12. Tom O’Connell
Tom O’Connell was the district attorney prosecuting Candy Montgomery.
As the Collin County District Attorney in 1980, Tom O’Connell had the massive task of prosecuting Candy Montgomery. In the courtroom, his strategy was direct and methodical: he argued that the killing was an act of deliberate violence, not self-defense. He hammered home the point that once Candy had the upper hand, she had every opportunity to simply walk away, but she chose not to.
O’Connell aggressively challenged the defense’s use of hypnosis, questioning if that kind of psychological testimony even belonged in a courtroom. To prove she wasn’t just acting out of a traumatized panic, he pointed straight to her incredibly calm, controlled behavior immediately after the killing.
When the jury handed down the shocking not-guilty verdict, O’Connell remained stoic while the angry crowds outside screamed “Murderer!” Though some criticized him for failing to sway the jury, he was largely respected for his tenacity.
He didn’t let the high-profile loss derail him. O’Connell served as the Collin County DA for over twenty years before moving to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Las Vegas, where he oversaw major narcotics and violent crime cases. Even later in private practice, he looked back at the Montgomery trial as the ultimate test of his career, a defining case that forced prosecutors to reckon with how juries interpret fear, trauma, and psychological evidence.
