The Legacy of a Contested Hero

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Early in the morning, on august twelfth, nineteen sixty seven The shheriff of McNary Count, Tennessee Buford Pusser S he got a strange phone call. related to something that was happening around the Tennessee Mississippi line He said the caller told him that he'd quote Find something interesting out on New Hope Road And his wife, Pauline was very concerned and decided that she was going ride along with Bauford to this call Writer Jason Garacio So they get in the car And drive while it's still dark out down this windy, gravey road And About halfway there, a car out of nowhere comes out and begins shooting at them. Buford Pusser later said, It sounded like a bunch of machine guns had opened up. His wife, Pauline was shock Buford Pussers said he quickly sped away with his wife laying in his lap Pfer dries for a little farther, pulls it aside, checks his wife, see what kind of injury she has And then the car reappears and completely just shoots up the entire car Pauline was shot again and Buford was also hit Bauford later told investigators that he was looking at Pauline when she was shot in the forehead He was shot in the chin Buford radioed for help. and drove for several miles down the road police from a nearby town soon arrived. Caalling Pusser died at the scene She was thirty six Buford Pusser, who is twenty nine was seriously injured when police showed up They saw him completely bloodied barely able to talk ust trying to kind of hold his jaw together and then he was rushed to the hospital Buford Pusser had surgery in Memphis During his stay in the hospital, he was put in a secret room. to sheriff's deputies and two police officers assigned to protect him The Governor of Tennessee offered a five thousand dollars reward for information leading to an arrest While he was still in the hospital recovering Pauline Pusser's funeral was held in Adamsville where the couple lived. A newspaper reported that the church was full More than two hundred people came They wrote, quote Every wall was banked with flowers Less than a month after the attack Sheriff Buford Pusser was back at work When reporters interviewed him about the ambush that had killed his wife, he told them I'm pretty sure about who did it And I'm pretty sure about where he is. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is criminal Euford Pusser was elected sheriff of McNary County in nineteen sixty four He ran against the incumbent sheriff, who died in a car accident just a week before the election Bauford won by a few hundred votes He was the youngest sheriff to be elected in Tennessee history He was twenty six The way it was told to me by many was that If you were friends with him He was a best friend If you weren't, he was your greatest enemy. Beauford Pusser grew up in Adamsville, in McNary County, a rural area about a hundred miles east of Memphis. His father was the local police chief Buford was tall and athletic He played football and basketball in school When he graduated from high school, he enlisted in the Marines quickly was discharged due to asthma Eventually, Buford left Tennessee and went to Chicago where he attended mortuary school to the factory and started a professional wrestling career y was known as Bu for the Bull I mean, this is a guy that, you know, once he grew up with six foot six two hundred fifty plus pounds a very imposing figure. So he was perfect for the wrestling ring And that's where he met Pauline. Pauleen Mullins was a divorced mother of three She was six years older than Beauford They got married in Chicago in December of nineteen fifty nine and moveved back to Adamsville a few years later Husser was elected police chief of Adamsville after his father stepped down And then, Bauford was elected shheriff of McNary County McNary County, Tennessee Back then even now is Beautiful region, but a very poor region of the country And if you weren't working at a factory or farming Even if you were doing that, you more than likely had a moonshine still in your backyard and For most in that time, you just looked away. There was something just to pass the time or make some extra money. Once Buford became sheriff He really That was his goal was to break up all these illegal moonshine stills Tennessee enacted the nation's first prorohibition law in eighteen thirty eight making it a misdemeanor to sell alcohol in bars and stores evenven after the national ban on alcohol ended in nineteen thirty three Tennessee stayed completely dry for several more years The state eventually allowed individual counties and cities to vote on whether they wanted to allow sales of alcohol By the mid nineteen sixties, more than half of the population of Tennessee. still lived in dry areas including McNary County You know that Buford, u goingo back to his wrestling days knew how to self promote I think he wanted more than what his father had, what his friends had. He had ambitions to Be someone that if you saw them out on the street, You would go w, Hey, that's be for Pusser So I think he wanted to persona that it was as big as him physically So what better way to get famous but to break up the the most notorious things that were going on in his backyard. Beauford Pusser quickly gained a reputation for going after bootleggers, moonshine stills, and illegal alcohol sales In a raid in December of nineteen sixty four, he seized almost three thousand bottles of Kentucky whiskey. with the help of state agents. He told reporters that it was the largest amount of whiskey ever seized in the county He also raided bars and motels near the Mississippi, Tennessee State line known for gambling and illegal alcohol sales including one. the Shamrock Motel and restaurant It was a rough place Everybody will tell you., you know, there were definitely fights there. There was a lot of heavy drinking The Shamrock Motel and restaurant was owned by Louise Hathcock who had shot and killed her ex husband She claims self defense She was known to be part of a loosely organized crime syndicate, known as the stateline M. Depending on what stories you believe, it could trace all the way back to the mafia East But their main thing was doing moonshine and prostitution. Stateline mob definitely were Buford's main enemies In nineteen sixty six Tourists staying at the Shamrock Motel filed a police report after they said a purse containing one hundred and twenty five dollars had gone missing Sheriff Pusser showed up at the establishment because the couple had made a complaint And he had already had interactions in the past with Louise And he went there He had a conversation with Louise in a back room, just the two of them And according to Buford Louise pulled out a gun Shot at him, missed You for Pivoted turned and shot her and killed her Beaufortord said that Louise's bullet had quote whizzed by my ear He su saidd he dropped to the floor. and fired three shots hitting her in the chest, face and neck Did he face any charges He was found not guilty by a grand jury They came to an agreement that it was in self defense The year after Buford Pusser shot and killed Louise Hfcock Buford's wife, Pauline, was murdered We'll be right back. 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Zockdoc d. com slash criminal Thanks toZkDoc for sponsoring this message Sheriff Bford Pusser said he believed that the early morning attack that killed his wife was quote linked to his crackdown on criminal activity at the Tennessee Mississippi border He told reporters that he was sure the shooters were after him, not his wife. His assumption was that it was someone involved with the state line mob He never really gave any specific names Um It was more ad just They they finally got me The local district attorney, who is leading the investigation Sadi believed that hired assassins were behind the shooting The Chief of the Tennessee Bureau of Criminal Identification told reporters We're not overlooking anything A ballistics expert who examined the car that Bauford and Pauline had been riding in It said that the bullets that killed Pauline and wounded Beauford were from a thirty caliber rifle The investigation went on for years Buford even took part in some points of the investigation, strangely enough There were a few specific people in the state line mob One individual named Tohead White who was in jail at the time of the ambush that they went and questioned, they questioned his girlfriend. And there are transcripts now that show the girlfriend calling up Tehead going, why are the police trying to interview me about this ambush So there were specific people that that Buford Wanted, investigated Th those things all led to dead ends They investigated for about ten years, even going as far as reaching out to J Edgar Hoover in the offices of the FBI to run ballistic tests on bullets that they had found. But Eventually, it became a cold case No one was ever charged No murder weapon was ever found In September of nineteen sixty seven A month after Pauline's death The New York Daily News featured Buford Pusser in a two page spread They wrote that during his time as sheriff, he was responsible for destroying more than thirty stills seizing more than fifteen thousand gallons of whiskey and bringing three dozen moonhiners and bootleggers to justice The article also talked about the many times that criminals had tried to kill him They wrote that he had been shed. stabbed and dragged down the road by a car. One deputy, said Buford Pusser was jumped by six men while he was unarmed adding The sheriff took three of them to the hospital and three of them to jail The article said Buford was becoming a legend in West Tennessee A Tennessee singer namedddie Bond recorded a song about Buford Eddie Bond went on to write a whole album of songs about him, including one called The Buford Pusser goes bear hunting with a switch That same year, Buford Pusser shot and killed a man after he was called to a disturbance at his home on Christmas day He set the man, shot at him first One headline after the shooting read Sheriff Buford Pusser adds to leegend CBS News correspondent, Roger Mudd came to McNary County to interview Buford And then, in nineteen seventy one, a writer named W. R. Morse published a biography of him called The twelfth of August And then eventually that led to Hollywood getting hold of the story Of all people, it's Bing Crosby and his production company who catches a wind of the Pusser story and decides to bring it to the big screen and is this is a film that, you know, a little small drama not made for a lot of money and at its peak When it came out in theaters, it was making more money in theaters, especially in the South than the Godfather was, which at the time, was still a sensation and had just won the Oscar for Best picture. The movie was called Walking Tall Bufort Pusser was played by actor Joe Don Baker I was elected sh up on one issue that I'd must ever join the whole county. We're going to start tomorrow First off, I don't want any car, truck driver that even looks like a mooon chanter to move on our roads. Ads for the movie said it was, quote, the powerful and true story of Sheriff Buford Pusser, who couldn't be bought and couldn't be killed Bauford said the movie was about eighty percent true In the movie, Buford Pusser carries a big stick, which he uses to break up moonshine stills and beat people During press appearances, he would autograph sticks for fans One newspaper said the film was one of the most violent yet most moving films of the season One more vview of the movie said, Walking Tall deserves credit for creating mostly believable characters who are bigger than life, comomic book Dig The movie cost five hundred thousand dollars to produce and made more than forty million dollars worldwide. You know, generations since People Join law enforcement because of what they saw on screen By the time the movie came out in nineteen seventy three Beauford was no longer the sheriff of McNary County He lost when he tried to run for a fourth term in nineteen seventy two In August of nineteen seventy four, It was announced that Bauford would play himself in a sequel to the Walking Tall movie. He told a reporter at a press conference in Memphis. The idea scares me some He drove back home and was at a fair and got in his car his Corvette that he had just bought. And he sped down the highway And he got into a fiery wreck and died Some people speculated that Buford's enemies had tampered with his car Police investigating said they could find no evidence of foul play One newspaper wrote, Seven times while he was sheriff, attempts were made on his life He died of his love for speed After his death in nineteen seventy four What did you hear from people in McNary County about his death I would say a certain amount of relief. Cami Wilson is a former investigative reporter who grew up in Mississippi across the state line from McNary County. Everybody knew about Pusser. He was brutal He would attack people And he was known as a violent person What was shocking was how much he was glorified in the movie In nineteen seventy three, the year before Bauford Pusser died, Cammy Wilson was working at a newspaper in Dayton, Ohio Walking tall was playing in the local theaters At that time, that was in the county in Ohio where I was working, that was the most watched movie that they had ever had So one day my editor came back from lunch and came over to my desk and said Are you from county near McNary County, Tennessee. And I said, Yes, I'm from Halcorn County, which is just over the line. And he said, Well, I just watched Walking Tall. What do you think of that movie? And I said, Well I think it's a fraud And he said, Well, I thought it was too. So I've got to send you down there And I want you to do a story for us. Cammy Wilson went down to McNary County to talk with people about what they knew She talked with the mayor of Selmer, the county's seat previously said that the plot of walking tall has little, if any, resemblance to the truth She also talked with the sheriff of McNary County at that time, Clifford Coleman, who Bauford lost to in nineteen seventy two Sheriff Coleman ran on the slogan if your son had to be arrested Would you want it to be done by me or by Pusser And he won the election So anyway, he was shheriff at the time And he had told me that Pusser would pull off the road. at a fast food restestaurant and wait to see if I drove by. And at that time, it was well known that civil rights workers, anybody that you disliked had a certain danger of getting run off the road if somebody didn't like your stories or your activities. So I was trying to avoid that, so I always went a different route So you thought that Pusser himself might hurate you potentially, You know, at the time, people would go down there and they would interview him and they would just swallow whatever he said So He knew that I was looking for the the real story Cammy Wilson said she talked with local club owners, one of whom told her they had regularly paid Buford Pusser bribes People also told her that Louise Halfcock had also paid bribes to the county before being shot and killed In the movie version of his story, Buford Pusser gets robbed and beaten up at a stateline club before becoming sheriff, and then goes back to the club and gets revenge, beating people up with his stick and getting his money back. He's put on trial and tells the courtroom he stood up for himself to show quote There's still little law and order left He's found not guilty by the jury Cammi Wilson learned that in reality, something different had happened In nineteen sixty while he was still living in Chicago, Buford had gone to a stateline club seeking revenge for an earlier incident He beat up a man named W. O. Hfcock, a relative of Louise Hathfcock, who was so badly injured that he was in the hospital for two weeks Buford was charged with armed robbery When he was put on trial, he said he wasn't there that night Pauline testified that he was in Illinois at the time and Buford produced a punch time card from his factory job in Chicago He was found not guilty He later said He died He readily admitted that he and his friends had gone to the club and they had beaten up um, Hathcock and they had, uh, taken the money that he had lost. He quibbled about the amount of the money He said that He didn't take as much as they said he took Cammy Wilson also talked with one of Buford Pusser's former deputies about the many times Buford had reported being attacked or hurt on the job He said that he was just beaten up in a lot of drunkled brawls and that he was often carved up in some of those drunken brawls, that it didn't have anything to do with his activities as sheriff So he was drinking himself Oh, very much so. And in fact, I interviewed his stepdaughter who talked about he would bring home cases of liquor and put them under the bed and You know, if he was supposed to be sheriff, why was he keeping so much of the illegal liquor for himself Buford Pusser's stepdaughter, Diane, also talked with Cami Wilson about her mother's death His stepdaughter told me that she thought he had killed her mother. And she even supplied what she thought was a motive that she was planning to leave Pusser. The stepdaughter told me. Diane told Cammy Wilson that Beuford Pusser was, quote, a man to be afraid of. Gammi says Diane was not the only person who told her they thought Bauford had killed his wife A lot of people did. Now that doesn't mean that everybody did, but That was the common Kledge When she got back to Ohio, Cammy Wilson called up Buford Pusser for an interview I asked him about all the rumors that he had shot his wife and I asked him if he had been having affairs and he, of course denied it And I asked him about taking bribes and I told him that I had an affidavit from a club owner and I asked him about his killing of Louise Hithcock How did he react when you asked him those questions with anger, but He was not surprised. you know, it wasn't like it was Pul out of the blue. He knew that I had been asking people questions and that I had been gathering affidavits that interviewing a number of people. You den he denied everything. Yes The headline of Cami's article was The sheriff walked tall and violently A year after Cammi Wilson published her first article, she published another one, shortly after Buford Puss's death One thing is sure, she wrote Most citizens of McNarary are not grieving She also quoted a former sheriff from across the state line in Mississippi who told her before Beuford Pusser's death As far as I'm concerned Pusser is just a thug. Do you think that maybe something might change in the investigation into Pauline's death after you wrote Those articles I would have hoped so, but it was a matter of money I mean, once the movie came out, people would come to the county to see what had been going on there. And then when he was killed Then people began to really make money from the fact that people would come, they would stay in the local motels. People started giving them tours They even created a Beauford Pusser Museum. So people loved the story It was a complete fabrication. 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That's wayfaR d. comot Wayfair everyvery style every home On Thursday, february eighth, twenty twenty four, fifty years, after Buford Pusser's death A team from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation went to the cemetery at Adamsville, Tennessee They were there to exhume the body of Pauline Pusser I knew that there was going to be something there was going to tell the true story. It was going to give Pauline a voice from the grave ine Baldwin is a former shheriff's deputy from Wake County, North Carolina. He's also a distant relative. Pauline Paser. I never met Pauline. Of course, I was only twelve years old when she was murdered But My uncle Johnny, who was our family historian, I want to say in about the time the movies came out, maybe seventy three He was telling me at a family reunion that we had a distant cousin who is murdered why she was wriding with her husband. Oakley Dean Baldwin started looking into Pauline's story in twenty fourteen He'd retired and was interested in learning more about his family tree At the start, I had no clue other than what I had heard from The law enforcement circles, what Beufer Pusser had told the TBI, that's the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. So at the start, I was, u You know, I believe that, you know, they were ambushed Dan Baldwin read the nineteen sixties case files. which detailed what Bauford had said happened on the night of Pauline's murder And he started gathering other pieces of evidence Photographs of the crime scene, witness statements from people Things were not matching up At the same time, another person states away in Arkansas was also looking into the case A former deputy sheriff named Mike Elum Mike was someone who Love Beauf for Pusser. Lo the movie loveove the book Writer Jason Garacio interviewed Mike Elam who told him that as he started looking into Beauford Pusser's story more, he got interested in the death of club owner Louise Hathcock Beaford shot and killed in nineteen sixty six. But then He started doing some digging and he found Louise Hathcock's autopsy. And inside that autopsy, it showed that Her wounds were not to the front of her to the back Two shots in the back When shot in the back of the head That is very different than what Bufort said happened in that room when supposedly she pulled a gun on him Mike Elam also found that Louise Hathcock's autopsy report was never shown to the grand jury that chose not to indict Beauford Pusser for her murder When Pauline was murdered the year after Louise Hathcock's death There is no autopsy performed at all You have this high profile sheriff with a thirty six year old wife who's murdered from an ambush that he's saying was from the mob And it didn't make any sense that they didn't do an autopsy on her There were other things about Pauline's murder It didn't make sense to Mike Elam Oakley Dean Balwin either. What they both found out independently that was a major red flag to both of these people who had careers in law enforcement was that There was too much blood on the outside of the car That showed me There was somebody violently injured from on the outside of the car And Beufer Puser's statement was that Pauline and hisself were they were both shot inside the car only Either someone was hit with a club or shot in front of that car on the outside Then there was also Buford's statement about how fast they were going on New Hope Road, how far away the other car was how far away He went The second time you pulled over to check on Pauline. All these things when Mike Gelum actually went and drove the whole route. He did exactly What Buford said he did that night None of it added up, none of it made sense Mike Elam and Oakley Dean Baldin both published books about their findings And then in twenty twenty two The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation decided to reopen the investigation into Pauline's murder and The first thing they have to do because it wasn't done ty so years before was give Pauline an autopsy Good morning Thank you all for being here I'm Mark Davidson. I'm the district attorney General for the twenty fifth Judicial District In august twenty twenty five, a press conference was held about Pauline's murder Justice for Pauline has been a long time coming. And thanks to all the hard work put in by so many, we're finally able to announce Pauline's surviving family and to the public that we believe we are as close as possible to justice. District attorney Mark Davidson said the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation believed there were inconsistencies in what Buford Pusser had told law enforcement about Pauline's death including physical, medical, forensic, ballistic, and reenactment evidence that contradicts his version of events One of those pieces of evidence was Pauling Pusser's autopsy, conducted in twenty twenty four That autopsy reveals that her gunshot wound is in the back of her head which completely just throws away Viewf its statement that He's looking right at her when she's shot in the forehead. The autopsy also reveals that Pauline had bruising in her nasal passage which was thought to be that she had suffered domestic violence before her death The TPI's investigative report about Pauline's murder which is more than a thousand pages long also included statements from Beauford Posser's chief deputy that he had made almost a decade after Pauline died. He knew that Buford Pusser had beaten Pauline up just days before. She was murdered And another lady She worked with Pauline and she saw Pauline with black eyes and bruises on her arms where she had been beaten up His former deputy also said that shortly before her death Pauline had gone to the local district attorney for help with getting a divorce Investigators from the TBI spoke with two witnesses who said they heard Pauline and Bauford arguing the night before Pauline's death. about his involvement with a woman named Pearl Wade Pauline allegedly shouted that she would ruin Bauford turn them in for taking bribes from businesses Later that night, Bauford was also seen trying to talk with a woman named Anne Henderson. who later confirmed that she'd also been having an affair with him He was in a rage trying to get in the door and Beuford was yelling, let me in I'm gonna die tonight. You'll be putting flowers on my grave So She runs out of the house and they get into a big scuffle and He grabs her by the arm, but she manages to get away and goes back in the house and he leaves and he's spinning his tires and twowo hours later O maybe an hour later, we're not exactly sure, but that window of opportunity Pauline's murdered ical examiner also looked at photos of Buford Pusser's facial wounds. and concluded that he was shot at close range rather than from a distance, as he had claimed They concluded that his wound was likely self inflicted At press conference, district attorney Mark Davidson said that they now believed that Pauline had most likely been shot outside of the car and then placed inside the car They believed the crime scene had been staged He said quote, There is probable cause to believe that Pauling's death was not an accident An act of intimate, deliberate violence Beuford Puffser was alive today. they felt they had enough probable cause to charge him or indict him with the murder of Pauline When this all came out in Adamsville, you went there, you talked to people in town What was the reaction? Was this a big deal in town? So when you go to Adamsille, Tennessee, which is in McNary County, which is where Bauford lived and where he patrolled The legend of Buford Pusser is everywhere When you drive up to the town line, there's a Giant sign That says Welcome to Adamsville homeome of youiew for Pusser with a silhouette of the man holding his trusty stick that he supposedly fought crime with There's a giant water tower with that silhouette figure on it His home has turned into a museum everythingvery in Adamsville is about Bfer Pusser. And so there were certainly people in town who Once The DA had their press conference had a very knee jerk reaction takeake Pusser off the signigns that welcome you into the town, takeake them off the water tower You know, what are we going to do with the museum now? There are certainly people that love the man there. After the report came out, people in Adamsville had a town hall meeting to talk about what to do next Beauford Pusser's grandaughter, Madison Bush, said, This isn't over yet One man, who said he became a law enforcement officer because of Buford Pusser so that closing the Bauford Puser Museum would be Letting this new day and age of the internet win. A man named Steve Sweetz spoke And I think it's terribly sad that they did this to a man who couldn't defend himself. not here One person said, I believe in America. People are innocent until proven guilty. The Beauford Pusser Museum remains open. The top of their website reads What's right is right and what's wrong is wrong It doesn't matter who you are. to a quote attributed to Beaford Pusser. The town decided that they weren't going to change anything and they were still going to celebrate, Be for Pusser So the legend lives on the legend absolutely still lives on. The annual Beauford Pusser Festival was held last month in Adamsville The legend of Wider Paper no doubt Matt Dylan C Best down it's aire There's a legend now for the world to sing