Alisa and Bethany Gore are arguably the ones who have been most affected by Candy Montgomery's horrific crime, but they remain largely out of the spotlight. Where are Betty Gore daughters today, and how have they moved on from their mother's tragedy?
"We've both tried to do the best with what's been handed us," Alisa Gore, who now goes by the name Lisa Harder, had told The Dallas Morning News back in 2000, 20 years after her mother had been murdered by Montgomery.
For those unfamiliar with the story, Candy and Betty struck up a friendship while at church, and their families became intertwined—a little too intertwined, considering Candy began an affair with Betty's husband, Allan Gore. When Betty approached Candy about the infidelity, their argument turned physical and ultimately led to Candy stabbing Betty with an ax 41 times on June 13, 1980.
Allan, who had been away on business at the time, learned of his wife's demise after sending in neighbors to check on her when she was unresponsive by phone. Fast forward several months and the Candy Montgomery trial wrapped up in eight days and left the Texas housewife a free woman after she claimed she had been acting in self-defense.
"I just think she got away with it," Betty's daughter Bethany Gore, now Bethany Mickey, told The Dallas Morning News. "I'm one of those people who are very emotional, extremely emotional."
Where are Alisa and Bethany Gore today?
Today, Alisa and Bethany Gore are both in their 40s and are mothers themselves.
Lisa, a business controller at Koch Engineered Solutions, per LinkedIn, married Jonn Harder in 1996 and had two boys, Sam and Jacob. They settled in Kansas. Bethany, who was just one years old when her mother's life was taken, followed in Betty's professional footsteps, becoming a teacher. Bethany Mickey is now a principal in Las Vegas, Nevada. She and her husband, Chad, have four children, including a daughter named Betty.
Now that their mother's murder has been the subject of many a series—Candy on Hulu and Love & Death on HBO Max, which are but a few shows on Candy Montgomery's case—the women have been forced to relive what's likely the hardest thing they've experienced. However, they have not been involved in either TV project.
What happened to Alisa and Bethany after Betty's death?
Candy and Pat Montgomery made their way to Georgia, and Allan Gore uprooted his family as well, and even remarried, though the union did not last. Ultimately, while Alisa and Bethany were still young, they were taken in by their grandparents, Betty's parents, shortly after the trial. Though they were estranged at one point in time, sources allege that they've found their way back to one another in the present day.
Should this horrific crime not have taken place, that's not to say that things would've been simple for the Gore family. There was fighting, hostility and plenty of familial problems before the tragedy.
"I know that Mom and Dad would have gotten a divorce. I think she would have left him and we would have moved back to Kansas," Bethany revealed in her 2000 interview. But she did think Betty would've remained an important part in her life, had she still been alive.
"I think my mother would be proud of me and my sister," she further revealed. "What angers me is thinking about what could have been."
You can watch the fictional takes of the story now; Candy is streaming in full on Hulu, and Love & Death is being released weekly on Thursdays through May 25 on HBO Max.
