Part Two: Buford Pusser: The Worst Sheriff Ever

Robert discussed Buford Pusser's war on crime and the crime he committed when he murdered his wife and blamed the mafia. We also talk about how he died, which is fun.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Also Media, Harry everyone Robert Evans here and on Thursday
September twenty fifth at eight pm, Behind the Bastards is
doing a live show. The show itself is in Portland, Oregon,
but all of the in person seats have sold out. However,
there are live stream tickets available if you go to
Alberta Rose Theater t h E A t r E
Behind the Bastards on just type that into Google or

(00:22):
whatever search engine you use. Alberta Rose Theater, Behind the
Bastards you can find a link to buy tickets for
the live show. This is to benefit the Portland Defense Fund,
which helps bail people out who don't have, you know,
resources of their own, so it's a good cause. Tickets
are twenty five dollars for the live stream version of
the show, So please go to Alberta Rose Theater Behind

(00:45):
the Bastards and pick up a live stream show to
check it out. On Thursday September twenty fifth at eight pm,
and we're back to Behind the Bastards, a podcast about
bad people, the worst ones in all of history. This
is tart two of our series on Buford Pusser, the
man whose family could not give their kids normal names.

(01:07):
To save their lives. Also, he committed a bunch of
horrible crimes and killed people. Back as my guest.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
Dan O'Brien, Hello, thank you for having me. There's there's
no depths to my appetite for Pusser.

Speaker 1 (01:26):
That's that's right, I just love Pusser. Beauford. I'm agnostic
on Have you ever met a Buford? Do you know
a single Buford?

Speaker 2 (01:36):
The only this is not a person that I know,
the only time I've ever heard that name was Benjamin
Buford Blue, the full name of Bubba from Forrest Gump.

Speaker 1 (01:46):
I know that I didn't remember that was Bubba's.

Speaker 2 (01:48):
Person, I know, but yeah, that's the only other instance
of that name I've ever heard anywhere.

Speaker 1 (01:55):
Huh. Yeah, I know that. I'm actually looking up the
name of the shaf from Smoking the Band Yeah, Buford
t Justice is the sheriff of Smokey and the bandit Yeah,
which I think is probably the first time I heard
that name and did not realize that it was. Yeah.
That was came out in seventy seven, so he was
definitely named after Buford. Pusser because Walking Doll came out
in seventy three, kind of a more accurate parody of

(02:18):
Buford Pusser as opposed to the version in Walking TLL
that's basically a hero.

Speaker 3 (02:23):
The cool sheriff guy.

Speaker 1 (02:25):
Yeah. Yeah, speaking of those movies, if you've watched any
of the Walking Tall movies, you're probably aware as I've
mentioned that he was. Buford was mostly famous for using
a large stick or a bat or piece of wood
to beat up gangsters. The original poster, which Sophie's going
the show, for those of you watching the video version,
is just it looks like he's just holding like a log,

(02:48):
but like a trimmed log, like a log someone has
processed to be nice firewood, like it's had the bark
shaved off at everything. But it does just look like
a log.

Speaker 4 (02:56):
Like he kind of looks like if Javier Bardem was
also a zombie.

Speaker 1 (03:02):
Yeah, that's that's how the illustrated Yeah, Buford and Walking
in the poster looks. And then, of course the tagline
of the original movie, the measure of a man is
how tall he walks? What does that mean? I mean
you mean that like, the taller you are, the better
you are. What is what is that?

Speaker 2 (03:22):
It's somewhere between literal and poetic, right where like you
would measure.

Speaker 3 (03:28):
I mean, I guess the measure of a man, yes, is.

Speaker 1 (03:32):
How you literally, Yes, you can measure a man by
how tally is. But I don't think like you're saying
a lot about the man necessarily, especially since like the
fact that a man can walk tall, being six foot six, like,
it's that's less impressive. Like if he was a short
man who had like his personality, you know, or whatever
you're saying, Like he walked tall, that's something. But just

(03:55):
being like, yeah, you know, this giant guy, he sure was.

Speaker 4 (03:59):
Tall, that's just Napoleon Robert, right.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
If they're going literal, it's very boring and there's nothing
more to say about it. You're saying that the tallness
is the tallness. If they're going poetic. They also don't
do a good enough job defining what walking tall means,
Like what.

Speaker 1 (04:16):
Is it means you beat in a man half to
death with lumber?

Speaker 3 (04:19):
He walks the most tall?

Speaker 1 (04:22):
Yeah, I mean, I guess so, But that's not really
a point in his favor. He just happened to be big.

Speaker 3 (04:30):
Now.

Speaker 1 (04:30):
The more recent reboot featuring The Rock, which was a
loose adaptation of the original movie that was not explicitly
based on the life of Buford. Pusster shows the rock carrying.
It's interesting the differences between these. Instead of carrying like
a trimmed log, he's carrying what looks just like a
piece of like construction timber. Yes, yeah, yeah, he's just

(04:51):
he's just gotten his hand there. And the tagline there
is one man will stand up for What's right, which
is at least a better tagline than the first movie had,
and it notes that it's inspired by a true story,
which it wasn't. Yeah, as we'll discuss today, it's the

(05:16):
whole myth. As I noted about him using a large
piece of wood to fight crime, started when Buford hit
Wo Hathcock Junior in the school with a fence post.
Buford's daughter noted in her book Walking On, there was
a handful of other times when Daddy would find use
for a sizeable piece of lumber when going up against
bad guys, but as often as not he went in

(05:36):
bare handed, or maybe would grab something more like a switch.
That's usually all that was necessary. But his first retaliation
against the State Line mob was personal and it did
indeed require a fence post.

Speaker 2 (05:47):
Yeah, yeah, it's okay, that's so interesting. To describe a
mob fight as personal.

Speaker 3 (05:56):
They're all personal.

Speaker 1 (05:57):
Yeah, people are trying to kill you. It feels very personal. Yeah,
it is funny to me that she's like, there were
a handful of times where he'd find a big piece
of lumber to fight people with. That was like a
thing he did so Normally, the State Line Gang was
not the kind of group who would settle a problem
by calling in the police because they were a mafia.

(06:17):
But in this case, Buford and his friends had committed
straight up felony assault against somebody. So Hathcock Junior pressed charges,
and Buford was arrested with his buddies and extradited to Mississippi.
They were charged with assault with a tent to commit
murder and armed robbery, both of which are probably accurate
descriptions of what they'd done. Bufert's daughter doesn't write that

(06:38):
he robbed Hathcock Junior, but it sounds like he did.
And I wouldn't be surprised if, well, they took my
money that I gambled away, so I'm going to take
whatever's in his wallet, right like I really did. It
does sound like he actually also just robbed the guy again,
rather than this being he was so upset at all
the crime he had to fight against these gangsters. He
was like, no, he beat a man after death and

(06:59):
took his money.

Speaker 2 (07:01):
He lost money at a casino and got beat up
and then wanted to rectify that specific situation for himself
ten days after his wedding.

Speaker 3 (07:09):
It needs to be repeated.

Speaker 1 (07:11):
Yeah, right after the wedding. Yeah. So Buford and his
friends they get extradited, but they don't wind up getting
convicted because again, he's got that, like you said, he's
got that cop brain for when he's committing violent crimes.
Where he made sure to set up an alibi for
himself and his buddies before they went out to attack
Hathcock Junior, and their defense hinged on the fact that

(07:33):
they worked at a factory together in Chicago, and they'd
all filled out time cards and there were time cards
for all three men that showed them working on the
day of the assault, and then they just had like
a friend fake the time cards so they could go
out and beat that guy. And Duanna Pusser writes about
this in her book About Her Dad and again describes
it as like a lighthearted prank as opposed to somebody

(07:54):
like consciously trying to evade the law while committing felonies. Quotemeditated, Yeah,
very premeditated. Yes. As it turns out, having a friend
clock their time cards for them while they were gone
proved to be a stroke of really smart planning by
Daddy and his friends. That's one way to describe a
criminal conspiracy. Yeah, a stroke of really smart planning.

Speaker 2 (08:17):
God, it's like one of my favorite planners, the Zodiac Killer.

Speaker 1 (08:20):
Yeah, great at planning. In a stroke of very smart planning,
he cut the body up into forty pieces and threw
it in a river. So once the trial ended, Beauford
and his new wife, Pauline, returned to Chicago, where he
started attending a mortuary school to get a proper degree.
So he decides to try to make this a career still,

(08:41):
and he's kind of like working at a factory. He's
going to mortuary school at night, and then on the
weekends he starts wrestling. He becomes a pro wrestler as
a way to pick up extra money. Now, Buford was
good enough that he caught the eye of Jerry Lawler,
the wrestling icon who later helped The Rock get started,
which is a weird direct an action between the two men.

(09:01):
Jerry the King Lawler, Yeah, yeah, Lawler was reportedly a
friend of Buford Puster, or like a fan of his
when he was a wrestler.

Speaker 3 (09:09):
That's I mean, there you go.

Speaker 4 (09:12):
He was.

Speaker 2 (09:13):
If there's a behind the Bastards on Jerry the King Lawler,
that'll be the one episode that I skiw because I
love him too much.

Speaker 1 (09:21):
I don't have any evidence of him doing anything bad,
and we don't. I don't actually have proof that he
actually was a fan of Buford. He's reported reputed to
have been a fan of Buford, but there's a lot
like maybe that was a lie.

Speaker 3 (09:33):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (09:34):
Yeah, it's also not entirely like he was a huge dude.

Speaker 3 (09:39):
You know.

Speaker 1 (09:39):
I could see him being decent at wrestling.

Speaker 3 (09:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (09:43):
So that said, he's not wildly successful and he does
not become a national name. This is never going to
be anything that makes becomes a career for him, but
it does teach him some lessons that will be useful
in his later crimes. As of nineteen fifty eight, it
was still mostly a weekend gig. He does do some
pretty good size performances, his largest being he wrestles at

(10:04):
an event at Comiski Park in Chicago, in front of
thirty seven thousand people. So, like, you know, he's not
a nobody here. You know, that's not nothing. We don't
there's just not a I wish there was more detail
about his wrestling career. Basically, the only real documentation we
have of it is a nineteen seventy article that Buford
wrote after he got famous, for an issue of the

(10:26):
men's adventure magazine True Detective. So again not great journalistic
reputation True Detective Magazine. But in that article he claims
that the hardest match of his wrestling career was in
Union City, Tennessee, against a guy named Big Bill Crockett.
They both wrestled the night before in Jackson, and Buford
had gotten a nashty gash on his forehead during that fight,

(10:50):
and so when they fight again the next fight, I'm
gonna continue here from Buford's article. When the referee called
us out to shake hands in Union City, he hauled
off and hit me with his fist, busted open the
cut in the night before. When he hit me the
second night, that's when the fight come off. We didn't wrestle,
we just fought. It was a little makeshift ring and
we tore it down. The referee stopped us, got some
canvas and lumber and patched it up. Then we fought

(11:11):
some more and tore it down again. I don't know
how I'd got home that night if I hadn't had
a wrestler named Billy Daniels to drive for me. Both
eyes were swollen shut, my hands were so sore, my
fingers got stiff like claws. I was stiff as a
board for days. It was along then that I decided
to give up wrestling, So that'll be basically his only
rational decision in life.

Speaker 2 (11:33):
I would argue that makes him a bad professional wrestler.

Speaker 1 (11:38):
I think that's probably fair, Okay, good, Yeah, yeah, I
think when you lose your temper enough that you have
an actual fight and destroy the ring twice. Although I
do want to see that fight, Like I bet that
was a hell of a thing to watch.

Speaker 2 (11:51):
And like, gosh, whether this is an embellishment or not,
it's a really good, legitimate pro wrestling bit. It to
fight so bad that the ring breaks and then they
rebuild the ring, and.

Speaker 3 (12:06):
That's excellent.

Speaker 1 (12:08):
Yeah, that is a good wrestling bit. So one of
the last things that Bufford and Pauline would do in
Chicago before they moved back to Adamsville was have their
first child, Dwana, On's January ninth of nineteen sixty one.
And it almost immediately after that happens they moved back
to Adamsville. And I want to quote now from an
article by the McNairy Historical Society. His dad, Carl was

(12:32):
chief of police in Adamsville. He was retiring and encouraged
Bufford to apply for his job. After a vote from
the city board, Buford was made chief of police. Thus
began his law enforcement career. Now that's a that seems
like it's leaving out a lot.

Speaker 3 (12:46):
He was made chief of police.

Speaker 1 (12:48):
He was made chief of police right and the way
Dwana describes it, they had to beg him to be
the chief of police, Like he really didn't want it
and they had to force it on him. There's a
lot that we just don't have here, the little bitty
details around the edges that get left out that I
have been able to find paint to kind of a
darker picture. So, among other things, this is back during

(13:08):
a time when small town law enforcement was less of
like a career track and more like a gig you
could fall into by accident, right, Like, if you're in
a county and like the sheriff is like an elected
position and you're just a popular guy, you might wind
up being the sheriff, even if like that wasn't your ambition,
you know. But also there's a lot of money being

(13:29):
the sheriff in a town that has organized crime in it,
And that's kind of this. I can't say this for certain,
but I really heavily suspect based on a couple of
things I've read that his dad, Carl was crooked and
wanted to pass on the job as police chief to
his son so that the money from being crooked cops

(13:51):
in this mafia town could continue to stay in the family. Right.
He becomes the police chief after he's horribly injured in
a car accident. There's a lot of car accidents in
this story. In a second car no no, no, this
is his dad totally separate car. So his dad becomes
the chief of police after he gets too hurt to
work in a pipeline, which is also weird, and yeah,

(14:15):
does the job for just a few years and then
decides he's too hurt, and he pushes for his son
to take the job. Now, given the reality of crime
at the time in McNairy County, this was not an
easy job enforcing the law near the state line, and
it was made harder by the fact that everyone whose
job was to enforce the law in the area was,

(14:36):
as best as I can tell, also incredibly corrupt, right, Like,
no one was really all that interested in enforcing the law,
including Buford. The McNairy County sheriff worked with the state
Line Gang to ensure that alcohol kept getting smuggled into
the county. And as soon as he became the police chief, Buford,
the way he would describe things as like he set

(14:57):
himself against these corrupt cops to like fight for justice
and fight against the mafia. The way I interpret it
and what I think the body of evidence suggests now
is he was just kind of trying to edge these
other law enforcement guys out of the racket, right because
they were all getting cuts and he wanted more money

(15:18):
for himself. Because as soon as he becomes the police chief,
he runs for constable, and he wins a narrow victory's
constable in nineteen sixty two, and after that he's going
to immediately like set his sights on becoming the sheriff. So, like,
what he's doing here is he's getting rid of the competition.
He's trying to make himself the only lawman in town,
in part because then the cut only gets split one way.

(15:40):
Right now, kind of laying out exactly what happened here
is hard because most of what was written during this
time period was written from the perspective that, like Buford,
Pusser was a hero who was going on a crusade
against the whiskey trade. That's how Michael Birdwell describes what
he does for the Tennessee Encyclopedia as like a crusade,

(16:01):
Like this was a like a almost like a holy
war that he was waging against bootleggers.

Speaker 3 (16:06):
Yeah. Those are always good, right.

Speaker 1 (16:08):
Yeah, we love a good holy war. Yeah. No one's
ever done one of those with an ulterior motive.

Speaker 3 (16:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (16:14):
Anytime someone has committed to something that they've described as
a crusade, my immediate thought was like, well, that sounds
like they're clear ride and level headed about it.

Speaker 1 (16:22):
Yeah, it sounds like you're saying and reasonable and pursuing
this reasonably.

Speaker 3 (16:27):
Now.

Speaker 1 (16:27):
Again, modern evidence suggests that he was perfectly happy taking
money from bootlegging and that his issue was both specifically
with the State Lion Gang because they had beef, and
with the fact that like he wanted more of the
money that was coming in from these illegal businesses, right,
rather than he had an issue with the businesses in
the first place. So that's why he would go after people, right,

(16:50):
He was effectively starting to make people pay protection. Yeah,
first as the police chief and then is the sheriff.
Right now, we do know that the ever corruption between
area law enforcement and the State Line Gang is certainly
a lot broader than even just the stories Bufford would tell. Like,
there is out He's not the only guy saying that,
like the sheriff when he became police chief was crooked.

(17:12):
There's evidence for this outside of Beauford. The book Mississippi
Moonshine Politics is a great anecdote about Louise Hathcock that
really sells how locked down the State Line Gang had
things with the cops before Buford got into the mix.

Speaker 3 (17:26):
Quote.

Speaker 1 (17:26):
After one particular raid on the forty five grill, a
deputy sheriff arrived early one morning at the Halfcock home
in Corinth to arrest Luis on liquor charges. Since Louise
was still in her bathrobe, she asked the deputy to
wait well, she changed into her work clothes, fixed her hair,
and applied some makeup. Oddly, the deputy agreed. Once she
was dressed for work at the roadhouse, the deputy allowed
Luis to drive to the sheriff's office in her own vehicle.
Once Louis arrived, she quickly posted a five hundred dollars

(17:48):
bail and made it to work before the lunch crowd arrived.
And that's that's just you're paying a bribe on your
way to work to the cops.

Speaker 3 (17:55):
Right.

Speaker 2 (17:56):
I love this woman so so much.

Speaker 1 (18:00):
It's a shame what happens to her, because she's very
speaking of things that depress me, not going to ads.
Every moment of my life is agony, outside of the
brief periods of time in which products and services are
being advertised. On this podcast, we're back and my long

(18:26):
nightmare continues.

Speaker 3 (18:27):
Tragic.

Speaker 1 (18:29):
So Pusser is going to run for sheriff. You know,
he becomes the police chief, he becomes the constable, and
the next thing he's going to do is he's going
to get that crooked McNairy County Sheriff out so that
he can continue his crusade against Moonshine slash take all
of the money for himself. Now, he made some interesting
decisions when he started this run, the weirdest of which

(18:51):
is that he chose to run as a Republican in
what was then a Democratic stronghold. This should have been
more of a problem for him, but he got lucky
because his rival, the incumbent Sheriff James Dickie, died in
a horrible car accident part way through the election, clearing
Bufford an easy path to victory. Now, man, did Bufford
have anything to do with that car accident?

Speaker 2 (19:11):
And I can I just just on behalf of the
audience without any jokes or frills, just say that, yes,
you're Dicky and Pusser.

Speaker 3 (19:19):
Dickie is the name. It was Dicky v.

Speaker 2 (19:21):
Pusser, and Dickie was pulverized and cleared a path or
Pusser to snatch this victory.

Speaker 1 (19:31):
All right, Yeah, that's that's the story of Dicky v. Pusser. Yeah, proceed,
And again we know Buford is willing to kill people
in stage assassinations to get what he wanted. Like this
is me speculating. I just wouldn't be shocked if he
had something to do with Dickie's death. That said, this
is like the fourth car accident that we've talked about

(19:53):
in these episodes, So you also have to acknowledge it
was the sixties. Everyone was drunk and nobody had c else, right,
So people just die in cars a lot back then.
So as soon as he gets elected Sheriff, Pusser began
an immediate spree of high profile raids against State Line
Gang properties. Local papers reported that he bust into gambling

(20:13):
dens carrying a pickaxe and use it to destroy tables
and roulette wheels. In his first year on the job,
he is said to have rated forty two stills and
arrested almost twice as many moonshiners. So he's going on
like a rampage here, right, Like as soon as he
gets in and he get like the news picks up
on this, like he gets famous for the way he's
doing this, because he sometimes he's calling reporters along so

(20:35):
they can see him busting up stuff with a pickaxe
or a stick. Now, by this point, the State Line
Gang that he's declared war against has undergone a change
of leadership. Luis had decided to end her twenty year
partnership in marriage with Jack Hathcock, because in nineteen fifty
seven she'd fallen in love with a different criminal figure,
a lieutenant from one of the most powerful gangs in

(20:56):
the area, the Dixie Mafia.

Speaker 3 (20:59):
Now that yeah, yeah, enter John Fullcock.

Speaker 1 (21:05):
It would be that would be pretty funny if she'd
fallen for John Folcock. No, she keeps going by Hathcock,
by the way, after she does what she does, which
is interesting to me, But that's the story we're telling now.
So the Dixie Mafia where she falls for this guy's
lieutenant there is based out of the Strip, which is
this neighborhood in Biloxie that's basically Mississippi's answer to Las Vegas.

(21:26):
Edward Humes, the author of a book called Mississippi Mud
that's on the Dixie Mafia, describes the Strip as the
cancerous heart of Biloxie, and given the rest of Biloxie,
that's really saying something if you've ever been to that
fucking town. Per his description, the Dixie Mafia was started
by a lot of guys you might call rejects from
East Coast organized crime. Like it was initially a bunch

(21:48):
of guys who got in too much trouble in night
like New York or Jersey and had to flee to
the middle of nowhere so they wouldn't get off. Like
that's kind of who founds the Dixie Mafia. Yeah, so
these are these are both tough guys and also maybe
not quite the top of the game, right because they
had to flee to Biloxi.

Speaker 2 (22:09):
Yeah right, it's oops, Alfredo's It's not gonna get any
of the cream of the crop there.

Speaker 1 (22:16):
No, no, no, these guys are like, yeah, the dudes
who My alternative to moving here was to get murdered.
So Louise Halfcock, the guy she falls for, is named
Carl White and he's nicknamed Towhead, a Tallahatchie boy. Yeah,
Carl Towhead White.

Speaker 3 (22:37):
In these episodes, the names.

Speaker 1 (22:40):
There's some great names.

Speaker 3 (22:41):
I think you're with us.

Speaker 4 (22:42):
You're just like, you're just throwing fake names just to
see if.

Speaker 1 (22:46):
We catch I was I was worried when we went
from Pusser's and dickies and half cocks to a white
you know, boring name, but then nicknamed Towhead. We're back
in the game, baby, ye Yeah. Toehead was a Talahatchie
boy and gangster who had risen to the highest levels
of the Dixie mafia. And yeah, Louise falls in love
with this guy, and so she's got to split up

(23:08):
with Jack. Now, she does file for divorce, but that's
just step one because Jack, like everyone else in the story,
is a murderous gangster, and Louise and Carl know just
divorcing him isn't going to be quite enough, right, Like,
that's not really an option with this kind of crime.

Speaker 3 (23:22):
Marriage.

Speaker 1 (23:24):
Author Janis Tracy summarizes the rest of the story of
Janis and Luis read like a B movie script. Luise
divorce Jack, Towhead, and Luis conspired to murder Jack, and
Towhead shot and killed Jack in a motel room where
he was enticed by his wife. Luise convinced authority she
had shot Jack and self defense, and showed bruises to
authorities that she had allowed Towhead to inflict on her body.

(23:44):
Although Luis was charged with killing Jack and self defense,
it was no surprise when the charges later were dismissed.
Luis and Towhead continued their off and on relationship, at
least when Towhead was in town. The couple never married
in part because Louis saw through Towhead's often obvious attempts
to gain control of her money and her business operation.
So yeah, this is a smart, tough lay orchestrates the
murder of her husband and then keeps her boyfriend at

(24:08):
arm's lengths because she's like, look, man, I like you
and thanks for help with the murder, but like, you're
not gonna own my businesses, Like, that's that's my stuff,
you know, I put up with this guy for twenty years.
I'm not giving out my business.

Speaker 3 (24:20):
Yeah, it's such a bummer that this was the past.

Speaker 2 (24:24):
If she had waited a few more decades before being alive,
she'd have been a very powerful figure Governmentstely.

Speaker 1 (24:32):
Yes, yes, yes, she could have. She might have been
able to win the presidency. Right, She's got that kind
of ruthlessness and organizational school and apparently a very good cook,
the whole package. Really, Yeah, if you don't mind getting
murdered maybe, which I've had worse things happen in relationships.
So and this is another crucial dimension to the Beeford

(24:54):
poster story because by the time he declares his war
on the State Line Gang, their most prominent leader is
a woman. Right, and it may just be the case
that why Buford starts going after them is less because
he hates crime and he's got this vendetta, and more
he thinks they're weak because a woman's in charge, and
he can take over control of the business, right or

(25:16):
at least get a better deal, you know, if somebody
else winds up in charge, or if he doesn't have
to like right, he sees weakness here. I think that's
why he does what he does, whatever the case. In
late nineteen sixty four, Luis's gang strikes back. Buford was
ambushed by an unknown number of questionably competent assassins who
stab him seven times and then leave him for dead.

(25:38):
They don't take any effort to confirm that he's dead.
Buford survives, and this obviously makes him famous, right like that,
There's this law man who's he's been doing all these
very showy raids, cracking down on bootleggers and you know,
organized crime in the area, and then he gets ambushed
and stabbed repeatedly and he manages to survive and continue
attacking the mob. Know he's becoming a hero. At this point.

(26:02):
The news is covering him like that, And did this
really he was definitely stabbed a bunch of times. Was
it an assassination attempt? Or is this something because he's
later going to injure himself as part of like a
faked assassination attempt, and so it kind of this is
probably real because they definitely the State Line Gang had

(26:24):
a reason to But I can't not doubt it now, right,
For all.

Speaker 2 (26:28):
We know, he just got tangled up with so many
fucking volleyball nets again, like, oh no, down.

Speaker 1 (26:34):
Seven down. Yeah, we found him tangled, covered in blood,
tangled in seven volleyball and that's what happened, Bufort. They
tried to kill me. It was the mob again, it
was the mob. It was the State Line Mob. But
Beuford does like the thing he's best at is he's
very good at nursing this growing mythos around himself. Right,

(26:55):
He gives a lot of interviews. He likes talking to
the press. He's good at working the media such as
it is in his era, and he really likes the
image of himself as this badass, log wielding juggernaut of justice.
So he starts making a point that when he realizes, oh,
that's one of the things that is really playing well
with the audience. He starts carrying a hickory stick whenever

(27:16):
he goes to on raids to bust Moonshine stills, so
the press sees him with it, right, Even though it's
not really useful for anything, it's part of his legend
at this point. In nineteen sixty six, he launches his
most ambitious arrest yet. He takes a squad of deputies
to the Shamrock Hotel, which is the center of the
Halfcock criminal empire. The official story is that during the arrest,

(27:39):
Luise pulls a gun and Buford shoots her dead in
self defense. Luis's family will insist up to the present
day that she was shot in the back and thus
probably not a self defense case. He just murdered her, right, Yeah,
and again, I think that's pretty credible that said. Luis

(28:01):
definitely is not the kind of person who wouldn't pull
a gun on a law man, right. I just think
she was probably too smart to have tried to do that.
Then I think it's likelier that he murdered her.

Speaker 3 (28:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (28:12):
I don't think the woman shrewd enough to keep her
financials intact, and the woman shrewd enough to like let
me get changed to put on my makeup and drive
myself to post my own bail before I go to work. Yeah,
I think she is also shrewd enough to not shoot
the famous hero cop that everyone talks about.

Speaker 1 (28:35):
I think's there with all of his cops in a
daylight raid. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, that's how I feel too.
And there's something very sad about within the criminal underworld.
Obviously this is like a brutal These are brutal, violent,
dangerous people. But within that world and its rules, she
is able to succeed and survive, and taking her out

(29:01):
requires someone the only kind of person who doesn't have
to abide by any sort of rule, which is a sheriff, right,
Like that's the reality of law enforcement then and now.
But like sheriffs have such a degree of autonomy and power.
And when Beauford says, oh, yeah, she pulled a gun
on me, so I had to shoot her, it doesn't
matter that she was shot in the back, Like no

(29:22):
one else's version of events is going to carry water here.
And it's just it's so unfair, Like if you were
playing by the same rule as Luis was playing, you
never would have won Buford, right.

Speaker 2 (29:32):
Yeah, absolutely, just such a coward's way to win this war, right,
and like probably set back women's rights at least in
crime a couple of decades from.

Speaker 1 (29:44):
Women's crime rights. Yes, yeah, it took decades for them
to recover. Yeah, I was trying to remember a famous
lady mafioso, but actually they mostly were in Most of
the ones I know were from like the sixties seventies,
Like that lady who invented murdering people using motorcycles.

Speaker 3 (30:03):
That's cool.

Speaker 1 (30:05):
Yeah, we did a bTB on her at one point
she was great. So yeah, Buford's people write the official reports,
and so his version of events here is the one
that history accepted. People who are only now starting to
really like question it on a white although I should
point out the Halfcock family has four decades been saying like, no,
he totally murdered her, right, Yeah, people just didn't listen

(30:26):
to them because they were famous. Crisis of course. Now,
over the next couple of years, Buford expanded his war
on crime across the state line and even into territory
operated by the Dixie Mafia. His legend grew with him.
The Buford Pusser Museum lists his greatest hits and a
bulleted list that I am sure is largely inaccurate, but
it gives you an idea of how people talk about,

(30:48):
like the legends that's grown up about this guy. So
here's the their bulleted list of his accomplishments. Shot eight times,
knife seven times, fought off six minute once, sending three
to jail and three to the hospital, destroyed eighty seven
whiskey stills in nineteen sixty five alone, killed two people
in self defense, hopped on the hood of a speeding car,

(31:08):
smashed the window, and subdued the man who had tried
to run over him.

Speaker 3 (31:12):
Okay, now, could be a little bit of truth in that.

Speaker 2 (31:16):
I mean, it's fair to say that he killing me
to contact with a car and its window.

Speaker 1 (31:23):
Right. We know that he was stabbed several times. Who
did the stabbing?

Speaker 3 (31:29):
Was it him?

Speaker 1 (31:30):
Was at other people? Probably a mix. He was shot
several times. At least one of those times he shot himself.
Were the other times people shooting him? Or did he like?
Who knows? He may have fought six minute once, although
I kind of doubt it, but he was a really
big guy.

Speaker 2 (31:47):
Yeah, I mean, it depends on the definite definition of fighting.
I would believe that he like a crowd of guys
were around him and he starts hitting, took took a
stick out and spun in a circle real fast the
way I think that's viable.

Speaker 1 (32:02):
Yeah, Or he got angry and he started beating on
some guys and they were like, well, that is literally
the sheriff, So we probably can't really fight back here.

Speaker 3 (32:10):
We're not allowed to kill him.

Speaker 1 (32:12):
His deputies have guns pointed at us. Maybe we just
take the beating. Perhaps that's likelier. That said, no one
doubts that Buford got into a lot of gunfights and
basically every other kind of fight under the sun. The
more recent allegations do suggest that he killed more than
two people, and probably not any of them in self

(32:33):
defense and what we would call self defense, and modern
evidence also suggests heavily that he personally profited from his
crime busting work, and maybe what he was doing was
less a one man more on crime than demanding protection
money and busting operations who wouldn't pay him. So this
next part of the Buford posters story is by far
the most debated. First, I'm going to give you the

(32:56):
story that almost definitely didn't happen. But this is what
everyone believed had happened for decades. Right. This is the
story that's like the basis for the climactic events of
the movie Walking Tall. Right. Okay, And according to that story,
despite Bufford being basically an unkillable law god Toehad, White decides,
I'm gonna take this guy down from murdering my girlfriend.

(33:17):
Luis right, that's the story that toe Head is just
He's trying to get vengeance for his dead lover. So
White who was known to the FBI as one of
the top hoods in the Southeast, which I think just
means top gangsters and not the other thing a hood
might mean in the rural South. He was furious and
still grieving over the loss of his lover in nineteen

(33:38):
sixty six, and he decides to get Buford assassinated. He
has strong connections to another Dixie Mafia figure, a guy
named Kirksey mcnord nicks junior. So toe Head White again
not a normal name in this episode.

Speaker 3 (33:53):
Kirksy mgnord nicks junior.

Speaker 1 (33:56):
Okay, Kirksey mcnord nicks junior. Yes, Kirksey. Now, the reason
why White needs Kirksy is that White is behind bars
at this point, he's gotten locked up for one of
his many crimes. While it, Nix is free and allegedly
the center of a gang of hitman and hired muscle.
So Nix is kind of like the guy in the

(34:16):
Dixie Mafia that you call if you need some wet
work done, right, he'll ice a motherfucker for you. So,
from prison, Toehead is alleged to have orchestrated an assassination attempt,
using Nix to do the on the groundwork Nixon his
hired goons, So we know that Nix visits the Shamrock
Hotel the day before. On August eleventh, the day before,

(34:37):
Sheriff Pusser receives a phone call from an anonymous caller
who tells him there's a couple of drunks going at
it out on the edge of town. Someone's gonna get killed.
So an anonymous caller calls the station and reports these
drunk guys are like fighting and the police need to
break it up otherwise someone's going to die, right, and
they give a location to Sheriff Pusser, who promises to
drive out and take care of it in the law

(35:00):
established by Pusser. After this point, his wife Pauline wasn't
just a good life partner. She was also moderately involved
in his business as sheriff and regularly rode along on
calls with him. This is what he claims that she
loved to go with him as he was fighting crime.
She was as write or die, and she decides at
the last minute, as he's heading out to bust up
this fight between these drunks, to come along with him.

(35:22):
So the couple hits the road a little after four
am on August twelfth, nineteen sixty seven. For a summary
of what happened next from an article on al dot com,
his wife, Pauline, a thirty three year old mother of three,
insisted on going with him, and they listened to an
eight track cassette. He said, we were discussing a vacation
we were planning to take to Florida the next day.
Beauford Pusser told The Tennessee in a nineteen sixty nine

(35:44):
after they passed New Hope Methodist Church, he claimed a
car pulled up alongside his Plymouth and someone inside fired
a thirty caliber carbine rifle into his vehicle. I knew
Pauline was hit. Pusser told the newspaper. I cradled Pauline's
headed my lap and prayed over and over again, Oh God,
don't let her die, he told the report. Or He
never returned fire from the shotgun or handgun by his side,
and instead drove several miles, waiting until he thought he

(36:06):
escaped the ambushers to pull over. He then claimed the
car again pulled up to his and someone fired at
him at point blank range. I felt my face getting
torn off, my head, Pusser said. My chin was hanging
on my chest. I don't see how I lived. So
that's the story he gives. And this is the story
that makes him famous. Right now. You might have noticed

(36:28):
there's a couple of sketchy things there, right, Yeah. First off,
the fact that he's describing, well, we got shot first
and my wife was hit, and then I drove and
I thought I had gotten away from them, and then
later they came up and shot me. Well, what are
you establishing that my injuries and my wife's injuries didn't
happen simultaneously, right right? And that there's multiple locations involved

(36:52):
in the shooting.

Speaker 2 (36:54):
And I get that he's a law man, but what
are you're stopping at lights? What do you mean that
caught up to you and shot you again when you
were a step and beautiful.

Speaker 3 (37:04):
Bleeding to death or whatever?

Speaker 1 (37:06):
Right, you didn't go straight to a hospital? Like what
was your plan there?

Speaker 2 (37:10):
Now?

Speaker 1 (37:11):
As far as the injuries Buford got, both he and
his wife were shot with a thirty caliber.

Speaker 2 (37:15):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (37:16):
I mean it's it's technically a rifle or a carbine, right,
And most of the articles will describe it as like
these is high velocity rounds. But in terms of ballistics,
a thirty caliber is not like a big bullet, right,
It's closer to like a nine millimeter handgun round than,
for example, like a five five six the round that
you is fired by an AR fifteen normally, right. And

(37:38):
I bring this up not for gun nerding purposes, but
because it explains how he could survive being shot in
the face, right, Because people often have that question when
they hear about this, is like, oh, well, how could
he how could he? Number one? How could he have
survived being shot in the face? And also how could
he have faked something as serious as being shot in
the face? Well, because he was shooting himself in a
place and with a bullet that was survived, right, Okay,

(38:01):
that's the reason I'm bringing that up.

Speaker 3 (38:03):
Now.

Speaker 1 (38:03):
The only parts of this initial story that have proven
accurate with time is that Pauline Poster was shot and
killed and Buford was shot but not killed, right like,
Those are the only two things that definitely happened. Everything
else about the story that Beauford told to authorities when
he was found and nursed back to health has been
shown to have been a lie. No one in law

(38:25):
enforcement seriously questioned the heroic sheriff's version of events. He
started to claim after he recovered that informants he had
inside the Dixie Mafia and the State Line Mob had
brought him word that Nix and White had orchestrated the shooting.
And they also these informants brought him the name of
like three other guys who had been the goons who
took part in the actual assassination attempt. Now, he never

(38:46):
provided any evidence of this, nor did he ever produce
an actual live informant who was willing to go on
the record. And this is the other really suspend thing
that should have been suspicious at the time. No charges
are ever filed in Pauline's murder against anyone, even though
the sheriff is saying, I have an informant telling me
it's these guys. No one ever pushes charges like nobody ever. Yeah, which,

(39:08):
oh that seems suspicious. You know, all of this should
have caused suspicion at the time, but it didn't, and
it didn't for a couple of interesting reasons. Now, the
reality of the story and what we're pretty sure at
this point happened, is that Buford Pusser murdered his own
wife and then covered up the murder by faking an

(39:30):
assassination attempt. He shot himself right after he shot and
killed his wife. Now, there were rumors that this had
happened immediately afterwards, right like that. It was kind of
I think people would whisper about in Adamsville right that, Like,
I don't know if I believe Buford's story. I don't
know if I think that like this is exactly what happened,
but it wasn't. The kind of thing like this was

(39:52):
always like a matter for either like local gossip or
independent investigators, And there were through the years, there's a
couple of independent investigators who got interested in the Buford
Puster myth. One of them published a book trying to
like basically arguing years before the most recent round of
investigations that Buford had probably murdered his wife. So there

(40:15):
were people pointing this out earlier, but it wasn't until
the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation agreed to reopen the case
in twenty twenty two that things started to really change publicly. Now,
the reopening of the cold case of Pauline's Puster's murder
was publicized, and once they started being articles out that like, oh,
they're looking into this famous assassination attempt. The TBI received

(40:38):
a tip about the murder weapon, which had been sold
years later and wound up in the hands of someone
who had tracked it back to its original owner and
was willing to give it over to the TBI. So
they look at the gun. They analyze the gun, and
they conclude, based on physical evidence from the crime scene,
that Pauline was likely shot and killed outside of the
vehicle and then placed inside after death and driven to

(41:00):
a second location where Pusser wounded himself and then radioed
for help. One investigator concluded, this appears to be a
domestic violence homicide rather than this notion that they were
ambushed in the middle of the night in the middle
of nowhere in nineteen sixty seven with no street lights.

Speaker 2 (41:15):
I mean, this forensic evidence is incredibly helpful, and broadly speaking,
I'm pretty pro innocent until proven guilty.

Speaker 3 (41:26):
If a wife dies and the town is saying.

Speaker 5 (41:29):
I bet the husband did it, I don't think history
like that generally, the town being lockstep in their suspicion,
it's like, yeah, he probably did that.

Speaker 1 (41:40):
Shit, I think I think old Buford killed his wife.

Speaker 2 (41:44):
Buford comes home with a dead wife and a scratch
out his face, and everyone's immediately like, oh shit, finally
did it.

Speaker 1 (41:51):
Yeah, well, what are you going to call out the
guy who murders people who annoy him, the man who
shot his grandpa with the twelve gage for a fun right?

Speaker 2 (42:00):
Nah, the mafia killed my wife, man, Sure, Sheriff, that's crazy.

Speaker 3 (42:05):
That sucks.

Speaker 1 (42:07):
Yeah, that definitely sounds real. Sheriff for sure.

Speaker 3 (42:11):
Also feels pretty case closed. Man, I'm not gonna ask
any questions.

Speaker 1 (42:14):
Yeah, yeah, I'm good, I'm good. Please just stay away
from my house. Look I got shot too, Nah, No, totally.

Speaker 3 (42:21):
Yeah, it's crazy that you got out of that alive.
That mafia must really hate you.

Speaker 1 (42:27):
Yeah. The mafia dead it, huh. So the case gets
reopened by the TBI in twenty twenty two, and then
in twenty twenty four they feel like they've got enough
evidence to justify exuming Pauline and actually doing like a
second autopsy, and upon re examining her body, they find
evidence of several serious injuries consistent with domestic violence, including

(42:49):
a pre death nasal fracture that had been in the
process of healing when she was killed. In other words,
Buford had broken his wife's nose days before actually murdering her.

Speaker 2 (42:57):
And you'll never guess, a week before the assassinate, the
mafia punched my wife.

Speaker 1 (43:02):
Yeah, it's crazy, right to our house and punched us
straight in the nose. Can you believe it? Classic mafia stuff. Now,
as we've talked about, there a couple of reasons why
there's not any like serious like at the professional like
like public level, no one really questions the story at first, right, yea.

(43:23):
And first off, the most obvious reason is that Buford
is so grievously wounded in the attack that people just
didn't think he could have inflicted the injuries on himself
based on and this is crucial his description of the
injuries he suffered. In the book Mississippi Moonshine Politics, Jenny's
Tracy describes him as having quote the lower half of
his face virtually shot off. Now, Janie is a good writer,

(43:48):
and this is a good book, but she's based that
line entirely off of Buford's testimony to police, which I
quoted earlier, right where he's like, I can't believe I survived.
My jaw was basically hanging onto my chest right now.
Beauford himself relied heavily on the supposed severity of his
own injury to explain away lingering questions about what happened
that night. In a nineteen sixty nine interview, he insisted,

(44:09):
I loved my wife. I'd have been pretty damn stupid
to blow my own jaw off. And it's here I
will remind you. Beauford Pusser was a pro wrestler. He
had made a living pretending to suffer serious injuries and
even faking injuries for the entertainment of a crowd. District
attorney Mark Davidson, who has been intimately involved with the
reexamination of the case, told al dot Com our theory

(44:32):
is he put a pistol inside his cheek and pulled
the trigger and created a flesh wound. And this would
have been easy for Buford because as a result of
his wrestling career, the left side of his face was
numb because he'd gotten seriously injured a number of it
resided that of the car accidents, but he didn't have
feeling in that side of his face that he shot himself.
And this is a pro tip for all of the

(44:53):
listeners out there, if you ever need to fake a
grievous injury, shooting through your own cheek creates a hitten
looking wound that is unlikely to kill you or even
all that seriously injure you. Right, Like, it's not nothing,
but like, if you've gotta if you've got a fake

(45:13):
an assassination attempt, shoot yourself in the cheek. That's all
I'm saying. Actually, I think they're pretty It's pretty easy
to tell when you've fired the bullet from inside of
your mouth. But you know, if you if you're in
a pinch, maybe try shooting yourself in the cheek.

Speaker 2 (45:27):
Or now, Evans, Evans, is it just to fake assassination attempts?
Or if I wanted to scare but not kill something,
or if your listener wanted to scare but not sure someone,
would you also recommend shooting your enemies in the cheek?

Speaker 1 (45:40):
Absolutely?

Speaker 3 (45:41):
You know.

Speaker 1 (45:41):
That is the official stance in this podcast of iHeartRadio, uh,
and of our sponsors, all of whom are very pro
shooting people in the cheek as a bit. And we're back. Yeah. Well, Sophie,

(46:02):
apparently we're allowed to say whatever we want about our
sponsors because it has not been a problem for us yet.

Speaker 3 (46:07):
That's awesome.

Speaker 1 (46:08):
Yeah, I would think. I think, I think it's good. Yeah,
I'm not sure if my desk is made of real wood.
I guess we'll see.

Speaker 2 (46:14):
I believe, I believe it is.

Speaker 4 (46:15):
I ordered it.

Speaker 1 (46:17):
Thank you, Sick.

Speaker 2 (46:18):
I feel like I got in trouble for loudly sighing
during one of our podcast reads that I'm contractually obligated
to do and then uh, they no longer came back
to us. Whatever that fucking dog food company that made
my dog eat crickets and get diarrhea.

Speaker 1 (46:36):
I think, oh, Chewi is it chewy?

Speaker 5 (46:39):
No?

Speaker 1 (46:39):
This was chew chew?

Speaker 2 (46:42):
Alright?

Speaker 3 (46:43):
Maye? I think may no, no, no, no, no, I'll think
of it. I'll think of it because I'm not allowed
to say it.

Speaker 1 (46:49):
I'm gonna pull a Buford pusser, you know, mave send
us some money if you want us to cut out
this part of the show where Dan accuses your food
of giving his dog diarrhea. You know, well, we're basically
holding up for protection money Jimminy's.

Speaker 2 (47:02):
It's Jimminy's dog for it's called Jimmy's.

Speaker 3 (47:06):
That doesn't sound if you want this, if you.

Speaker 1 (47:08):
Want this all cut out of the episode, Jimminy's, send
us some cash. You know, I can be bought.

Speaker 2 (47:13):
It's easy to remember because it's it's called Jimney's because
the food is made of cricket meat.

Speaker 1 (47:17):
Yeah, yeah, that's what I was gonna say. I've heard
good things about me, Yeah, no, May is good.

Speaker 3 (47:23):
Jimminy's is the one I'm not allowed to say on
our podcast anymore.

Speaker 1 (47:26):
Well, I will say all of them are good or bad,
depending on who pays me money. You know, that's my promise.
You know what I have to say to Jimminy's. Everybody
just like what about it?

Speaker 4 (47:36):
Like a nice group sigh, just like a Jimmy's.

Speaker 1 (47:43):
So, speaking of eating crickets, Beauford Poster probably not eating
crickets for a while after he shoots himself in the face,
but otherwise he's more or less okay, right, And I
think it's interesting and this is something the DA Davidson,
just attorney Mark Davidson, who's one of the guys who's
been doing this like reopen the cold case, specifically points

(48:05):
to his wrestling career as like, well, look, this is
a guy with experience selling a fake injury to a
crowd like this is exactly in his wheelhouse quote. It
was not the debilitating wound many seemed to believe it was.
It healed up pretty well. People say he got his
face blowed off. Nobody believes he did that to himself.
That's not accurate. So he just didn't have that serious

(48:27):
an injury, and he lied about it a lot. He
and the media was like, well, it looks like he
got hit in the face. Sounds serious to me, you know,
and just kind of reported what he was saying as
if it was the truth. And that's how the legend grew,
which is great. So this all brings the question, why
would Buford Pusster murder his wife? Now, yeah, right, you

(48:50):
do want to ask that, right, motive matters. Unfortunately, I
don't think we're ever going to get a perfect satisfying
answer because of how long ago this was and how
dead basically everyone involved was there are And you know
I talked earlier there was that that this guy Mike
Elam who was a former Benton County sheriff who started

(49:11):
his career in law enforcement as like a huge fan
of Buford Pusser, and then basically through trying to like
recreate the crime scene, like traveling to where the crimes
that he started to notice inconsistencies with Buford's story and
what had happened. And he's he's one of these guys.
He writes a book about it. He self publishes a
book in like two thousand and four about it. So
he's one of the early guys trying to make noise

(49:32):
about how what a froud this dude was.

Speaker 3 (49:35):
Yeah, and puss Truther, an early.

Speaker 1 (49:38):
Pusser Truther, right, Yeah, Yeah, he's I'm trying to find
a way to bring Dickie back into it, but it
didn't work. But yeah, he's a he's a Pusser Truther.
And uh, based on his research, one possibility as to
why Pusser had his wife murdered. Is that he was
just a garden of a variety abusive spouse, right and
maybe and also he's a giant, so he's huge and

(50:01):
very strong, and he gets drunk one night and he
kills his wife by accident, or he kills his wife
in a moment of passion and then has to fake
the assassination attempt, right, like it's a thing he has
to come up with, kind of suddenly, that's possible, Elam.
Elam's personal theory is that Buford was actually involved himself

(50:21):
in the illegal moonshine trade, and as I've mused earlier
in these episodes, was probably taking cuts of a number
of different illegal businesses going on in the county. And
Elam thinks Buford had Pauline murdered because she knew what
he was up to, and maybe they had a fight
and she threatened to tell everyone, right, Like, it's kind
of unclear, or maybe she wasn't initially aware and became

(50:44):
aware and then he had to do it. We don't
really know. Per an article in the Nashew, tennesseean quote,
Elam says he believes Bufford Pusser killed her to prevent
her from speaking to authorities.

Speaker 3 (50:53):
Quote.

Speaker 1 (50:53):
If he Buford Pusser took someone's life to keep his secret,
what kind of hero was he? Elam said, And I
think the answer is not a hero at all, but
maybe a generational talent itself. Branding. He's very good at that.
And probably what happens is this, he has to come
up with this fake assassination attempt kind of quickly because

(51:14):
he's killed his wife. But once people buy that, he
has to lean into this larger than life hero figure,
and he just keeps kind of upping the ante on
the stories he's telling because, in part, continuing to get
away with it means continuing to sell people on the
belief that he is the guy he's claiming to be right,
this larger than life hero who's survived all these impossible

(51:37):
brushes with death. And if he makes this calculation right,
it pays off perfectly. And the wake of the murder,
Buford Pusser's story spread across the country about as fast
as a story could spread in those pre internet days.
Countless news articles celebrated the sheriff as the ideal lawman,
tough as nails and willing to fight crime even if
he had, even if he had to break the rules
to do it. Beauford was smart enough to know that

(51:58):
he had to sell what he does by acting as
a greeting husband, and so he vowed public vengeance against
the men he had accused of the assassination attempt. Carl
tow Head White was shot dead the next year, and
rumor had it that Pusser had hired an assassin to
do the job. Two other men he accused of partaking
in the murder, George McGann and Gary McDaniel, were shot
dead in Texas the next year. Nix goes to prison

(52:21):
at this point, so he doesn't get assassinated. But the
fact that these three guys who he has publicly named
but not charged with any crime, die in very quick succession,
a lot of people suspect maybe he orchestrated these deaths. Right, Yeah,
maybe he had these guys killed. And it's it's a
sign of like where things are culturally and how much rope,

(52:45):
how much slack we're willing to give cops in this
country that the average assumption of like a normal person
in Tennessee is like, well, he definitely had three guys murdered,
But it's fine, they killed his wife, so like, I
get it. You know, that's cool. You know, sometimes you
got to break the law to uphold the law. Why
couldn't he have these guys arrested. I don't know, but

(53:07):
it's fine.

Speaker 2 (53:09):
Yeah, that's actually a surprising to me if he's going
to if we're okay with him bending the law, which
it seems like we are, I don't know why he
would hire an assassin and why he wouldn't kill those
guys himself. Like, if people are going, we don't know,
accept the fact that he hired assassines.

Speaker 3 (53:29):
Yeah, and he's gonna steer.

Speaker 2 (53:32):
Into this image of the reckless above the law man.
I don't know why it's against the rules for him
to like kill kill them himself, no head white himself.

Speaker 3 (53:43):
I don't know. I may not not to give him ideas.

Speaker 1 (53:46):
Yeah, but that is that is like, and it's did
he have something? Did he kill some of these guys himself?
Did he hire people to like? We don't really And
it's also possible, I think unlikely but not impossible, just
given these guys are all criminals who are in a
violent business. Maybe they just happened to most to three
of them died in a year or so after this crime.

(54:08):
Not the most shocking thing in the world, right.

Speaker 2 (54:10):
The only stable things that I feel like we can
say is that he did him that sick child proof
teddy bear, and he definitely killed his wife. Those are
the ones that I feel most comfortable.

Speaker 1 (54:24):
Yeah. So I've quoted several times from the book Mississippi
Moonshine Politics by Janis Tracy because it's a good book
in general about a lot of characters at the edge
of this story. But Tracy bought into Buford's lie, and
I think that it's useful. The way she did is
useful because it does kind of explain how people thought,

(54:45):
like why people bought into this at the time. And
this is how Janis explains why none of the people
that he charged, that he named as having tried to
kill him and killing his wife actually got charged with crimes.
Quote this suited Pusser. However, he preferred a more personal revenge.
And that is like the official story that people buy
is that like, yeah, he didn't have him charged because

(55:07):
he wanted to have a murdered personally, Like he wanted
to do this personally, And we're okay with that. Out
of our lawmen and tennessee this is fine.

Speaker 3 (55:14):
We like that. We like that.

Speaker 1 (55:16):
In America, this guy's a hero. And that's the most
interesting thing about the story to me. There was always
evidence that Buford was suss and a fraud, but Americans
in and outside of law enforcement were happy to ignore
it because the story version of buford poster was so
good and it matched exactly with the kind of tale
that Hollywood had primed audiences to expect.

Speaker 3 (55:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (55:37):
In nineteen seventy one, W. R. Morris wrote a book
about Buford titled The twelfth of August, which is the
day that he and his wife were targeted by that
quote unquote assassination attempt. This is the book that was
ultimately adapted into nineteen seventy three's Walking Tall, which became
a surprise hit and rocketed Buford to the level of
a national celebrity. The studio sent him on a tour

(55:58):
around the country and Europe to do promotional work for
the film. He starts making celebrity friends. He's publicly buddies
with Johnny Cash. There's a fucking uh, what's his name,
the Margheritaville guy. Uh. Jimmy Buffett writes a song about
him and has a story about Buford like basically assaulting
him and his friends. So he gets famous, and in

(56:21):
fact he becomes such a public figure in his own
right that after the smash surprise success of the movie
Walking Tall, the production company Bing Crosby Productions, decides to
make a sequel and they ask Buford to play himself.
They're trying to do an Audie Murphy with him, right,
and the new movie would just be titled Buford and

(56:41):
would be based entirely, presumably on his exploits as a
grief stricken sheriff out to murder the criminals who killed
his wife. It's a shame we never got to see
this movie because I am really curious what direction would
they have gone vis a vis all of the murders,
you know. Right as his fame sets off, Bufford's takes

(57:02):
questions from fans, including one who asked him how people
in his home county treated him after he became famous.
And the answer he gave to the newspaper in this
when he's doing this Q and a is really interesting
to me. I'd say about eighty percent of the people
in McNairy County are proud of me at least they
say they are. But there's a handful that never liked
me and still don't. They resisted every step of my
campaign to clean up the corruption, and they have nothing

(57:23):
good to say about me. Now, it's not that these
people like crooks, it's that I think they consider me
too big for my breeches. There's one man in the
county I won't mention names who's always bad mouth in me.
One of the reasons for that, I think is because
when I was sheriff, I was always after him for
passing bad checks. But that's life. No matter what you do,
you can never make friends with everybody.

Speaker 2 (57:41):
Man, that guy's fucking dead.

Speaker 1 (57:45):
Beat him to death with a stick. Now it's hard
for me to say how much of McNairy County thought
this guy was legitimately a hero and how many people
were aware like, nah, there's something fucked up at the
center of that story. I did find an art article
in al dot Com that notes quote Davidson said during
the investigation he often heard from those who believed Pusser

(58:06):
murdered Pauline and wanted him to tell the truth. In
McNairy County, especially, everybody knew that's what happened. Nobody ever
believed the Walking Tall story. They knew he was a
bad guy, and you know, Davidson's the DA who's digging
up and reopening the case. I don't know if that's
totally accurate or totally accurate to how people would have
felt back in the seventies, but will I have founded

(58:27):
a couple of other quotes to that extent that basically like, yeah,
in his hometown, people kind of knew, but also he's
kind of the biggest thing that ever happened in this county, right,
So at the same time, you have to embrace it
because you don't have there's not any other reason people
are heading to mcnery for tourism, right, which is why
the water tower in Adamsville has a silhouette of Buford

(58:49):
with his trademark big stick. There's a museum for him,
and of course the town Historical Society of the county
Historical Society's largely dedicated to him, right, Like it's Walking
Tall and Walking Tall related tourism are still kind of
two of the bigger things in that county.

Speaker 2 (59:03):
Yeah, of course, yeah, I mean yeah, people will add
twenty miles onto a road trip to see a giant chair.
Just to imagine what we'll do for a big, fucking
massive mountain.

Speaker 1 (59:13):
People with a stick in this county, Let's go see
the water tower. Right, Beuford spent the rest of his
life dining out on the lie that he told to
cover up for murdering his wife. He spent his last
year's jet setting around the world and making a lot
of money. When he died, he was worth an estimated
one million dollars, which is a lot more money back then,
and more money than a guy who was briefly sheriff

(59:35):
for six years would have accumulated. Honestly. Right, He did
fail to win reelection in nineteen seventy, which is interesting
to me, so that is kind of more evidence for
thee Local people knew this guy was full of shit,
but that was before Walking Tall came out. So who
knows how his law enforcement career would have gone if
he'd tried to run for election after becoming a celebrity.

(59:58):
Had he lived longer, he also might have slipped up
or behaved in such a way as to draw more
attention back to that alleged assassination attempt. I have trouble
imagining this guy living a lot longer and not killing
someone else, but he doesn't get the chance at the
height of his fame. Right after siin a in agreement
to play himself. In the sequel to Walking Tall, he's
driving back from Memphis to Adamsville and he crashes his

(01:00:20):
sports car and dies on August twenty first, nineteen seventy four.
He's in his like mid thirties, and that's the Buford
Pusser story.

Speaker 3 (01:00:29):
Man crashing his sports car.

Speaker 2 (01:00:32):
What a wo awesome way for murderer to die.

Speaker 1 (01:00:38):
It is very appropriate for this guy, being the kind
of dude he is. That's like, yeap sports car crash
right at the end. Yeah, that's that's how this story ends.

Speaker 2 (01:00:46):
Yeah, that's so lame. The fucking fake grieving sheriff who's
on his way to Hollywood and buys a sports car
and then he dies and the entire town is.

Speaker 1 (01:00:55):
Like, honestly, dodge there, that's the best.

Speaker 2 (01:01:00):
What about cool?

Speaker 4 (01:01:01):
If he got killed by a big stick?

Speaker 3 (01:01:04):
Yes, yes, impaled by a stick?

Speaker 1 (01:01:06):
I mean maybe he did. Maybe he crashed into a tree, Sophie,
that's my head. Cannon impaled by a stick after crashing
his car into a tree.

Speaker 2 (01:01:14):
Or like the the cane of that sickly bear all
grown up.

Speaker 3 (01:01:19):
M just glad that this guy's dead.

Speaker 1 (01:01:23):
Yeah, yeah, Yeah. That's the good part is he does die,
and he does die very early.

Speaker 3 (01:01:28):
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:01:29):
There are a couple of things that are I mean,
there's a lot of tragedy in this story. The fact
that he for sure murdered his wife enough that like
everyone was talking about it, and his daughter still becomes
his biggest evangelist.

Speaker 3 (01:01:44):
That's an added layer of tragedy. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:01:47):
Like like when I in the beginning in the first episode,
when I kind of understood her hero worship, because you
if you have the opportunity to write Dad's story and
you want to embellish a bit and like take all
of his tall tales as gospel, there's something endearing about that.

Speaker 3 (01:02:08):
But she must have also known the many.

Speaker 2 (01:02:12):
Rumors in the open secret that he for sure murdered
her mother, yeah, and decided to ignore that or not
buy into it.

Speaker 3 (01:02:20):
And that's like there's I.

Speaker 2 (01:02:23):
Don't know, maybe that's stockholm or brainwashing or whatever else,
but that like that makes it much less endearing and
charming and more tragic for her in my mind.

Speaker 1 (01:02:34):
I would agree. And there's also I mean, there's also
the darker question of like I mean or was this
an act for her too, and was she just like, look,
there's a lot of money in being Buford Puster's family.
That walking tall money keeps coming in. You know, I
don't know. I think that's probably less likely than just
this is a daughter who hero worshiped her dad who

(01:02:54):
died very early. But yeah, it is it. It did
give me a lot of fun detail on growing up
in the fifties, which sounded like a fucking nightmare.

Speaker 3 (01:03:06):
So easy to do crime, but so easy.

Speaker 1 (01:03:08):
So much more dangerous.

Speaker 4 (01:03:10):
Yeah, especially if you were a cop.

Speaker 1 (01:03:13):
Especially if you were a cop.

Speaker 2 (01:03:14):
So, oh my god, if you want to do crime
then and now, Yeah, cop is the way to.

Speaker 1 (01:03:19):
Being a cop. Number one. You can get away with
prank shooting your grandpa with a shotgun if you're a cop, apparently,
So yeah, it's great.

Speaker 2 (01:03:27):
It's great training for for for really pranking your wife
somewhere down the line.

Speaker 1 (01:03:32):
Yeah, oh he sure got Pauline.

Speaker 3 (01:03:34):
Good.

Speaker 1 (01:03:34):
She didn't see that coming at all. Prank the whole town.
Classic Buford Pusser prank, murdering his wife and staging it
as an assassination attempt by the mob, like That's the
funny thing. I came in here with a lot more
detail on these different like organized criminal groups, and then
as I the more researcher did them, more was like, Oh,
these guys barely did anything to it. Like maybe they

(01:03:58):
had him stabbed, maybe he got some fights, but he
could have faked a lot more of that, Like, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:04:03):
This mafia was running four successful businesses and maybe were
cutting corners. Well, they had to pay off the cops.
They needed to cover all those financial losses.

Speaker 1 (01:04:15):
Yeah, so I don't know. There's a fun quote from
the DA that Davidson that I've quoted from a few
times where he's like, I don't know, we probably won't
reinvestigate every shooting he was involved in, but you could
like maybe we should.

Speaker 2 (01:04:32):
We're not going to reopen it because like at this point, Yeah,
what do you think, what's it gonna be?

Speaker 3 (01:04:37):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:04:37):
What are we gonna get out of reopening it? Like
clearing the name of Louise Halfcock, the gangster who also
murdered people. I don't know, Dan got anything to plug
here at the end of the episode, how are you feeling?

Speaker 3 (01:04:52):
I feel good.

Speaker 2 (01:04:53):
I liked the story, so it's uh, you know, murderers.
Bad hold for applause, But I like those bastards more
than like endangering children bastards and like creating systemic wrongs
that still plague our society today. So I appreciate that

(01:05:18):
it was like kind of a standalone bastard.

Speaker 3 (01:05:20):
That's pretty fun.

Speaker 2 (01:05:21):
Yeah, thanks, thanks for giving me that. Otherwise pluggables, I
ride for Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. You could
find that on HBO Max The One to Watch, or
on YouTube.

Speaker 3 (01:05:33):
We release our episodes there. Podcast that I do is
Quick Question.

Speaker 2 (01:05:37):
We answer rider questions and talk about bullshit, and you
can find me on Blue Sky.

Speaker 3 (01:05:44):
It's probably Daniel O'Brien on Blue Sky. I'm not really sure. Yeah,
I hate to ask you to google it, but give up.

Speaker 1 (01:05:52):
But yeah, well everybody, this has been behind the bastards.
Please check out Dance podcast, Quick Question and Last Week
Tonight and more than anything, you know, go shoot your
grandfather with a shotgun if he's in the app Okay, no,
we don't. We shouldn't do that. Can't do that. Don't
shoot anybody.

Speaker 4 (01:06:11):
To take advice from Robert Evans.

Speaker 1 (01:06:14):
Don't do pranks? Can we Maybe we could just come
down on that bad idea ranks, prank's bad, and this
is like really funny.

Speaker 3 (01:06:22):
Yeah yeah, yeah obviously.

Speaker 4 (01:06:28):
Behind the Bastards is a production of cool Zone Media.
For more from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool
Zonemedia dot com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Behind the
Bastards is now available on YouTube, new episodes every Wednesday
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(01:06:49):
at Behind the Bastards