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Jed Lipinski
Earlier this year, a listener sent us a link to an article in the Tennessean newspaper. The article was about the decision to exhume the body of a woman named Pauline Pusser.
Jenna Fisher
New information tonight. Nearly 60 years after a sheriff's wife was shot and killed, the TBI exhumed her body and a deeper investigation into her death begins.
Jed Lipinski
Begins Pauline was the wife of Buford Pusser, the legendary Tennessee sheriff whose life story became the basis for a best selling book and a handful of Hollywood movies, most notably walking tall. In August 1967, Pauline was fatally shot in an ambush that left Buford seriously injured. She was 33 years old and a mother of three. Authorities never figured out who was behind the ambush. Her death has remained unsolved for over 56 years. But according to the article, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, or tbi, had recently gotten a tip that caused them to reopen the case. To their surprise, they discovered that an autopsy had never been performed on Pauline. By exhuming her body, the TBI said in a statement, they intended to answer, quote, critical questions and provide crucial information that could help them identify who was behind Pauline's death. I was familiar with the story of Buford Pusser and the ambush that killed his wife. We'd mentioned it in season two about the Dixie Mafia. Buford had publicly blamed Kirksey Nix, the Dixie Mafia's supposed leader, for orchestrating the attack. When I asked Kirksey about it, he'd vehemently denied being involved. In fact, he said officials had brought Buford to an Oklahoma prison to try and identify him. But Buford couldn't do it.
Steve Sweat
I have the Oklahoma Bureau of Investigation reports where they brought him out to Oklahoma and he couldn't pick me out. They arranged for him to hear my voice and he couldn't pick me out.
Jed Lipinski
As Kirksey put it. Buford was a criminal himself, he said the sheriff had taken bribes from a gangster associate of his in Mississippi.
Steve Sweat
Carl gave him $12,000 when he ran for office. He gave him $3,000 for every month he was in office. He was on the take. He was a dirty cop and he was a killer cop. Let him sue me for that.
Jed Lipinski
Kirksey was never charged with Pauline's murder and neither was anyone else. It was a 56 year old mystery, one of the most famous cold cases in Tennessee history. And it looked like the TBI was on the verge of a breakthrough. But they weren't talking and the article left a lot of questions unanswered. Like why had an autopsy never been performed on Pauline Pusser? And why had the TBI only just discovered this fact? Also, what was the tip that caused them to reopen the case? And who was the tipster? As I looked deeper into the story though, I realized that this wasn't really an investigation into the death of Pauline Pusser. It was an investigation into the life of Buford Pusser. Buford was a hero to a generation of Americans, a larger than life figure who inspired people to stand up to injustice. But now the TBI was raising questions that would threaten that legacy. I'm Jed Lipinski. This is Gone South. The story of Buford Pusser reads a bit like a fable from the American South. To tell it, we're going to start with Dwayne Johnson, otherwise known as the Rock, the star of the Fast and Furious franchise. The voice of Maui in Moana, one of the highest paid actors in Hollywood. But in the early 2000s, the Rock's film career was still uncertain. He was already a global wrestling sensation, but Hollywood had a longstanding stigma against pro wrestlers who tried to cross over. Hulk Hogan tried to do it in the 80s and 90s, but most of his films flopped. His 1996 film Santa with Muscles has been called one of the worst movies ever made. The Rock's film career began with fantasy roles in the Mummy Returns and the Scorpion King. But it was his leading role in the 2004 film Walking Tall that solidified his status as an action star. I was justified in what I did, and if you acquit me of these charges, then I'm going to run for sheriff, Mr. Vaughn. And if elected, I'm gonna fix this town order. In the film, the Rock plays a retired Special Forces agent who returns to his hometown to find it awash in corruption. He decides to run for sheriff and launches a one man crusade to clean up the town. The movie poster shows him striding down a Country Road armed only with a 2x4. Younger viewers may not have realized Walking Tall was a remake of the 1973 hit movie of the same name. Both were based on the real life story of Buford Pusser. If you're under 40 and live outside Tennessee, you've probably never heard of Buford. But in the 60s and 70s, he was a big deal. Pusser was an almost mythical figure in the South. He died in a fiery car crash in 1974 at 36. But in just over a decade in law enforcement, he managed to inspire a legend akin to that of Wild west lawmen like Wyatt Earp and Wild Bill Hickok. The folklore surrounding Buford Pusser can make it hard to separate fact from fiction. So here are some facts. Pusser was born on a sharecropper's farm in Adamsville, Tennessee. He was 66 and 250 by high school and got a scholarship to play college football. He enlisted in the Marines instead, but was given a medical discharge for asthma. From there he bounced around. He got a job as a die cutter for a paper bag company in Chicago. He went to mortuary school at night for extra money. He wrestled professionally on weekends under the name Buford the Bull. It was after a match that he met his future wife, Pauline Mullins. Pauline was a petite blonde from Virginia, divorced with two young kids. They married soon after and moved back to Buford's hometown of Adamsville. It was here that Buford found his calling in law enforcement. Buford became Adamsville's chief of police at age 25. Two years later, he ran for sheriff of McNary county, promising to clean up the violence and corruption that plagued the state line between Tennessee and Mississippi. For decades, the sale of hard liquor was prohibited in McNary County. The area became a hub for bootlegging and moonshining. Illegal gambling and prostitution flourished. Criminal groups like the State Line Mob and the Dixie Mafia terrorized residents and tourists alike. Buford, the imposing former wrestler, seemed like the man for the job. He became the youngest sheriff in the history of Tennessee. He immediately developed a reputation as a fearless crusader.
Steve Sweat
I tell people there's nobody on the face of earth that has studied this story and been as involved in it as I have, you know, for 60 years. And everybody in Magnet county knows that.
Jed Lipinski
This is Steve Sweat. He owns a body shop in McNary county called Steve Sweat Body Shop. He's also considered the unofficial Buford Pusser historian.
Steve Sweat
Then, you know, people got to call me the Pusser Historian. And of course, that's how I've been described in the newspapers for probably 20 years.
Jed Lipinski
Steve first heard about Buford Pusser as a young boy. He watched a lot of westerns and police procedurals on tv like Gunsmoke and Highway Patrol. Pusser reminded him of the men in those shows. Steve studied Buford. He read the articles about him in the newspaper. Stories of Pusser arresting bootleggers dynamiting moonshine stills, punching out drunks at the roadhouse down the street. Once, in 1966, Buford killed the owner of a seedy State Line motel after she fired at him with a concealed.38. Another time, a speeding motorist he'd pulled over shot him in the face before fleeing the scene. Buford got stitched up and went back to work. Steve could hardly believe it. Buford was like a real life Matt Dillon, the star of Gunsmoke. In the show, Dillon is the marshal of Dodge City, Kansas, tasked with bringing law and order to the lawless frontier town.
Steve Sweat
You know, Buford, he was just like Matt Dillon. When he got on the scene, there wasn't no arguing back and forth and this and that. In a matter of seconds, you know, the situation was under control.
Jed Lipinski
But what happened next would raise Buford Pusser from a local legend to a national folk hero.
Mike Elam
I can't even begin to tell you.
Steve Sweat
How bad it was. It was Lord of the Flies in a building and it was called Straight Incorporated.
Cindy Ettler
This is the story of Straight Incorporated, an experimental drug rehab for teenagers that infiltrated communities across the country in the 1980s during the height of the war on drugs, where kidnapping, brainwashing and torture were disguised as therapy. It's the origin story of the troubled teen industry, which continues to profit from the desperation of parents and the vulnerability of their children. And its roots can be traced back to a cult called Synanon. How do I know this? Because I lived through it. My name is Cindy Ettler and this is season two of the Sunshine Place. Listen to and follow the Sunshine Place an Odyssey original podcast in association with Robert Downey Jr. And Susan Downey. Available now on the free Odyssey app and wherever you get your podcasts.
Jenna Fisher
I'm Jenna Fisher. And I'm Angela Kinsey. We are best friends and together we have the podcast Office Ladies, where we rewatched every single episode of the Office with insane behind the scenes stories, hilarious guests and lots of laughs. Guess who's sitting next to me? Steve and I grow in the studio every Wednesday. We'll be sharing even more exclusive stories from the Office and our friendship with brand new guests. And we'll be digging into our mailbag to answer your questions and comments. So join us for brand new Office Ladies 6.0 episodes every Wednesday. Plus on Mondays we are taking a second drink. You can revisit all the Office Ladies rewatch episodes every Monday with new bonus tidbits before every episode. Well, we can't wait to see you there. Follow and listen to Office Ladies on the free Odyssey app and wherever you get your podcasts.
Jed Lipinski
Early in the morning of August 12, 1967, a call came into Buford Pusser's home. The caller said a few drunks were threatening to kill each other at Hollis Jordan's Beer Hall, a rowdy spot near the state line.
Steve Sweat
The story goes that someone had called the jail and of course Buford's dad was the jailer Carl and dispatcher. And he felt like this call, you know, get want somebody to come to State Line was a bogus call. He never did even bother Buford with it. But then at some point they called because Buford's home in the early morning hours and told him there was trouble there on the state line, that he needed to come down there.
Jed Lipinski
According to Buford's biographer, W.R. morris, Buford and Pauline were scheduled to attend a family gathering in Virginia later that day. So Pauline decided to join him.
Steve Sweat
And supposedly she told him, she said, I'm going to go with you so you'll get back. And that's what put her in the car with him that morning.
Jed Lipinski
So, responding to an anonymous complaint, Buford and Pauline jumped into his Plymouth Fury and raced down New Hope Road to Hollis Jordan's Beer Hall. En route, they passed the New Hope Methodist Church. Moments later, a sleek black Cadillac pulled up beside them. It sprayed Buford's Plymouth with a.30 caliber carbine.
Steve Sweat
Their lights were off. It was just breaking day and he didn't realize they were on him before the shots came through the car.
Jed Lipinski
The shots shattered the driver's side window, missing Buford but striking Pauline in the head. As Buford later told his biographer, he had an automatic shotgun beneath the seat and a.41 Magnum pistol on his hip, but he didn't have time to grab them. Pauline slumped onto the floorboard. Pusser gunned it. He drove another two miles until he thought he'd lost the attackers and pulled over to check on Pauline.
Steve Sweat
He gunned that Plymouth that he was in and drove approximately two miles. And it was two miles just right on the money and pulled over to see about Pauline.
Jed Lipinski
Buford later said he laid Pauline's head on his lap and saw a Gaping wound. He prayed, oh God, please don't let her die. As he did so, the black Cadillac reappeared. A gunman opened fire again, this time at point blank range. Buford took two shots to the lower jaw. His chin held in place only by a flap of skin. He slumped forward as another bullet ripped through the driver side door. It shattered Pauline's skull, killing her instantly. Buford managed to drive another seven miles to the hospital.
Steve Sweat
He drove seven miles further with his chin gone and gum lower gum and teeth gone.
Jed Lipinski
At the hospital, Pauline was pronounced dead. Buford was taken to Memphis to get his jaw reconstructed. Sheriff's deputies stood guard outside his room around the clock, fearing the assassins might return to finish the job. Steve Sweat was 12 years old at the time of the ambush. He remembers the moment he heard about it.
Steve Sweat
We didn't have social media and cell phones, but you can't imagine how fast word spread of things like that in this area back then.
Jed Lipinski
Based on Buford's statement to the cops, they concluded the ambush was motivated by his quest to combat corruption on the state line. A full scale search for the murderers ensued. The governor of Tennessee offered a $5,000 reward for info leading to an arrest and conviction. But months passed and the money was never collected. The black Cadillac and the assassins had vanished without a trace. Still, Buford, now recovered, said he had a good idea of who they were. He named several men with ties to the state line mob and the Dixie Mafia. Kirksey Nix was one of them. Over the next few years, four of those men died under suspicious circumstances. One, a notorious gangster named Carl Towhead White, was ambushed and killed in his car outside a motel in Corinth, Mississippi.
Steve Sweat
And a lot of people speculate about that being an arranged hit, you know, to get rid of him.
Jed Lipinski
Another was reportedly found floating in the Boston harbor, his body riddled with bullets. Two more were shot to death in Texas. Kirksey Nick supposedly survived only because he was locked up at the time. No evidence tied Buford to those murders, but legend has it Buford had a hand in all of them.
Steve Sweat
That's just speculation and just kind of the way it seemed.
Jed Lipinski
Whatever the truth was, Buford's style of law enforcement suited residents of McNary County. After the ambush, he was reelected twice more. Then in 1974, at 36 years old, he died. He was speeding down a country road in his Corvette when he spun out of control, hit an embankment and broke his neck.
Steve Sweat
No, there was no foul play. It was just mainly speed, you know, he was 36 years old, had a big engine 74 Corvette. And he loved to go fast. And that's pretty well it, you know, that's pretty well what happened.
Jed Lipinski
The story of the ambush and Buford's vigilante quest to kill the men who'd murdered his wife struck a deep and primal chord in American culture. It inspired a best selling book in 1971 called 12 August by W.R. morris. From there, the legend took on a life of its own. 12 August was adapted into the hit 1973 movie Walking Tall, starring Joe Don Baker as Buford Pusser. Audiences across America are standing up, applauding.
Steve Sweat
And cheering a film called Walking Tall, based on the true story of a young man who wouldn't surrender to the system and the girl who always stood beside him.
Jed Lipinski
Walking Tall was lightly fictionalized. For example, Joe Don Baker carries a hickory stick instead of a gun while cleaning up the state line. In truth, Buford never carried a stick on patrol. But since the film was based on a true story, most people naturally thought it was true. And so the legend grew. The film spawned two sequels. The country and rockabilly. Singer Eddie Bond released an entire album of songs inspired by the Sheriff. Listening to the lyrics, you could be mistaken for thinking Buford Pusser was a figure out of American folklore, like John Henry or Paul Bunyan. Actor Joe Don Baker, who played Buford in the original Walking Tall, later compared him to a character from Greek mythology.
Steve Sweat
It astounds me that people still remember it. I mean, I can understand it because Buford was such a wonderful, you know, he was a hell of a character. In real life he was like Hercules or Zeus or something. He was incredible.
Jed Lipinski
Then in 2004, the remake of Walking Tall came out. Shortly after the premiere, the Rock came to McNary county to see where Buford lived. Steve Sweat and his wife escorted him around accompanied by a group of impatient MGM execs.
Steve Sweat
And he came here out of respect for Buford. He wanted to see where Buford walked and worked. He said. He said, I want to see where he actually worked.
Jed Lipinski
Steve took the Rock to Buford's house, his office and the local courthouse. He regaled him with stories as the Rock sat hunched in the backseat.
Steve Sweat
And we had the sheriff in chief in front of me and five marked units behind us and with lights and sirens. We didn't stop at any red lights, any intersections, and we ran like 80 miles an hour down the highway here. He rode in my backseat with his elbows on the front seat and, you know, just like a five year old kid, you know, trying to absorb These stories.
Jed Lipinski
As they drove, the Rock told Steve that starring in Walking Tall had been a dream come true. The Rock's father, Rocky Johnson, had also been a pro wrestler. The two of them had watched the original Walking Tall over and over when the Rock was young. It was their favorite movie. According to Steve, it inspired the Rock to be a better man.
Steve Sweat
And he told us, he said, that was my dad and my favorite movie when I was a little fellow. And he said, and in my life, he said, all the times I had opportunity to take the wrong path, he said, I would think of those Walking Tall movies. And I wanted to walk tall.
Jed Lipinski
That's what the Rock said.
Steve Sweat
That's what he said.
Jed Lipinski
Like the Rock, Steve Sweat was emotionally invested in the legend of Buford Pusser as a righteous hero. And so when Steve learned that Pauline's body was being exhumed earlier this year, he was appalled. The suggestion that Buford played a role in Pauline's death threatened to destroy his legacy. What made matters worse was that the decision to exhume her could be traced to an outsider, a former security consultant from Arkansas named Mike Elam.
Mike Elam
Of course, the perception that America has is that Buford was a real hero, that he cleaned up the state line and that he sought revenge for his wife's death. But, you know, there's a whole nother story that needs to be told. Like everybody else, when I first heard the story of Buford Pusser, I was a huge fan. I don't think they made fans any bigger than me. I admired the man and everything he did. The 12th of August had me convinced. Then the movie came out, and I saw the movie. I thought it was incredible. It told a really entertaining story. And, you know, I was just filled with admiration for Buford.
Jed Lipinski
This is Mike Elam. In the early 1970s, when the first Walking Tall came out, Mike was a young sheriff's deputy in Benton County, Arkansas, 465 miles west of McNary County. He loved the job. He imagined being elected sheriff one day and cleaning up the county just like Buford had. But the pay was lousy. To support his family, he reluctantly took a job as the head of loss prevention for a regional grocery retail taylor. And yet his interest in police work never went away. He watched every episode of Dragnet. He got hooked on the JFK assassination and later the O.J. simpson case. In the mid-90s, he turned his attention to Buford Pusser. Mike still held the man in high regard, but certain elements of the story had always bothered him. For one, the idea that Pauline had joined Buford on a disturbance call in the middle of the night.
Mike Elam
I think I can speak for just about anyone who has been in law enforcement. They will tell you that one thing you never do is take your spouse to a disturbance call. A disturbance call can go sideways so quickly, and it's just dangerous for everyone.
Jed Lipinski
Then there was the route Buford took that night. As a Buford Pusser fan, Mike had visited McNary county to check out the Buford Pusser museum and see a few of the sights. And he realized Buford could have taken a much simpler route to Hollis Jordan's beer hall, where the alleged disturbance took place.
Mike Elam
It was a very convoluted system of backroads to get to the state line. That didn't make sense to me because he was just two blocks from Highway 64, and he could have got on Highway 64, then on 45, been to the same location in a very short time. Whereas this convoluted system of roads, several of them were unimproved at that time. And so it would have been a much slower route.
Jed Lipinski
That led Mike to another question. According to Buford, the ambushers were lying in wait behind a church on a deserted country road. But how would they have known that Buford would take that road instead of the more direct route to Hollis Jordans?
Mike Elam
Wouldn't they be waiting on either 64 or 45, or possibly even there at the site where he was supposed to be responding to? So that didn't make sense.
Jed Lipinski
And so when he got some time off work, Mike decided to reenact the ambush. He recruited some friends to pose as the assassins. A police chief from Ohio, A retired cameraman from Mississippi, and a mcnary county local who knew the story.
Mike Elam
We set up a scenario where I would pass by representing Buford's car passing by the church, and we actually had a Cadillac beside the church that gave chase. However, by the time that I got to the bridge, they were still about 200, 250 yards behind me. And you know, that really started to ring true that if they couldn't catch me in broad daylight, how could that have happened in the pre dawn hours with no headlights?
Jed Lipinski
How fast were they traveling when they were trying to chase you?
Mike Elam
Well, I was going 45, and at one time they reached 92 miles an hour in that 7/10 of a mile stretch trying to catch me. And like I say, they were still over 200 yards behind me by the time I reached the ambush point. And that just convinced me that there was no way it happened. The way that Buford said, at this point, I just started to gather up all the information that I possibly could.
Jed Lipinski
Mike began making public records requests. He read the police reports and studied the crime scene photographs from the ambush. Two things immediately stood out. One was the blood spatter. He knew that blood spatter often tells a story about how a crime occurred.
Mike Elam
Blood spatter tells you several different things. It can tell you the direction that a shot came from, the hike, that it came from the distance the firearm was away from a person. And none of it matched Buford's stories.
Jed Lipinski
Buford had claimed that he and Pauline were inside the car when the ambushers opened fire, wounding Buford and killing Pauline. As such, you'd expect the blood spatter to be all over the car's interior. But that's not the only place the blood spatter was.
Mike Elam
You had blood on the front bumper, the hood of the car, the top of the car, the sides of the car, all over the outside of the windshield. So you knew that something was not correct with his story.
Jed Lipinski
What specifically did that suggest about where the victim may have been at the time or the shooter?
Mike Elam
So all of the blood spatter on the outside of the car leads you to believe that someone was actually standing in front of that car when they were shot, not on the inside.
Jed Lipinski
The second thing that stood out to Mike was the position of the shell casings.
Mike Elam
He said that he was sitting in the car, that they pulled up close enough that they were right next to him. You would expect the shell casings to have been found in between the cars, possibly some being ejected inside the Cadillac and some even going over into Buford's car after the window was blown out.
Jed Lipinski
But the shell casings weren't in the middle of the road or inside Buford's Plymouth. They were on the shoulder of the road, on the opposite side of where Buford's car would have been. Pauline was said to have died from two gunshot wounds to the head. But Mike wanted to see what the autopsy report said. He called the McNary County Medical examiner, but they didn't have it. So he called the medical examiner for the state of Tennessee in Nashville. They didn't have it either. When Mike asked why, the response shocked him.
Mike Elam
I learned that one was never performed.
Jed Lipinski
Mike couldn't believe it. Pauline was the sheriff's wife who had, according to Buford, been killed in a dramatic Hollywood style ambush with no other witnesses and no viable suspects. Even a cursory look at the evidence suggested Buford's version of events was highly dubious. And yet no autopsy. The state and local medical examiners from 1967 had long since passed away. So Mike reached out to the current state medical examiner. He asked what could have prevented the autopsy of a murder victim back in 1967, and he told me that the.
Mike Elam
Prosecutor and the local medical examiner had to concur on the need for one. So for some reason they could not concur. And you have to wonder about the reasoning for that because that autopsy would have told so much about her death that they just passed up the opportunity to get trajectories, the angles, the distance, so much there that needed to be told.
Jed Lipinski
Mike knew that Buford, as the sheriff of McNary county, was friendly with both the local DA and the medical examiner. They must have felt sorry for Buford. Mike could easily imagine him persuading both men to bury his wife without an autopsy.
Mike Elam
You know, it is possible that Buford absolutely did not want an autopsy done and convince the two men not to have one. It makes absolutely no sense otherwise.
Jed Lipinski
Mike was hooked. He would spend a good part of the next 10 years investigating Buford and the events leading up to Pauline's death. Along the way, he would uncover details no one knew about one of the South's most famous unsolved murders. Details that suggested the prime suspect in Pauline's death was her husband, Buford Pusser. That's next time on Gone South. If you have information, story tips or feedback you'd like to share with the Gone south team, please email us@gonsouthpodcastmail.com that's Gon south podcast gmail.com we're on Facebook, TikTok and Instagram at gonsouthpodcast. You can also sign up for our newsletter on substack at Gone south with Jed Lipinski Gone south is an Odyssey Original podcast. It's created, written and narrated by me, Jed Lipinski. Our executive producers are Jenna Weiss Berman, Maddie Sprung Keyser, Tom Lipinski, Lloyd Lockridge and me. Our story editors are Tom Lipinski, Maddie Sprung Keyser and Joel Lovell. Gone south is edited, mixed and mastered by Chris Basil and Andy Jaskowicz. Production support from Ian Mont and Sean Cherry. Special thanks to J.D. crowley, Leah Reese, Dennis Maura Curran, Josephina Francis, Kurt Courtney and Hillary Schoof. If you want to hear more of Gone south, please take a few seconds to rate and review the show. It really helps.
Jenna Fisher
You might think financial crime is all about money, but sometimes it ends in murder. I'm Nicole Lapin, host of Money Crimes, a Crime House Original podcast. Each episode features a thrilling story about the dark side of finance and how to protect yourself from it. Follow and listen to Money Crimes, an Odyssey podcast in partnership with Crimehouse Studios, available on the free Odyssey app and and wherever you get your podcasts.
Gone South: S4|E7 – The Real Buford Pusser | Part 1
Introduction
In the seventh episode of the fourth season of Gone South, hosted by Jed Lipinski, the legendary Tennessee sheriff Buford Pusser's life and the mysterious murder of his wife, Pauline Pusser, are revisited. This episode delves deep into the unresolved ambush that claimed Pauline's life over five decades ago and explores new developments that threaten to reshape Buford Pusser's storied legacy.
Reopening a Cold Case
The episode kicks off with a revelation that nearly 60 years after Pauline Pusser was fatally shot, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) is exhuming her body for a deeper investigation into her death.
Pauline, the wife of Buford Pusser, was killed in an ambush in August 1967, a crime that remains unsolved. The TBI's decision to exhume her body stems from new information that challenges the original investigation's completeness, notably the absence of an autopsy.
Buford Pusser: Hero or Villain?
Buford Pusser's legacy as a fearless sheriff has been immortalized in books and films, most notably the original Walking Tall (1973) starring Joe Don Baker and its 2004 remake featuring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. Jed Lipinski highlights how Pusser's larger-than-life persona has blurred the lines between fact and fiction.
Kirksey Nix, alleged leader of the Dixie Mafia, was publicly blamed by Buford for orchestrating the ambush that killed Pauline. Despite Buford's accusations, Nix consistently denied involvement, and Buford's attempt to identify him in an Oklahoma prison failed.
The Ambush: A Detailed Account
On the morning of August 12, 1967, Buford and Pauline responded to a disturbance call at Hollis Jordan's Beer Hall. As they navigated down New Hope Road, a black Cadillac opened fire, resulting in Pauline's immediate death and Buford sustaining severe injuries.
Buford's frantic drive to the hospital, despite his injuries, underscores his dedication as a sheriff. However, the lack of an autopsy on Pauline raises significant questions about the original investigation.
Local Historian Steve Sweat’s Perspective
Steve Sweat, a McNary County resident and unofficial historian of Buford Pusser, provides personal anecdotes and insights into Buford's character and the tumultuous atmosphere of McNary County during his tenure.
Sweat recounts Buford's fearless actions against corruption, drawing parallels between Buford and fictional lawmen like Matt Dillon from Gunsmoke.
Buford Pusser’s Untimely Death
In 1974, Buford Pusser died in a tragic car accident at the age of 36. While officially attributed to speeding, the circumstances surrounding his death have fueled speculation and conspiracy theories, further complicating his legacy.
The Rock’s Connection to Buford Pusser
The episode explores how Buford Pusser's legend influenced modern culture, notably through the involvement of Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. The Rock's portrayal of Buford in the 2004 remake of Walking Tall serves as a bridge between the past and present, highlighting the enduring impact of Buford's story.
Mike Elam’s Investigation: Raising New Doubts
Mike Elam, a former sheriff's deputy, becomes a pivotal figure in challenging Buford's narrative. Skeptical of Buford's account of the ambush, Elam conducts a reenactment that reveals inconsistencies in the original story.
Elam’s investigation uncovers two critical issues:
Blood Spatter Analysis: Contrary to Buford's claim that both he and Pauline were inside the car during the shooting, blood was found scattered both inside and outside the vehicle, suggesting the shooters were on the ground rather than inside the car.
Shell Casing Placement: The location of the shell casings on the road's shoulder, away from the middle of the road and Buford's car, contradicts the idea that the assailants were in the chasing Cadillac.
Furthermore, the absence of an autopsy on Pauline Pusser is a significant anomaly, raising suspicions about potential tampering or ulterior motives behind the original investigation.
Conclusion and Tease for Part 2
The episode concludes by highlighting the mounting evidence that challenges Buford Pusser's portrayal as an unwavering hero. With Mike Elam's relentless pursuit of the truth, the TBI's exhumation of Pauline's body is poised to uncover startling revelations. As tensions rise and Buford's legacy teeters on the brink of reinvention, listeners are left eagerly anticipating the next installment of this gripping investigation.
Notable Quotes
Steve Sweat [07:32]: "Then, you know, people got to call me the Pusser Historian. And of course, that's how I've been described in the newspapers for probably 20 years."
Mike Elam [23:20]: "They were still over 200 yards behind me by the time I reached the ambush point."
Mike Elam [25:15]: "All of the blood spatter on the outside of the car leads you to believe that someone was actually standing in front of that car when they were shot, not on the inside."
Final Thoughts
This episode of Gone South masterfully intertwines historical accounts, personal testimonies, and investigative journalism to peel back the layers of Buford Pusser's enigmatic legacy. By questioning established narratives and presenting compelling new evidence, Jed Lipinski sets the stage for a transformative exploration of one of Tennessee's most enduring mysteries.