On June 13, 1980, housewife Betty Gore was found dead in her home, hit with an ax 41 times, while her newborn daughter cried in her crib. The violence to this day is unparalleled. In the small town of Wiley, Texas, crime wasn’t common, and this one didn’t make any sense. The story was going to get worse.

The suspected murderer, confirmed, was a church friend, Candance Montgomery, Candy, who, to even greater general surprise, was Betty’s husband’s ex-lover and until then held up as an example of a good mother, housewife, and leader in society. place. But it’s not the worst. Candy claimed that the 41 ax blows were in “self-defense”. She managed to convince the jury and was never convicted of the crime.

The absurdity is fascinating. As in many cases, the victim was found guilty. Candy Montgomery’s story yielded a 1990 made-for-TV movie, Evidence of Love, directed by Stephen Gyllenhall (Jake and Maggie Gyllenhall‘s father), an adaptation of the book of the same name and starring Barbara Hershey as Candy. Anyone who’s seen the movie will realize that it’s the same basis – dialogue included – for the 2022 version of the story, the great series starring Jessica Biel, Candy.

The series is available on Starplus and has a strong cast like Timothy Simons, Melanie Lynskey, Pablo Schreiber, and Raúl Esparza. And yes, with a quick and important cameo from Justin Timberlake as the cop who finds out everything.

Jessica looks great in a complex role, physically similar to the real Candance and genuinely terrifying.

The crime is so absurd that in addition to the Starplus series, it already has its HBO Max version, Love & Death, produced by David E. Kelley (Big Little Lies) and starring Elizabeth Olsen in the lead role. In the cast, Jesse Plemons as Allan Gore and Lily Rabe as Betty Gore. The HBO Max version was scripted by Kelley and directed by Homeland‘s Lesli Linka Glatter. Love and Death are based on the book Evidence of Love: A True Story of Passion and Death in the Suburbs and the Texas Monthly stories.

The Elizabeth Olsen version promises, but Jessica Biel‘s version is critical of how justice was manipulated. There are 5 episodes. Worth checking out.