The accused killer-housewife from Hulu's 'Candy' really was acquitted after striking her lover's wife with an ax 41 times. Here's what happened during her trial.

• Hulu's new drama "Candy" is based on the real-life case of Candy Montgomery, a Texas housewife.
• Jessica Biel plays Montgomery, who was accused of killing her friend Betty Gore with an ax.

Set in a sleepy Texas suburb in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Hulu's new drama series "Candy" follows bored housewife Candy Montgomery (Jessica Biel) as she begins an affair with a fellow member of her church congregation, Allan Gore (Pablo Schreiber). Complicating matters is Gore's wife, Betty (Melanie Lynskey), and Montgomery's simmering rage about her uneventful suburban life.

The show, though dramatized, is based on the case of the real-life Montgomery, who was accused of murdering Betty Gore with an ax in 1980. Gore's murder is alluded to in the first few episodes of the five-part Hulu series and later shown in graphic detail.

After bearing witness to such a gory recreation of Gore's death, it may come as a shock to viewers later on when Montgomery, represented by an ambulance-chaser lawyer from church named Don Crowder (Raúl Esparza), is acquitted on murder charges by a jury after a dramatic trial in the last episode of the show, which aired Friday.

The real Montgomery actually was acquitted and has reportedly gone on to lead a"normal" life after the media attention on her died down. Here's what happened at her highly-publicized trial and how a psychiatrist's theory about her repressed childhood trauma may have led to her acquittal.

Texas Monthly reported extensively on Gore's death and Montgomery's trial

A two-part report from Texas Monthly published in 1984 (several years after Montgomery's trial) is titled "Love and Death in Silicon Prairie" and follows Montgomery as she begins her affair with Allan Gore and is later put on trial for Betty Gore's murder.

According to Texas Monthly, Montgomery became a prime suspect in Betty Gore's death "in a matter of weeks," and when Allan Gore revealed that he'd recently ended their affair, police were able to give motive to the killing and subsequently arrested Montgomery on murder charges.

Montgomery's attorney Don Crowder knew her from church, and Texas Monthly reported that he hired a psychiatrist skilled in hypnotism to try and reach Montgomery's repressed memories from the day Gore was killed.

In recent years, forensic hypnotism has come under fire for relying on potentially faulty science (it can cause select patients to recover as many "false" memories as true ones, some experts say), but it was still in widespread use during the early '80s. With Montgomery's case going to trial in late 1980, it's not surprising that Crowder decided to use a hypnotist to argue her case.

According to Texas Monthly's report, Montgomery was able to recall the details of Gore's death through hypnotism

Montgomery later provided a detailed recollection of Gore's death while being questioned in court, the Texas magazine reported. The housewife said that after she'd gone over to the Gore house one June morning, Betty Gore had flat-out asked her if Montgomery was having an affair with her husband.

After Montgomery admitted to it, she said she and Gore got into a struggle over an ax, with Gore wounding her. During the struggle, when Gore told Montgomery to "Shh," the accused housewife flew into a blind rage, and only came to after Gore was dead, Texas Monthly reported.

Through the work of psychiatrist Fred Fason, who used hypnotism on Montgomery, it came to light that during a difficult moment in her early childhood years, Montgomery's mother told her to "Shh." And when Gore told Montgomery the same thing decades later, Fason and Crowder argued, it triggered Montgomery's rage and reportedly caused her to kill Gore in self-defense.

According to Texas Monthly, at least one of the jurors felt sympathetic towards Montgomery — and several days later, the housewife ended up being acquitted of murdering Gore.