything that came before it. So she held it together for so long.
SPEAKER_0141.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, when the dam breaks, right? It breaks completely. Right. 41 times. I would think that's a dam breaking.
SPEAKER_01That is. Good lord.
SPEAKER_00So her moon sign, which is your emotional, inner emotion, is the piece that ties this whole thing together. Candy's moon was in Gemini. And your moon sign is your inner world and how you process feelings and how you need to feel secure. And Gemini moon people are restless, intellectually driven, and they get bored fast. They need variety, stimulation, novelty. A Gemini moon in a quiet suburban house with two kids and a routine husband is a slow emotional death. She literally told her friends that she was bored. She didn't dress it up. She just said it out loud. A Gemini moon doesn't simmer in feelings the way water signs do. They rationalize their emotions. They talk themselves out of things, which is exactly how she could walk out of Betty Gore's house, get in her car, go teach Bible class, because that Gemini moon had already moved on to the next thought.
SPEAKER_01Wow.
SPEAKER_00So put it all together. You have Scorpio sitting on a lifetime of suppressed intensity, being told shh by her mom, you know, a Venus in Libra who kept love transactional and emotionally distant, a Mars in Libra who avoided confrontation until she absolutely could not, and a Gemini moon that kept her restless, detached, and always half a step above her own feelings. She wasn't a crime of passion, she was a pressure cooker. And on Friday the 13th, 1980, in a laundry room in Wiley, Texas, that lid finally blew.
SPEAKER_01Wow. All so accurate.
SPEAKER_00So small footnote because Betty Gore deserves a little. Attention, right? Betty was a Capricorn. She was born January 9th, 1950. And Capricorn is the sign of structure, loyalty, hard work, and doing things the right way. She was a teacher, she followed rules, she trusted the system, she trusted her friend, Candy. Capricorn is also the sign that's most likely to confront something head on when they finally know the truth. And they're also like, you don't mess with my family. They're very protective of their family. They also believe though in accountability. So her confronting Candy, again, if this happened, her confronting Candy head-on, she just wanted to know the truth. And that's exactly what she did on June 13th. She looked candy in the eye and demanded the truth. And it's the most Capricorn thing she could ever done. And it cost her everything.
SPEAKER_01But the husband, what was his name?
SPEAKER_00Alan.
SPEAKER_01Alan. He said he never told Betty. He never told Betty that he'd had an affair.
SPEAKER_00He told the police that he didn't. But I mean, I guess just being suspicious, she asked. I mean, we don't know. He didn't say he told her from what I saw on the stand, but I mean, I could be wrong. I don't have all the court transcripts, so yeah.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Interesting. Well, this is fascinating. Neither one of us had heard of this case before.
SPEAKER_00And we're from Texas. It's good. That's why this podcast is good. We're exposing ourselves to more bad people. Is that good? I don't know. Okay. Cool. Well, thanks for being here again. Yeah, of course. That was fun. And I'm gonna go ahead and remind everyone that we're gonna be doing this live on May 31st at Spindle Tap Brewery. Looking forward to it. I'm excited about that. Okay, talk to you later. Bye. The Femme Fatal. Created and hosted by Stacy Dotson, produced by Mark Williams, music by Marcia Yingling, Chad Schenk, and Greg Loicano.