Love and Death, HBO’s Elizabeth Olsen-starring miniseries about one of the most infamous murders in United States history, has become the most-watched series on US television and its HBO Max streaming platform since its recent release.

The year 1980 was marked by a series of events that shocked the small Methodist community in Texas and later public opinion in the United States.

In fact, it all started two years ago with a simple case of marital boredom. Candice “Candy” Montgomery (played by Olsen in the HBO series) was going through a bit of a crisis in her marriage to Pat Montgomery. Although the couple lived a comfortable life, Candy was not happy, feeling that the marriage lacked “spark”.

A chance meeting with family friend Allan Gore led to a not-so-remarkable extramarital affair. After almost a year of regular meetings, the two ended their relationship. There was little indication that this adventure would lead to a murder as gruesome as what followed.

Love and Death, an HBO miniseries about a murder that shocked the United States

On June 13, 1980, the body of Allan’s wife, Betty Gore, was found in the family home in Vail, an idyllic suburb northeast of Dallas. Betty, a mother of two, was hacked to death with an ax 41 times, People magazine reported.

The 30-year-old taught fifth grade students and her death was all the more shocking because she was a valued member of the community. And the way she was killed shook the local community to its core.

“It was like a scene from a horror movie… It was Friday the 13th. We thought we had a copy of the movie Radiance“, a county sheriff’s deputy said at the time. The reason? In addition to the killer’s weapon of choice, a newspaper review of a Stanley Kubrick film that had been released in theaters less than a month earlier was found at the crime scene.

The murder weapon, a six-foot ax with a wooden handle, was found near Betty’s body. Allan Gore, who was away on business at the time of his wife’s murder, became worried after he was unable to reach her on the phone.

According to Texas Monthly, Allan called Candy to see if she knew anything about Betty and to ask about the couple’s 6-year-old daughter, Alice, whom Candy was looking after. Candy replied that Betty was “fine” when he came over earlier that day, but she was “acting like she was in a hurry to leave.”

Allan called the neighbor three times during the evening, eventually getting him to come inside the house to check on Betty. Unfortunately, neighbors discovered the couple’s other child, an infant, “crying and dirty after being left alone for several hours and his mother killed,” as the media reported at the time.

(PHOTO: LMK / Landmark / Profimedia Images)

The investigation and the trial that gripped American public opinion

It was soon revealed that the last person to see Betty alive was Candy Montgomery. But because of the extremely brutal nature of the crime and the fact that it was committed with a heavy ax, Candy was not initially considered a suspect.

“The police couldn’t believe that someone as small as Candy Montgomery had the physical strength to wield this brutal axe,” Texas Monthly reported, adding that “even as suspicions grew around her, [ofițerilor] it was hard for them to believe that this beautiful, cheerful and completely normal suburban housewife could commit such a brutal attack.

In fact, because Montgomery was a mother, went to church, and was friendly with almost everyone in the community, it was difficult for people to imagine that she could kill someone. However, her mobile phone was soon tracked and she was eventually arrested.

Allan told police about their affair, claiming it had ended almost 7 months before his wife’s murder. Initially denying the charges, Candy confessed to the crime and handed herself in to police, but claimed she took the ax after Betty tried to hit her with it. A polygraph test administered to her before the start of the trial showed that she was telling the truth.

Like the investigation, her trial became a national sensation in the United States because of the moral ambiguity surrounding the details of the crime, with questions about childhood trauma and the right to self-defense. In the HBO series, Candy’s trial attracts a flood of reporters, photographers and onlookers, to the point where the judge asks to move it to a larger courtroom.

The verdict deeply divided American public opinion, and some still consider her trial one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in the history of the American justice system, reports CBR. How that story ends will be revealed in the final episode of “Love and Death,” which HBO and its streaming platform HBO Max will air this Thursday.

How true is HBO’s adaptation of Montgomery’s “Candy” story

At the end of each episode, the series reminds viewers that it is based on a true story but is a “dramatization of real events” and that “dialogue, scenes and some events have been changed or created for dramatic purposes”.

It is sad, Love and death faithfully adapts the real-life story based on the 1984 book Evidence of Love: A True Story of Passion and Death in the Suburbs by two American investigative journalists about what happened, using exclusive interviews with members of the Gore and Montgomery families.

The series inevitably caused comparisons Sweetsanother miniseries released by Hulu last year on the same topic, criminals, especially serial killers, are still one of the hottest topics in Hollywood as a recent success Dahmer and other.

Although the Hulu production stars Jessica Biel, Sweets it didn’t make as much of a splash as the HBO series for two simple reasons: it was only released for streaming, not television, and Hulu is a US-only platform (although it does license some of its original movies and series to other platforms, either affection).

Time magazine suggests that, while similar in many ways, HBO’s version would be better, but since I haven’t seen the Hulu series, I’ll reserve judgment. But I thought you might know about both if you’re interested in the story.