If you’ve watched either “Candy” on Hulu or “Love and Death” on HBO Max, you already know the broad strokes. A Texas housewife named Candy Montgomery killed her friend Betty Gore with an ax in 1980, and a small town lawyer named Don Crowder somehow got her acquitted. Tom Pelphrey and Raúl Esparza both played him on screen, and both actors leaned into the same thing: this guy had bravado most first time criminal defense attorneys simply don’t have.
The real Don Crowder was a Collin County, Texas lawyer who’d never tried a criminal case before he took on Montgomery’s defense in 1980. He won anyway, using a defense strategy built around hypnosis and a psychiatric theory that has stuck around in true crime conversations for over four decades. His story didn’t end with the trial, though. Crowder went on to run for governor, open a sports bar, serve as a small town city attorney for over two decades, and eventually died by suicide in 1998 after a difficult final few years.
Here’s what’s actually documented about who he was.
Who Was Don Crowder
Alton Don Crowder was born in Texas in 1942 and grew up playing football, earning himself the nickname “Crazy Crowder” while on a full athletic scholarship at Southern Methodist University, according to multiple accounts from people who knew him. He picked up law after an eye injury sidelined his football career, and it turned out he felt just as comfortable in a courtroom as he did on a football field.
He married Carol Parker shortly after finishing law school in 1968, and three months out of school he opened his own practice instead of joining an established firm, according to a detailed Dallas Observer profile of his life. Friends described him as someone who simply couldn’t work for anyone else. “Donnie never could work for anyone but Donnie,” childhood friend and attorney Greg Ziegler told the paper. “He had to be the boss.”
In 1970, he partnered with law school classmate Jim Mattox and an older attorney named John Allen Curtis to form Crowder & Mattox. Mattox would go on to become Texas Attorney General, but back then the firm split duties between business, corporate work, and civil litigation. Crowder built his side of the practice on workers’ compensation and personal injury cases, and according to people who worked with him, he treated every client’s problem like it was personal. “When he was your lawyer, he was a passionate advocate for you,” friend and Collin County attorney Howard Shapiro said. “When he was your opponent, he was tenacious.”
By the late 1970s, Crowder had also become the municipal judge in Lucas and Seagoville, Texas, plus the city attorney for the town of Allen, a role he’d hold for the next 22 years.
The Candy Montgomery Case
Crowder knew Candy Montgomery through the United Methodist Church of Lucas, where they were both congregants. When police started building a case against her for the 1980 killing of her friend Betty Gore, a Wylie schoolteacher who’d been struck 41 times with a 3 foot ax, Montgomery turned to Crowder because he was familiar, not because he had any criminal trial experience.
He didn’t have any. This was his first criminal case ever. That didn’t stop him from building one of the more unusual defenses in Texas legal history.
Crowder had Montgomery take a polygraph test before trial, then sent her to a psychiatrist named Dr. Fred Fason, who hypnotized her to dig into her account of what happened. Fason’s conclusion, which he later testified to at trial, was that Montgomery struck Gore 41 times in self defense during what he described as a dissociative reaction, triggered when Gore reportedly whispered “shush” to her in a way that echoed memories from Montgomery’s childhood.
It worked. A nine woman, three man Collin County jury deliberated for three hours before acquitting Montgomery, and the trial had drawn such a crowd that it had to be moved from the newer Collin County courthouse to the old 1876 courthouse just to fit everyone.
The case wasn’t without friction. Crowder fed misinformation to the press during the trial specifically to throw off the district attorney, a move that got him held in contempt of court and resulted in jail time and a fine for violating the judge’s gag order. Author Jim Atkinson, who co-wrote the book “Evidence of Love” about the case, said the community was furious with Crowder for taking on what some saw as a “brazen hussy,” but Crowder reportedly saw Montgomery as simply a “poor woman” nobody else would defend.
His Career After the Trial
The Montgomery acquittal didn’t end Crowder’s career, it launched a bigger one for a while. He kept practicing law in Collin County and continued as Allen’s city attorney. In 1986, he ran for Governor of Texas as a Democrat, an unusual move for someone with no real political track record. He lost to Mark White in the primary, but pulled in 118,530 votes, more than 11% of the total, which was considered a respectable showing for a political unknown.
He also opened a sports bar called Gameday, which eventually closed its doors. Outside of law and politics, people who grew up around Allen in the late 1970s and 1980s remember him most for his involvement in youth sports. He coached kids, mentored them, and in a few cases took them into his own home. “There isn’t a week that I don’t think of Donnie, his generosity, and what he did for me,” Greg Ziegler told the Dallas Observer years later.
His personal life was rockier. He and Carol divorced by October 1996 after nearly 30 years of marriage. He remarried in 1997 to Sheri Guernsey.
What Happened to Don Crowder
This is the hardest part of his story, and it’s worth being upfront about it.
On August 15, 1997, Crowder’s brother Barry died in what’s been described as a reckless, alcohol related accident. Crowder reportedly never recovered from the loss and became increasingly despondent, leaning on alcohol and, according to some accounts, other substances.
On June 21, 1998, he was arrested for driving while intoxicated in Allen, the same town where he’d served as the top prosecutor for over two decades. The arrest meant he could no longer hold the city attorney position, and people close to him said the humiliation hit him hard. “Because of the DWI, he couldn’t be the city attorney in Allen anymore,” friend Frank Jackson told the Dallas Observer. “These were failures he just could not accept.”
On October 25, 1998, his 56th birthday, Crowder attempted to take his own life and survived, spending time in intensive care. Days later, on October 29, he spoke to the McKinney Courier-Gazette and reflected on the Montgomery case, saying it was “maybe the zenith of an extraordinarily successful career, or the demise of what could have been,” and that the faces of Betty Gore’s family still haunted him.
On November 10, 1998, Don Crowder died by suicide at his home in Frisco, Texas. He was 56.
Don Crowder Today and His Legacy in Pop Culture
Crowder’s story resurfaced for a new generation in 2022 and 2023, when two separate dramatizations of the Candy Montgomery case came out within months of each other. Hulu’s “Candy” featured Raúl Esparza as Crowder, while HBO Max’s “Love and Death” cast Tom Pelphrey in the role. Esparza told The List he was drawn to the part because of Crowder’s “bravado” and the fact that he was “completely audacious for a first time trial attorney who managed to really pull off some extraordinary accomplishments without the experience behind them.”
There’s also a law firm operating today under the Crowder name, The Crowder Law Firm in Plano, Texas, run by family members who’ve referenced Don Crowder’s history with the Montgomery case on their own site. It’s worth noting this is a separate, currently operating practice and not Don Crowder himself, who died in 1998.
FAQ
Was Don Crowder a real person?
Yes. He was a real Texas attorney who defended Candy Montgomery in her 1980 murder trial, and he’s portrayed in both “Candy” (Hulu) and “Love and Death” (HBO Max).
Did Don Crowder win the Candy Montgomery case?
Yes. A Collin County jury acquitted Montgomery of murder after deliberating for three hours, accepting the defense’s argument that she acted in self defense during a dissociative episode.
How did Don Crowder die?
He died by suicide on November 10, 1998, at age 56, after struggling with depression, alcohol use, and the aftermath of his brother’s death and a DWI arrest.
Did Don Crowder run for political office?
Yes. He ran for Governor of Texas in 1986 as a Democrat and received over 11% of the primary vote against Mark White.
Is there a Don Crowder Wikipedia page?
There isn’t a dedicated, well established Wikipedia page specifically for Don Crowder as of mid-2026. Most detailed biographical information comes from contemporary news coverage, particularly the Dallas Observer’s reporting, rather than Wikipedia.
This article discusses suicide and substance use. If you or someone you know is struggling, the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is available by call or text in the US.
Read More About: Dolphin Radar
