On the morning of June 13, 1980, in the quiet suburb of Wylie, Texas, Candy Montgomery went to her friend Betty Gore’s house to pick up a child’s swimsuit. By the end of that visit, Betty was dead — struck forty-one times with an axe by a woman who had once been her closest ally.

In this episode, we unpack one of the most disturbing and psychologically complex true-crime cases of the 1980s, recently re-imagined in Love and Death (HBO) and Candy (Hulu). But beyond the headlines and dramatizations, this story is really about emotional repression, gendered expectations, and what happens when a “perfect” life becomes a pressure cooker.

We explore the world that shaped these women — a tightly knit Methodist church community where politeness, conformity, and appearances mattered more than emotional honesty. Candy Montgomery was everything this world rewarded: organized, cheerful, socially fluent, and endlessly accommodating. Betty Gore, by contrast, was isolated, newly postpartum, struggling, and quietly unraveling while her husband carried on an affair with Candy.

As we trace how a carefully planned affair spiraled into betrayal, jealousy, and finally violence, we examine the psychological forces at play: dissociation, suppressed rage, high sensation-seeking, and the breaking point of a woman who had spent a lifetime being “good.”

We also dig into the controversial trial that followed — including the use of hypnosis, the dissociation defense, and how Candy’s presentation as a soft-spoken, respectable white woman shaped the jury’s decision to acquit her. What does it mean when the justice system believes someone who looks safe? And what happens when empathy and accountability collide?

This is not just a story about murder — it’s a story about motherhood, repression, desire, and the dark things that can grow inside a life that looks perfect from the outside.

Content Warning: graphic violence, homicide, infidelity