It happened in a laundry room in Wylie, Texas. June 13, 1980. Forty-one axe wounds. When people search for a love and death book, they are almost always looking for the definitive account of how a suburban housewife named Candy Montgomery ended up killing her friend, Betty Gore, in a scene that looked like a low-budget slasher flick.
The book is titled Evidence of Love: A True Story of Passion and Death in the Suburbs. Written by investigative journalists John Bloom and Jim Atkinson, it remains the gold standard for true crime fanatics who want to understand the "why" behind the headlines.
Let's be real. Most true crime books feel like they were written by a police scanner. They give you the dates, the names, and the blood spatter patterns, but they miss the soul of the people involved. Bloom and Atkinson did something different. They captured the stifling, beige boredom of 1970s North Texas life—the kind of environment where an affair isn't just a mistake, but a desperate grab for a pulse.
Why Evidence of Love is the Love and Death Book Everyone Mentions
If you've seen the HBO Max series Love & Death starring Elizabeth Olsen, or the Hulu version Candy with Jessica Biel, you’ve seen the dramatized version. But the book is where the actual nuance lives. It’s not just about a murder. It’s about the Methodists. It’s about the choir practice. It’s about the crushing weight of being a "good wife" in a community that didn't allow for messy emotions.
Candy Montgomery wasn't a serial killer. She wasn't even "evil" in the way we usually define it. She was a woman who was profoundly bored.
The authors spent hundreds of hours interviewing the people who lived it. They had access to the psychiatric evaluations. They sat through the trial where the defense claimed "dissociative reaction" triggered by a childhood trauma involving a broken jar. It sounds like a legal gimmick, right? Yet, when you read the long-form prose in the love and death book, the psychological breakdown starts to feel terrifyingly plausible.
The Affair That Started It All
It began on a volleyball court. Candy bumped into Allan Gore, Betty’s husband. They both reached for the ball, and something clicked. Not some grand, cinematic romance. Just a realization that they were both deeply unsatisfied.
They planned the affair like a business merger. Seriously. They met at a motel, brought their own snacks, and had a checklist of rules to ensure no one got hurt. They didn't want to fall in love; they wanted to feel alive. But life is messy. You can't schedule passion on a calendar and expect it to stay within the lines.
The Brutal Reality of June 13, 1980
The actual confrontation is where the book gets difficult to read. It wasn't a calculated hit. Betty Gore had figured out the affair. When Candy stopped by the Gore house to pick up a swimsuit for Betty’s daughter, Betty confronted her.
"Candy, are you having an affair with Allan?"
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That was it. The moment the suburban facade cracked.
Most people think of an axe murder as something fast. It wasn't. It was a struggle. It was clumsy. It was desperate. The love and death book details how Candy eventually walked out of that house, drenched in blood, went to the church, and then went about her day. She even had lunch with friends. That’s the part that haunts readers—the ability to pivot from a bloodbath back to a church social in the span of an hour.
What the Trial Got Right (and Wrong)
The trial was a circus. Collin County had never seen anything like it. Don Crowder, Candy’s lawyer, was a local firebrand who had never tried a murder case before. He took on the state and won.
The controversial "Not Guilty" verdict still riles people up today. How do you kill someone with 41 axe blows and walk free? The book explains the legal strategy of self-defense coupled with the psychiatric testimony of Dr. Fred Fason. Fason used hypnosis to uncover a "shushing" trigger from Candy’s childhood.
Whether you believe it or not, the jury did. They saw a small woman who had been pushed to a breaking point.
The Legacy of the Love and Death Book
True crime has evolved since Evidence of Love was first published in 1984. We have podcasts now. We have Reddit threads. But the reason people still flock to this specific love and death book is its refusal to simplify the narrative.
It doesn't paint Betty Gore as a perfect victim, nor Candy as a mustache-twirling villain. Betty was struggling with severe postpartum depression and anxiety. She was difficult to be around, which doesn't justify her death, but it provides the context for why the community was so fractured.
Modern Adaptations and the "Olsen Effect"
When HBO decided to adapt the book into Love & Death, they leaned heavily on the Bloom and Atkinson source material. Elizabeth Olsen’s performance captured the specific "perky" energy that the book describes.
If you're coming to the book after watching the show, be prepared: the book is much darker. It lingers on the loneliness of the suburbs in a way that television can't quite capture. It makes you realize that the white picket fence wasn't a dream; for these women, it was a cage.
Facts You Won't Find in the TV Shows
While the shows are great, they trim the fat. The love and death book contains granular details that change your perspective on the case.
- The Physical Toll: Candy didn't just walk away; she had bruises and cuts that she spent days hiding with long sleeves and excuses about "tripping."
- The Children: The impact on the Gore children is heartbreakingly documented. They were caught in the middle of a town that wanted to forget the whole thing happened.
- Candy's Life After: After the trial, Candy and her husband Pat actually stayed together for a while. They moved to Georgia. Eventually, they divorced, and Candy became a family counselor. Think about that. A woman who killed her friend with an axe ended up counseling others on their family problems. Life is weirder than fiction.
Honestly, the most shocking thing about the case isn't the axe. It's the mundane nature of the days leading up to it. The grocery shopping. The choir practice. The Sunday school lessons. The violence didn't come from nowhere; it boiled up from beneath a surface of forced politeness.
How to Approach Reading This Story
If you're diving into this for the first time, don't look for a hero. There isn't one.
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- Read for the Psychology: Focus on the chapters involving Dr. Fason. The hypnosis sessions are polarizing, but they are the key to understanding the defense's win.
- Compare the Perspectives: Look at how Allan Gore is portrayed. He is often the "forgotten" catalyst of the tragedy.
- Check the Timeline: Pay attention to the clock. The speed at which Candy cleaned up and returned to her "normal" life is the most terrifying part of the narrative.
The love and death book serves as a grim reminder that we never truly know what's happening behind our neighbors' doors. It’s a study in the limits of human patience and the explosive nature of repressed emotion.
Actionable Steps for True Crime Readers
If this case fascinates you, don't just stop at the TV shows. Get the actual text.
- Search for the 2023 Updated Edition: Look for the version of Evidence of Love that includes the new afterword. It provides context on where the players are now.
- Visit Local Archives: If you're a real researcher, the Dallas Observer (where the authors originally broke the story) has digital archives of the original reporting from the early 80s.
- Analyze the Legal Precedent: Law students still study the Montgomery case for its use of the "necessity" and self-defense arguments in a situation of extreme overkill.
The story of Candy Montgomery isn't going away. As long as we live in a society that demands a perfect exterior, the cracks—and the stories of what happens when they break—will always draw us in.