Buford Pusser

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Buford Pusser : biography

December 12, 1937 – August 21, 1974

Buford Hayse Pusser (December 12, 1937 – August 21, 1974) was the Sheriff of McNairy County, Tennessee (in West Tennessee), from 1964 to 1970. Pusser is known for his virtual one-man war on moonshining, prostitution, gambling, and other vices on the Mississippi-Tennessee state-line. His efforts have inspired several books, songs, movies, and a TV series. The Buford Pusser Museum was established at the house he was in at the time of his death in 1974. A Buford Pusser Festival is held each May in his hometown of Adamsville, Tennessee.

Murder of Pauline Pusser

According to Pusser, on the pre-dawn morning of August 12, 1967, Pusser’s phone rang, informing him of a disturbance call on New Hope Road in McNairy County. He responded, with his wife Pauline joining him for this particular ride. Shortly after they passed the New Hope Methodist Church, two cars came alongside Pusser’s; and the occupants opened fire, killing Pauline and leaving Pusser, who had suffered a shotgun wound to the face, for dead. He spent eighteen days in the hospital before returning home and would need several more surgeries to restore his appearance,

Pusser vowed to bring all involved with his wife’s death to justice. He identified four assassins: Louise Hathcock’s former boyfriend, Carl Douglas "Towhead" White, George McGann, Gary McDaniel, and Kirksey Nix; but he later changed his story as to who the assassins were when he couldn’t identify them from pictures and in person.

On April 4, 1969, the person who paid for the hit, according to Pusser, White was gunned down in front of the El Ray Motel on U.S. Highway 45 in Corinth, Mississippi. The alleged triggerman was a small-time hood named Berry Smith. W.R. Morris, author of The State Line Mob: A True Story of Murder and Intrigue, wrote in 1990 that Pusser himself had hired the hit man who killed White with one shotgun blast to the head.

In late 1970, both McDaniel and McGann were found shot to death in Texas. According to Edward Humes in Mississippi Mud: Southern Justice and the Dixie Mafia (1994), Pusser was suspected by some law enforcement officials of having killed both. However, McGann was killed as a result of an unrelated matter by one Ronny Weeden, who was tried and convicted of the crime.

Pusser never brought Kirksey Nix to justice. Nix was sentenced to the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola for the Easter Saturday 1971 murder of a New Orleans grocer, Frank J. Corso. Nix was later involved in the 1987 murder-for-hire of Judge Vincent Sherry and his wife Margaret, in Biloxi, Mississippi. His co-conspirator, Biloxi Mayor Pete Halat, had stolen hundreds of thousands of dollars from Nix and blamed it on his law partner, Judge Sherry. Nix ordered a hit from prison and was later sentenced to isolation for the rest of his life. Nix has repeatedly refused to comment about Pusser’s claims that he was one of Pauline Pusser’s killers.

Death

Pusser died on August 21, 1974 from injuries sustained in a one-car automobile accident. Earlier in the day, Pusser had contracted with Bing Crosby Productions in Memphis to portray himself in the sequel to Walking Tall. That evening, Pusser, returning home alone from the McNairy County Fair in his specially and powerfully modified Corvette, struck an embankment at high speed, ejecting him from the vehicle. The car caught fire and burned to such an extent that the cause of the accident was not conclusive. Speculation as to cause included unfounded rumors of sabotage to the steering mechanism and the tie-rods but ignored a 0.18% blood alcohol content and witnesses who saw him drinking at the fair. The Tennessee State Trooper who worked the accident, Paul Ervin, later became McNairy County sheriff. Both Pusser’s mother, Helen (1908–1987) and his daughter, Dwana (1961–) believed he was murdered. Dwana, who was a passenger in another car, came upon the scene of the accident moments later.

No autopsy of Pusser’s body was performed. As sheriff, Pusser survived seven stabbings and eight shootings.