There are sometimes stories that you really don't want to cover, but to remain true to yourself, you have to. This is one of them.
When I was in high school, I don't know how many times I saw Walking Tall at the drive-in. It was Joe Don Baker's breakout role, and the movie, part of that 70s vigilante genre that included Billy Jack, Death Wish, and Dirty Harry, was hugely popular in rural Southside Virginia. It was the story of Buford Pusser, the real-life sheriff of McNairy County, Tennessee. He was a former Marine who turned into a pro wrestler. He returned home to McNairy County and, after a brief stint as the chief of police in Adamsville, Tennessee, he became the youngest elected sheriff in Tennessee. He carried on a very public war with the Dixie Mafia and the State Line Mob, using a four-foot hickory club as his weapon of choice.
In the movie, the culminating event is Pusser and his wife, Pauline, being targeted in an ambush on August 12, 1967. Pusser was struck on the left side of his jaw by at least two, or possibly three, rounds from a .30-caliber carbine. Pauline, who was accompanying Pusser on a call, died from gunshot wounds.
This event motivates the locals to stand together and oust the mobsters who had long dominated McNairy County.
Pusser vowed to bring his wife's killer to justice, but no progress was made. After Pusser died in an auto accident in 1974, there was no interest in devoting time or energy to Pauline's murder.
In 2023, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation announced that the murder investigation was still open and asked the public to come forward with tips; see Pauline Pusser investigation still ongoing since 1967. Based on "[a] recent tip," Pauline's body was exhumed in early 2024 because no autopsy had ever been conducted.
According to the TBI, a recent tip prompted a new review of the case file, and the discovery was made that an autopsy was never performed on Pauline Pusser’s body.
“The fact that the TBI had a tip that prompted this new look into Mrs. Pauline’s case, such an interesting thing though because if an autopsy was never performed it just raises some questions that I hope could provide more clear answers to what actually happened,” Wheeler said.
The Pusser’s family has supported the TBI’s decision to exhume her body.
Now with the recent update of technology, the TBI can hopefully answer a few questions.
“You realize although it’s been however how many years it’s been, forensics can take and do amazing things today that wasn’t even imagined back then,” said Dennis Hathcock, a retiree.
This brings us up to Friday.
It's been said that the dead cannot cry out for justice. It is the duty of the living to do so. In this case, that duty has been carried out 58 years later. The TBI, then the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, excuse me, Identification, took the lead on this investigation into the 1967 murder of Pauline Mullins Pusser. She was a wife, a mother, and a sister whose life ended violently and unjustly. Her husband, McNairy County Sheriff Buford Pusser, reported that his wife volunteered to ride along in the dark early morning hours n a disturbance call. He claimed that a car pulled alongside his and fired several shots, killing Pauline and injuring him in what he clamed was an ambush intended for him and carried out by unknown assailants. Buford Pusser from his injuries. No viable suspects were developed and no charges were filed. This was a cold for decades but in 2022, TBI agents took another at the archive file and coordinated with our office. That work accelerated in 2023 and in 2024, Pauline Mullins Pusser was exhumed for an autopsy. TBI completed their investigative process this year and the file was forwarded to our office to review. The file is voluminous. Over 1,000 pages and employed modern investigative techniques and forensic science unavailable in 1967. It is thorough and exhaustive and the scope and breadth of it exceeds our ability to discuss it in detail today. That is one reason we're making this a public record.
You can watch the full press conference by District Attorney General Mark Davidson of Tennessee's 25th Judicial District; the video below is cued to his remarks.
The TBI says that autopsy photos of the cranial trauma Pauline Pusser suffered did not match the crime scene photos of the inside of the vehicle. According to the TBI, the autopsy also revealed that Pauline suffered a nasal fracture sometime before her shooting death.
The TBI also says that blood splatter patterns on the hood of the vehicle contradicted Pusser’s version of events.
Investigators have reportedly determined that the gunshot wound on Pusser’s cheek was done by a close-range shot that was “likely self-inflicted.” The TBI says that physical evidence suggests that the crime scene was staged.
“There is probable cause to believe that Pauline’s death was not an accident, not an act of chance, but, based on the totality of the TBI investigative file, an act of intimate, deliberate violence,” District Attorney General Mark Davidson said during Friday’s press conference.
In the words of Davidson, "There is enough evidence that if then-McNairy County Sheriff Buford Pusser were alive today, prosecutors would present an indictment to the grand jury for the murder of Pauline Mullins Pusser."
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