MCKINNEY, TEXAS -- In testimony last week, Mrs. Montogomery said she hit Betty Gore with a 3-foot ax only after Mrs. Gore, jealous over Mrs. Montgomery's affair with her husband Allan Gore, struck her with the weapon twice.
Monday, Houston psychiatrist Fred Fason, who examined Mrs. Montgomery on behalf of the defense, said she released almost a lifetime of surpressed anger when she struck Mrs. Gore more than 40 times.
Thomas Thorton, a court-appointed pyschiatrist, conducted a 90-minute test of Mrs. Montgomery Saturday at the request of district Judge Tom Ryan and found her competent to continue in the trial.
Fason said the defendant revealed she had been brought up 'to be concerned about what other people think of her,' and as a result displayed few outbursts of agression.
Under hypnosis, Mrs. Montgomery related that at the age of 4, she became angry when she lost a foot race with a boy. She grabbed a jar and threw it at a water pump and a piece of shattered glass struck her in the head, Fason said.
'At a hospital where she lay screaming on an examination table, her mother said, 'Ssshhh, what will they think of you in the waiting room,'' Fason said.
For 26 years, Mrs. Montgomery kept her rage inside her, fearful of what others would think of her, the pyschiatrist said.
That aversion to violence was shattered on June 13 when, according to her testimony, she pleaded with Mrs. Gore who was wielding the ax at her.
Fason said that Mrs. Gore answered her pleas: 'SSShhh.'
'The blind rage began when Betty said, 'Ssshhh,'' Fason said. 'She (Montgomery) was not aware she was hitting Betty Gore with an ax (after taking the weapon from Mrs. Gore),' he said. 'In her mind she was a mile away.'
Jurors were removed from the courtroom during the testimony of a Dallas polygraph examiner who said he believes Mrs. Montgomery was telling the truth when she told him that she struck Mrs. Gore 'to protect herself.'
Don McElroy tested Mrs. Montgomery under the direction of her attorney before she was arrested two weeks after Mrs. Gore was found dead in her Wylie home by neighbors.
Judge Ryan said he will consider Tuesday a motion from defense attorney Don Crowder to allow McElroy to testify before the jury.
State law prohibits the admission of polygraph results as evidence without the consent of both the defense and the prosecution. The prosecution has said it will oppose the move.
Defense lawyers also presented witnesses who testified that Mrs. Gore was a moody, often rude person.
Catherine Cook, with whom Mrs. Gore taught, called her 'an extremely tactless person.' She said Mrs. Gore once berated a mother so harshly about her child that the parent left a conference in tears.
Under cross-examination by the prosecution, a member of Mrs. Gore's church said she never saw Mrs. Gore in any type of fight or altercation, and that she 'was not assertive or aggressive in any manner.'
Testimony in the trial continues Tuesday.
