Shocking Forensic Twist: Inside the Reopened Pauline Pusser Murder Case (Part 2)

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Tonight we have Mike Elam y'all know him. He's the
author of Bewford Pusser, the other story. He's been with us,
and tonight we are going to really talk about some
evidence that some of you may have heard, most of
you have not. We also have Jason White, another Zone

(00:28):
seven alum. Y'all know him from the first forty eight
out of Oklahoma and his podcast. And then we have
Dennis Hathcock. Now Dennis has never been with us before,
but I have been able to walk the scene, not
only with Mike but also with Dennis. Dennis was a

(00:49):
witness to some of the activity before the ambush and after.
Then we have Danny Couples. Y'all know Danny emt from
that from the surrounding area, and he has got some
information even about a family member and ironically he found
out that he was related to Dennis. There has been

(01:14):
a break in the unsolved murder of Pauline Pusser, wife
of legendary Sheriff Beauford Pusser from the Walk and Tall Fame.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
What's really bizarre about this entire case to me is
the fact that they never did an autopsy on Pauline.
And you would think that a case of this magnitude,
I don't care what decade it's in, that they would
have actually done some sort of an examination of her.
They had a corner system there.

Speaker 3 (01:44):
I believe they also had a medical examiner at that
time as well.

Speaker 2 (01:49):
Yeah, so the fact that they didn't do that, I
would be interested to know. You would think that Buford
would have demanded it, you know, and it doesn't. It
doesn't sound like that was the case. I'm just I
think we're really fortunate that she was not cremated. Actually,
that was.

Speaker 3 (02:06):
One of the things that was very suspicious to me that,
for instance, when Sheriff Pesser had killed Louise Hathcock, Dennis's
aunt they're at the Shamrock. Of course they called a
Kelly Hacker in the movie, but they did an autopsy
on her which came out in a very suspicious manner,

(02:30):
with very suspicious results. But yet eighteen months later, they
for some reason didn't do one on a sheriff's wife.
I mean that really caught your attention.

Speaker 1 (02:43):
Well, that's one thing I was going to ask you, Jason,
because you know the full court press that happens when
an officer is killed in the line of duty. But
can you imagine the sheriff's wife. You would have never
gone home, You wouldn't have gone to sleep.

Speaker 2 (02:59):
Now, this would have been all hands on deck. And
I'm not just in the not just in the Tennessee area.
I'm guessing that you would have had people that would
have been bending over backwards from Mississippi, UH volunteering about
to come up there, and they wouldn't have stopped until
they found the people responsible for this. And that's you know,

(03:20):
I you know, that's that's gonna happen, ladies and gentlemen.
That's that's that's a given. So I just didn't see
that sense of urgency at least, you know, I haven't
seen that from from any of the interviews or anything
along those lines, where you know, after the the aftermath,
you know, you don't really see him searching under every

(03:41):
you know, every possible avenue for the killer of his wife.
So I find that a little bit strange.

Speaker 1 (03:48):
Jason. This is a man that took a stick in
town and was gonna bust heads over a steel. I mean,
if you're going to do that type of damage over
moonshine when it comes to your wife, somebody is going
to go to prison, somebody might die in the street.

(04:10):
But that's the part that shocked me. So when you
hear these stories that he was on the take, that
he had already shot and killed other people, that he
was a violent person, the way he ruled that town,
and then when it came to his wife, nobody's ever arrested,
nobody's ever put up against a wall, nobody's ever beat

(04:31):
till they gave a confession.

Speaker 3 (04:32):
Cheryl, I might add that, you know, Youwford claimed that
he was getting all these death threats and all these
things that were happening to him in McNairy County, but
yet all the surrounding counties basically had the same issues
and same problems as he did. But nobody else was
going through all that, nobody else was being threatened the

(04:54):
way he.

Speaker 1 (04:54):
Was, right, people trying to stab him, people trying to
shoot him, or did shoot him. I mean, it just
seems unusual, doesn't it.

Speaker 3 (05:03):
And it was one of those things where you get
to looking at that, and that was very suspicious as well.
Why was it just him? Why was he the only
law enforcement officer anywhere around, including in his own department.

Speaker 1 (05:17):
I mean, his daddy worked at that department. He was fine.
I mean, that's just really unusual to me.

Speaker 3 (05:25):
There's a lot of things in this file that we're
all about to see that's going to really enlighten a
lot of people. I know that just from reviewing the
parts of it that I have just seen in the
last couple of days. As a matter of fact, I
haven't had a chance to look at it before this afternoon.

(05:46):
And while we were sitting here and Dennis was talking,
I was over here highlighting some of the things about
the ambush is Youford described it, and seeing a lot
of discrepant and what he would tell investigators as opposed
to what he would later tell the media. And it

(06:08):
was like, the man has always been building his own
legend from day one, and that's where he turned this
to ambush into you know, I thought that Gewford was
the greatest thing since pockets on shirts, sliced bread and
other things, and you know so much Snow I wanted
to learn more about the man, and all that taught

(06:31):
me was you don't ever research your heroes, because you're
going to find some a lot of things that you
weren't expecting and things that just changed your whole thought
process about the individual.

Speaker 1 (06:47):
Dennis, I'm gonna tell you something. If I had been
sixteen with you and the idea that we would have
been able to stalk that sheriff and see what was
going on in that town, Honey, I would have been
in that car or that motus with you, hanging on,
having the time of my life.

Speaker 4 (07:02):
Well, that's what I thought.

Speaker 1 (07:04):
You would have been lucked, honey. I would have been
on the back of your minorcycle. Come on, now, Oh
my gosh, So Jason, in a situation like this, you
got to check all traps, that's what we call it, y'all,
and you got to connect all these dots. And in
this case, you would have local moonshiners that might have

(07:25):
a grudge against the sheriff. You got Dixie mafia that
you know wanted him dead. You had the Halfcock family
that was wanting to take him out, and you had
the sheriff that was on the take. So other people
that maybe even on your radar, would have wanted to
get rid of him. When you watched the press conference

(07:45):
and you're literally watching them take down a legend, what
was going through your mind as a detective.

Speaker 2 (07:53):
Well, first and foremost, what was going through my mind
was that I was My personal take on this is
I was extremely impressed with the Attorney General and with
the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation for number one, taking this
case serious. This is not an easy case by any stretch.

(08:16):
We're talking about a case from nineteen sixty seven. I
have no doubt that there's witnesses along the lines that
maybe not eyewitnesses to the actual event, but witnesses along
the way that have since died, people that would have
been great to talk to if you would have been
able to. There's no doubt that you have some of
these witnesses that probably still to this day won't speak

(08:38):
on it. And one of the things that Dennis brings
up to me that brings a lot of credibility is
the fact that that is exactly what a sixteen year
old kid is going to be out doing in a
town that there's nothing else to do in. I don't
see an adult doing that and following the sheriff to
see what he's up to, but a kid. That's credible
to me. And so when I was watching that press conference,

(09:01):
and there's a lot of people that have commented since
this this thing has came out more so on the
positive side actually in support of what the what their
conclusion was. But there are those that have actually, you know,
they're like, what's the point everybody that's involved in this
case is dead. Well, the point is Pauline. And that's
probably the most disappointing thing when you do get some

(09:22):
of the naysayers that are that are you know, they
continue to comment about this and that they just never
mentioned Pauline or how about let's get into the truth.
I mean, there really is no statute of limitations on murder.
And either way, Pauline's family deserves the truth, as does
Bufford's as to what's going on there. I mean, everybody

(09:42):
deserves to know what's up.

Speaker 1 (09:43):
Yeah, her brother, I mean he's in his eighties. It's
way past time for him to know.

Speaker 3 (09:50):
The truth it is.

Speaker 2 (09:51):
And I just think I just think that there's some
things that I was a little There was one thing
that they didn't talk about that they kind of just
diverted you to to wait for the reports to come out,
and that was whether or not the gun was a
match the cartridge casings. I'm going to assume that there's
cartridge casings out along the roadway or somewhere, and and

(10:12):
so I would think that that would be a relatively
easy question to answer. It's either you know, I, me
and Mike have talked before, and I told Michael a
long time ago, I said, by them not coming out
with a press conference in about an hour after testing
that gun to say that it's not the gun, that's
pretty telling to me that they're that you know that

(10:32):
they're believing that this gun is going to be involved.
And then of course, Cheryl, we all know that that
led to the exhumation, and and but anyway, I just
to answer your question in a very short way is
I was impressed with the fact that they're being transparent.
And I think that another thing that bears mentioning is
the fact that they this is the second time in

(10:53):
history that TBI is actually completely I don't know what
the first case was, but this is the second time
that they're gonna They're going to be completely transparent with
all of the records, with the exception of some minor reactions.
And in saying that, I have no doubt that they're
wanting to be transparent because they already know that people
are going to question how they got to this conclusion.

(11:16):
And I think that that's really a brilliant move on
their part to allow people to be able to see
exactly what they're talking about.

Speaker 3 (11:24):
To me, regardless if the gun is a perfect match
or not. That kind of inspired them to take a
look at other things. Other witnesses that, you know, we
brought forward people that had never had a statement taken.
They were able to share things that they knew about

(11:46):
it because over these years, you know, there's been a
lot of people stayed quiet about what they were aware of.
And it's not like anyone knew the whole story. Each
person that I had visited with they just had a
small piece of it, and it was kind of like
putting a puzzle together and after a while, the full

(12:09):
picture begins to form. And so that was what I
felt like was so important. I don't know if that
gun was a perfect match, but I do know that
that's what kicked it off, and that's what got the
TBI to look into all these other issues. And when
they did, I mean, it became pretty clear to them

(12:31):
what was happening. And I'm sure that they've wondered how
this got swept under the rug, if you will, prior
to this, but you know, back then, it was a
different time. Standards for law enforcement were very much different
than they are today. The current sheriff over there and

(12:53):
I kind of halfway teas and were serious but saying
things that they did back then that were just considered
standard of the day. An officer would be arrested for
those things these days.

Speaker 1 (13:08):
Sure, Look, there was only two camps in that town,
the people that worshiped him and the people that were
scared of death of him. So when this went down,
they either believed him or were never going to say nothing.

Speaker 3 (13:20):
Well, and the reason a lot of these people I
don't believe came forward is either because you know, you've
had something on them and or they had a fear
of him, and sometimes probably both.

Speaker 1 (13:42):
So Danny, let's talk about the autopsy. So you have
to live in Tennessee to get it, I believe, But
tell me your thoughts about what you think it's going
to reveal.

Speaker 5 (13:52):
I've read it a couple of times, and a lot
of people that read it outside the medical knowledge or
the law of the medical terms doesn't really understand some
of the things. But what's very clear is for one thing,
I want to say this, and this is my opinion,
and my opinion only. It's nothing against TBI and their investigation.

(14:17):
I feel they got it wrong about where she was shot.
And that's just my opinion from me examining the evidence
that I've seen. I feel like they got it wrong.
The outcome came out good, but here's why. The autopsy
report says that she has They called it, you know,

(14:40):
we don't like to call moons entrance or exits, but
they say that they they assume that there is an
entrance won to the back of her head four inches
from the top of her head, just left of center,
which will be in there, simple little lobe if her

(15:02):
head is facing to me, if her head is facing
towards that car door and leaning against the door, her forehead,
you remember that BOYD spot just kind of threw that
in there, left from centered occipital region and it exited,

(15:22):
as they say in the report, her right temporal and
front lobe, which again direction if someone was in the
car and shooting, it would go. And then to me,
that part of her head that would have come off
would have been what Dennis found or he discovered on

(15:46):
the scene. And I've read through that many many times,
and I think they did the lab work. Onlything that
was in her system was catheine that they saw. They
saw some they called it healing wounds to her nasal
area like maybe someone that she was hit in the nose,

(16:10):
and some fractures in that area as well. But they
also say they found bullet fragments inside her skull, which
a lot of her skull was gone. It had packing, cotton, packing,
and plaster. I think they said to fill that area

(16:31):
so that she could be visualized at the funeral home.
I'm trying to think of something else that was really
big in there, but they don't. They can't be conclusive
if she was shot more than once. They do know
for a fact that they can say she was shot
at least once.

Speaker 1 (16:52):
Well, the hood of the car, Mike, was real significant
to me and Jason and Danny, and I'm sure Dennis,
but I haven't spoken to Dennis specifically about it. But
you cannot see that blood spatter on the hood of
that car and then hear him say we never got
out of the car. Well, somebody was shot in the

(17:14):
front of that vehicle.

Speaker 3 (17:16):
It's one of those issues where one of the things
that I've looked at and I haven't been able to
verify or confirm in anyway was that. You know, Pauline
and Beauford for different blood types, So you know it's
if that is correct. It makes you wonder whose blood

(17:39):
that is out there on the hood.

Speaker 1 (17:41):
Yeah, if they swabbed it, then they would know because
the blood is going toward the windshield. There's no doubt
about it.

Speaker 3 (17:48):
You know, Like we've discussed on previous podcasts. You know
that blood when it hit that flat surface, it has
a tail that points in the direction the projectile was going.
And they seem to think that someone was shot in
front of the car. Obviously that happened. But the real

(18:10):
question that I've still gotten. We'll know more about that,
hopefully when we see the full report. It's which one
of them it was? Was it Beaufort, was it Pauline.
That's going to be a big tail right there.

Speaker 1 (18:24):
I think, well, I'm going to make a prediction, and
I'm going to make it based on that blood. So
you're talking about somebody that said they ran that car
eighty ninety miles an hour all over town looking for
the blue Cadillac, right, that engine would have been hot.
When you've got blood, which is a liquid and something hot.

(18:46):
It will change the way that blood looks, it'll change
the shape. Some of those tails are intact. So there's
two things that should have been happening. If he was
somehow out of the car and got shot and then
was driving all over creation, those tails would have been wider,

(19:10):
if not completely out of shape because of the heat
and the wind. So it looks to me and this
is why I think he did the self inflicting wound
in front of that car, embraced himself, and that's why
the bullet hole is low, and you've got high velocity

(19:31):
spatter that is still in shape and intact.

Speaker 5 (19:35):
I know you know as well that Jason and I
went through a bloodstained pattern analysis class. If you look
at that those blood stains on the hood of that car,
and Jason, you remember stringing our stringing exercise, you can
actually tell where that blood, the actual heights of where

(19:56):
that blood came from, if they can, if they can
study that, I don't remember what they had to do.
It really had to do that, because I've never strained
a seen But you can actually do that now and
see how maybe how high the bullets or the blood

(20:17):
was coming from whoever it came from if it could
be that could be a tail tale to say, well,
if it's six foot high, well that's a pretty good
idea that it didn't come from Pauline, you could have
come from Buford.

Speaker 3 (20:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (20:32):
Well, the other thing that's important to mention too, is
that based on Buford's account, this whole thing happened inside
of the car. They were struck inside the car. It
might correct me if I'm wrong. So, therefore that blood
is and we all agree on this, there's no way
in the world that that blood has that type of Uh,
you're not going to have that coming through that bullet hole.
And there's not even any blood coming through the bullet hole,

(20:53):
I mean, you know at all, So, uh, you're not
seeing any blood stains of blood traveling. You're just not
going to have that pass up on the hood period.
And so and and then the other thing that that
jumps out to me, Cheryl, and I've never really talked
to you about this, but the one thing that you know,
if she's laying in this car and he's and he's
flying through the city trying to find the perpetrator, and

(21:16):
she's laying up against that door panel, you're going to
have momentum. And and if you look at the blood,
that's kind of you can see the void where her
head probably was laying. But but you see the lines,
they're pretty much vertical. You know, you don't have a
lot of movement. He's around, no, not at all. And
and I think that's that's pretty telling as well. Those

(21:40):
are the things that I can guarantee you that if
I was if we were flies on the wall at TBI,
I guarantee you there was a room full of people
going why wasn't this looked at? And why wasn't that
look that looked at? And why are we even here
at this point? And this wasn't handled back in the day,
And that's uh, that's interesting. But that I think the

(22:02):
blood on that hood is key here.

Speaker 3 (22:04):
The question I have for you, for you guys that
know about all this, is that the hood of that
car obviously would have been hot, but still it's going
to take that blood for just a bit too dry,
I would think. And of course on the inside panel
of that door, there doesn't appear to be any big

(22:25):
motion at least to me. And wouldn't that suggest that
possibly that less it was Buford that was out there
that shot himself, like the TBI suggested that, you know
he did. Indeed, his wound was indeed self inflicted. Well,
let's let's just imagine that it was him out there.

(22:49):
He gets in the car and he has to sit
there for a little while and regain his composure. Because
while that was pretty serious wound, So it's not like
I think he'd just get in the car and take
off driving. So wouldn't that have a lot to do
with the fact that there was no motion in a

(23:11):
lot of this.

Speaker 1 (23:13):
Well, that's what I was implying that to me, that
period of time where he says the ambush happens around
four o'clock, but he doesn't call for help till six o'clock.
He is sitting somewhere trying to plan this out. What
am I going to do? What am I going to
come up with? Pauline's already dead, so now he's got

(23:33):
to come up with some type of plan that is
going to satisfy not just his officers, but other officers,
the district attorney, you know, and the community at large.
So I think that's when it cools down. I believe
he braced himself and shot himself in the front of
that car.

Speaker 3 (23:54):
That's exactly what I'm getting too, is that if it
was him that standing out there, I doubt he was
standing up straight. He probably leaned over on that hood
to brace himself.

Speaker 1 (24:07):
Yeah, he braced himself. And that's why the bullet hole.
You can see it plain as Dallas. It goes right.
I would imagine if we could have that hood today
and we could put a rod in it. It's going down.
It's a downward angle. I can see the little half moon.
So to me, that's what it looked like. I mean,

(24:28):
as soon as I saw it, I couldn't none see it.
And it's right there in the middle of that high velocity.

Speaker 2 (24:33):
Yes, exactly what happened. Brilliant spot. By the way, good
job on that. He did kind of explain it in
the movie. And in the movie, you know, he had
a call that he had early in the morning and
she's like, well, Buford, I don't want you to go,
and basically, oh, well, let's go and we'll make a
day of it and have a picnic. Well that's not
the case at all. As a matter of fact, she's

(24:56):
on the verge of leaving him and taking the kids
out of stea eight and and how many, Cheryl, how
many murders? Is that the story where it starts where
the husband kills the wife over.

Speaker 1 (25:09):
You are in the most danger when you leave.

Speaker 2 (25:12):
That's that's something that a lot of people, I think
they forget, and those that are that are saying, oh,
there's just no way he could have done this. Well,
these are people that watched the movie and and they're
they're they're forgetting. They don't know that little tidbit, And
that's an important part to this story. And Mike, I
think you probably should mention a little bit about that story,
about what preceded her even getting into the car, because

(25:34):
that's that's another huge part to this story as well.

Speaker 3 (25:38):
Well. Of course, Levon Plunk, which was Deputy Plunk's wife,
and Pauline were best friends, and I got to interview
her name by then was Sullivan, but I had the
opportunity to interview her before she passed away, and she

(25:59):
told me that she and Pauline had got together that
night because Pauline was leaving Beauford and they just wanted
to see each other one more time before Pauline left.
And you know said that Levaughn told me that, you know,
I took her home that night. She invited me into

(26:20):
the house. I was afraid of Beuford and afraid he
might come home and catch me there, and you know,
I didn't want to deal with that, So I just
told Pauline that I would park a little ways down
the street, and you know, whenever she was ready, just
to give me a signal with porch lights, something on
that order, and i'd drive up there. We'd get the

(26:44):
kids in the car, throw the personal items in the car,
and we'd be gone. So she hadn't much more than
got parked until Beuford passed by. Now this would have
been most likely shortly after he left Dennis and Selmer.
At any rate, he gets home. She said he went

(27:04):
in the house and said she heard a gunshot, and
she didn't know what to do. Told me said, I
couldn't call the Sheriff's office because Beaufort's dad was the
jailer and dispatcher that night, and I knew that wouldn't
do any good. I couldn't call my husband because he
was one of Buford's most loyal deputies, and I knew
he'd probably life for Beauford to get him out of trouble,

(27:27):
so I couldn't call him, and she said, of course,
I left and I was trying to think of what
to do, when a little bit later, said Pete, her
husband calls her and said, well, you know, Pauline just
got killed in ambush meant for Beauford. But in between
those two events, Diane, Pauline's oldest daughter, she had been

(27:52):
living in Memphis with a Buford's sister because she wanted
to be away from Adamsville, wanted to be away from Bewford,
just what I'm told, and Pauline had called her the
night before and told her she needed to come home,
that Buford and her were having problems, and she didn't

(28:14):
say it in so many words, but I just surmised
from all this that Pauline were probably trying to get
all the kids there so that they could all leave
with her. And so Diane did go home. She was
there with Mike and Dewana that night when all this happened,
and said she heard them having words out in the

(28:38):
living room, and she heard what she described as a pop,
and said that she a little bit later she heard
the front door open, and she said that she was
afraid to go out and see what had happened, because
she was so afraid of Buford, and she described him
several times as a very dangerous man. Well, she hears

(29:02):
the front door open, and she tells that she saw
Beauford kind of half dragging, half carrying Pauline too the
car and he puts her in the front seat and
he walks back toward the house. And you know, she
has told people that, well, I thought I was going
to be next and said about that time he picked

(29:25):
up the shoes that had fallen from Pauline's feet and
took them over and put them on the floorboard. Well
you look at that photograph of the passenger's door. It's
opened up and those shoes are sitting there like you
normally pick up pair of shoes with one hand and
you just place them there. And I found that very

(29:48):
odd that Cheryl, you know what it's like. Usually when
you go on a trip and you decide to take
your shoes off and you're in a car, you don't
reach down there and play some in the floorboard that way.
Generally you just kind.

Speaker 1 (30:02):
Of know, sugar, I kick them off, yeah right, yeah,
And so that's the way you see him in that photograph. Well,
they're also toes going in like you would pick them up,
and that's how you would place them in if you
were on the outside of the car, not if you're
on the inside of the car.

Speaker 3 (30:21):
Right, absolutely, And she was so scared that he might
come back to the house that she went and got
under the bed to hide, and she heard the car
start up and leave and that was it. And you
know another thing I have always been wondering and I
don't have an answer to it, and hopefully the files

(30:44):
will reveal something. But I don't know how you are.
I know how Mss Connie is. She does not leave
the house without her purse, and I'm wondering if they
found a purse in the car.

Speaker 1 (30:57):
Well, there's not one in the photograph that you can see.

Speaker 5 (31:00):
Yeah, I think she carried a twenty five didn't She might?
Didn't she carry like a twenty five pistol or twenty
five caliber.

Speaker 3 (31:08):
That's what I'm told as a matter of fact, that's
how Dennis and I met. I don't know if he remembers,
but I was on a website one night firing line.
You have a lot of people talk about firearms, and
there was somebody mentioned something about a little twenty five
caliber semi automatic can gun, and when they did, somebody

(31:29):
else says, well, that's like the one that Pauline Pesser carried.
And of course when you mentioned Pusser, everybody jumped on
the conversation about what a great law enforcement officer he
was and how we needed more like him. And by
that time I knew just enough about all this to
be dangerous. And this was around two thousand and five
or two thousand and six, and I started saying, well, guys,

(31:53):
you don't know a lot about the story, and so
I shared a little bit of what I knew, and
of course I took a lot of abuse from some
of them, and I had others that were really curious
about what I was saying. Anyway, I got off the phone.
A little bit later, I get a phone call and

(32:14):
this guy says, well, you know, you've got the story
about astraight as anybody I've ever heard. And you know,
I spoke with him a little bit, and I got
kind of uncomfortable, and I said, well, okay, mask who
this is and he said, my name is Dennis Halfcock.
And I knew who he was because his name and
appeared in the Condo News article. And so I spent

(32:40):
the next few several nights. He and I'm speaking on
the phone and I was over there taking down notes
and all this, and finally decided to just go over
and meet him. And of course I had this big
knowledge in the back of my head about what the
half cock were supposed to be, but I didn't believe

(33:03):
it all by then, but still yet I wanted to
be a little cautious. So we agreed to meet at
the courthouse, and you know, because that was easy to spot,
and you know, just to save place to meet somebody
that you only knew from a telephone. And that's when
we kind of started building a relationship that's kind of

(33:23):
grown over the years. So there you have that.

Speaker 1 (33:32):
Well, I'll tell you what, Dennis, I got a question
for you. Do you think Louise hath Cott's case is next?

Speaker 4 (33:39):
I have no idea. I've had a lot of people
talk to me about that, and you know, I don't know.

Speaker 3 (33:46):
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (33:48):
I have no idea. I hope they do. I wish
they would, because in some ways it would be his
chief deputy QUI.

Speaker 3 (33:59):
Right.

Speaker 4 (34:00):
He killed the Louise and told his family that if
anything happened to him, to not look any farther than
look than to Buford Pusser, because what he told happened
at the Shamrock and at the state line is not

(34:22):
what happened.

Speaker 1 (34:23):
Well, if you read what happened to her with her
teeth being embedded, it looks like a coup de gras.
Would you agree, Jayson.

Speaker 2 (34:30):
Yeah, I mean I absolutely would. I think that there's
you know, my thought is is that they're definitely going
to look at it. I think that they would be
irresponsible not to. I think that in light of I
think that in light of what they've already what what
they've already came out and said, Uh, there's no doubt
in my mind that they're going to actually, for no

(34:51):
other reason just for being thorough, they will. They will
take a look at that case very closely.

Speaker 4 (35:00):
Well, you know, my dad had to dig her teeth
out of the carpet, and the bullet that went into
her head went under the carpet.

Speaker 1 (35:16):
Because she was already on the ground. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (35:19):
Yeah, it followed the followed that concrete under that carpet
and hit the wall over there. I don't know what
they did with that bullet I know they had they
dug that bullet out.

Speaker 3 (35:32):
Of the wall, but you know, it's.

Speaker 4 (35:38):
It's it's sad to say.

Speaker 5 (35:39):
But the thing.

Speaker 4 (35:40):
About the deal with Louise is, you know, her running
a nightclub and everything. There's a lot of people that
thought she got what she deserved, especially women, because their
husbands would go there and get drunk and.

Speaker 5 (35:57):
Spend their money and then.

Speaker 4 (35:59):
Tell tale it was about somebody robbed them and all
that kind of stuff, you know. And I've talked to
my uncle a lot about it. It don't get me wrong.
It is like any nightclub, any beer joint in the country.
Things happened there, but Youfred Tusser double over exaggerated all

(36:22):
of it. And she was she was paying him so much, uh,
not to sell white whiskey like they want to try
to make out like, but selling some bonded whiskey like
all the nightclubs and around.

Speaker 5 (36:40):
That area did.

Speaker 4 (36:42):
And uh, he kept going up and going up and
want more and more. And she had told him about
two days before he went down there and killed her
that she could not pay him, that she wasn't making
that kind of money. And she made the same same

(37:03):
mistake that Pauline made she threatened him and threatened to
expose him.

Speaker 2 (37:12):
Well, I mean, you know, you bring up a great point, Dennis,
that's that that very well could have been one of
the reasons that she was leaving, and that could have
came up in the conversation. And quite frankly, I know
I'm going way out on a limb on this one,
but but I'm not totally convinced that she wasn't shot
at the house. And and and that's why he's carrying

(37:32):
her to the car, and that's.

Speaker 1 (37:34):
Why the shoes are like they are.

Speaker 2 (37:35):
I agree, Well, absolutely, and and and then and then
now he's got to come up with some sort of
an idea or what what are we going to do?

Speaker 1 (37:43):
Now?

Speaker 2 (37:44):
Uh, she could have been killed right there in that house,
and and quite and it could have been. I don't
think it's from the car being it's going to be.
It's going to be from the twenty five that probably
Pauline had, you know that that she's been known to have,
and she very likely could have pulled that out on
him and he took it from her and anger got
the best of him or whatever. And I'm and I'm

(38:06):
speculating here, Uh, just just for your viewers know this.
You know, none of us that are sitting in here
I have seen the report. I mean, we're going off
of what Mike has uncovered in his efforts. I mean,
kudos to you, Mike. We're we're we're putting some deductive

(38:26):
reasoning here based on the stuff that's been learned by
Mike and and Dennis's account. But really, I'm not, I mean,
we really don't. We really haven't mentioned that at all,
that that there's a real possibility she could have got
killed at that house and then taken to the car
and then and then he had to then then all
this other stuff basically just happened thereafter.

Speaker 1 (38:47):
And the way the shoes are mean, you just can't
ignore that. But y'all, I think we are out of time.
But let me just one by one, Danny, I appreciate you.
I appreciate you telling us the information in the autopsy.
That's first I've heard. So I am just I'm itching
to get my hands on the rest of what they're

(39:07):
going to give us. But thank you for that.

Speaker 5 (39:09):
You're You're very welcome. And if anything good, if one
thing good comes out of Bee for Pusser, he got
every one of us together in a sense because Jason
and I become friends several how longs have been jud
in fifteen.

Speaker 2 (39:25):
Oh fifteen, almost twenty years, and be for Pusser is
what got us together because we were talking about how
Beef Pusser came and picked me and my sister and
my mom up to carry us to the hospital to
identify my grandmother that was murdered in the Catherine's Club
in McNary County.

Speaker 5 (39:45):
And then all of us others had become friends because
of Beef for Pusster. So if there's anything that's one
good thing we can.

Speaker 1 (39:53):
Say, oh, no doubt, no doubt. And Dennis, I tell
you being on scene with you and here your story
in person, and standing there with you and walking that
zcene with you while you point out where you saw
the glass and where you saw the skull fragment and
the hair and the brain matter. You know, that was
one of those things that again you know as a child,

(40:16):
I mean I admired him too. It's the very first
our movie I ever saw when I was six years old,
and you know I framed him as a hero my
whole life. So I just appreciate you coming forward. I
appreciate your story. And again, if we had been sixteen
at the same time in that town, we'd have had a

(40:37):
good time. Dennis.

Speaker 4 (40:39):
Oh, I know you'd have been on that motorcycle with me.

Speaker 1 (40:41):
Honey, I'd have been hanging on to you. Following that sheriff,
we'd have told everybody. The next day at school, we'd
have had all the news.

Speaker 4 (40:48):
I tell you, that's exactly right, that's exactly right.

Speaker 3 (40:52):
And right after the ambush, you would have been going
to military school, just like Dennis, to get you out
to mc marytown.

Speaker 1 (40:59):
Yeah. Oh, they would have probably shipped me somewhere for sure.

Speaker 4 (41:04):
I want to thank you very much, very much for
having me on there.

Speaker 1 (41:09):
You are so welcome. It's my honor. And Jason, thank
you for being my buddy. Thank you for introducing me
to all these other men, and you know, walking me
through this case, because you and I have had some
great conversations about it, and I think once we get
all the information, we're going to have some more great conversations.

Speaker 2 (41:27):
Absolutely well, thank you for at least thinking that what
I have to say or my opinion is important enough
to have here. Dennis, Man, I I can't say this enough,
you know, Mike, we're here because of you, Okay, we are.
And and Dennis, I got to tell you, buddy, you,
in my opinion, based on everything that we've heard, and

(41:49):
I think we're going to hear a lot more that's
going to really shed a lot more light on this,
I think you're you're really. I think it took a
lot of courage for you to step up living in
a small area like that where you have such a
divisive situation here you've got one group on one side
and one group on the other. And really, and I

(42:10):
said this before on my podcast, but your family in
a sense, I'm not saying that you know that that
Louise wasn't involved in some stuff and this and that,
but but your family kind of got vilified. I just
think that you've had a lot of courage by by
standing up, making the stand, and you've been consistent in
your story based on what I've seen, So I want

(42:31):
to thank you for that.

Speaker 1 (42:32):
No, he's a hero in this thing, period.

Speaker 2 (42:34):
Absolutely, absolutely, yep.

Speaker 1 (42:38):
And Mike, what can I possibly say to you? You know,
you called me and you're like, hey, you want to
ride out here and get on a bus with me
and Dennis and Danny and possibly Jason if he could
make it out. Honey, I couldn't have that way quick enough.
And for you to be so generous, Mike, not just
with your information and your research, but you're You could

(43:01):
have held this as your own. You could have not
shared it with anybody. You could be the one that
you know was Harold, but you didn't do that when
you asked me and Jason and Danny to look at stuff,
and you allowed us to be a just a microscopic part.
But I was thrilled to do it, and I appreciate

(43:22):
that opportunity and I cannot thank you, and you're lovely
bride enough for being just so gracious to have me
there and drive me around and host me and let
me meet Danny and Dennis in person and go to
the scene with the three of you. It transformed the
way I saw this case. And you are a hero.

(43:44):
You have done something that is historic period.

Speaker 3 (43:48):
I appreciate that. But you know, like I say, for me,
this was all about Pauline. I felt like she needed justice.
And you know, I appreciate you guys because you and
Danny and Jason all have skill sets in different places
that I do not. I felt like I was on

(44:10):
the right track as I was seeing all this stuff.
But I value people who have had a lot more
experience with these things that I have, and I was
glad you allowed me to use you guys as a
sounding board for some of my thoughts and ideas. And
you know, if you don't mind, I might say one thing.

(44:33):
You know, there are a lot of people out there
that are telling me that we've got it wrong, that
they believe Buford and so on, and up until now,
all they wanted was proof. Well, the TBI is handing
it to them on a silver platter, and you know,

(44:54):
now they're still not accepting the proof. And I would
suggest that if they feel like Bufford is innocent, that
they need to get some proof of their own. I mean,
we've got photographic evidence, ballistic evidence, blood pattern evidence.

Speaker 4 (45:12):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (45:13):
We had a time and motion study where I understand
the TBI, I took a a scanner, scanned a card
just like Buford's, tried to recreate with all the modern
technology that they have, and they couldn't make it work
out any better than I did when I did that. So,

(45:34):
you know, I would just suggest that before they, you know,
complain too much about losing their hero, that they stop
and think about what Pauling the price that she paid
for Buford's fame and fortune that he got to enjoy
for a short time, and that, you know, if they
want to discuss it, bring out some proof of their own.

(45:56):
And I think that's when they get a little confused
about what to do next. And I will say one
thing about Dennis I guess is that a lot he
takes a lot of flag as I do about his
last name being a half cocked. Dennis has never tried
to say that his folks were innocence and all this.

(46:18):
He said, yeah, technically they were criminals, they sold bootleg
alcohol and such as that. But what Beuford did with
the half cock name was to embellish all those stories
to where they were throwing bodies in the Tennessee River
and everything else that does not stand up to scrutiny.

(46:40):
So but for all those that hear this, you know,
Dennis has never claimed that all those people were innocent
of anything criminal. All he's pointed out is that they
were the victims of Buford telling highly embellished stories about

(47:01):
his relatives.

Speaker 1 (47:02):
So there you have that glass houses, y'all. Glass houses.
I don't think none of us want to go too
far back in time and point out anybody in our past.
I mean, everybody's got a colorful family, everybody, So that's
got nothing to do with it. To me. What's important
is he came forward. Then he came forward twenty years ago,

(47:26):
and he came forward recently, and like Jason said, his
story hadn't changed, and his story's going to line up
with what the evidence showed, and that to me is
proof positive in the actions that TBI took. But Mike again,
I just appreciate all the friendship, all the information, and
let me look at those pictures. It meant a lot

(47:47):
to me. All Right, well, y'all, thank you all so much,
and we'll be maybe talking again soon once all the
information comes out. But I'm going to end Zone seven
the way that I always do with a quote. There's
only two rules, that's all. Number One, we enforce the

(48:07):
law equally. Number two, any man call taking a bribe
gets his head knocked off by me. What's right and
right and what's wrong is wrong, share Bruford Pusser from
the movie Walkin Talk. I'm Cheryl McCollum, and this is
own site

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