Buford Pusser

Buford Pusser's official sheriff badge.

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.

Life and Career

Buford Pusser was born to Carl and Helen Pusser in Finger, McNairy County, Tennessee. His father was the police chief of Adamsville, Tennessee. Buford Pusser was a high school football and basketball player and was 6 feet 6 inches (1.98 m) tall.


Buford Pusser Home and Museum in Adamsville

Pusser joined the United States Marine Corps when he graduated from high school. His service ended during his United States Marine Corps Recruit Training, when he was given a medical discharge for asthma. In 1957, he moved to Chicago, where he married his wife, Pauline, on December 5, 1959. Pusser returned home in 1962.

Pusser was Adamsville's police chief and constable from 1962 to 1964. He then was elected sheriff of McNairy County, Tennessee, becoming the youngest sheriff in Tennessee's history. Pusser promptly began trying to eliminate the Dixie Mafia and the State Line Mob.

The Shamrock restaurant and motel near Corinth, Mississippi was owned by Jack Hathcock. The Shamrock had a reputation for violence towards anyone who dared to complain about its rigged gambling tables. The restaurant was also a focal point for bootlegging. Hathcock was allegedly shot dead in self-defence, though it was rumored Carl Douglas "Towhead" White, leader of the State Line Mob, was the actual gunman. Louise Hathcock became White's mistress.

Pusser survived several assassination attempts. On February 1, 1966, Louise Hathcock attempted to kill Pusser during an on-site investigation of a robbery complaint at The Shamrock. Hathcock fired on Pusser with a concealed .38 pistol. Pusser returned fire and killed Hathcock. On January 2, 1967, Pusser was shot three times by an unidentified gunman.

Already a local hero, Pusser's "war" on the State Line Mob was brought to national prominence when his wife, Pauline, was killed on August 12, 1967, during an assassination ambush intended for him. Pusser named Kirksey McCord Nix Jr. as the contractor of his wife's killers, but Nix was never charged with the crime.

Pusser shot and killed Charles Russell Hamilton on December 25, 1968, after responding to a complaint that Hamilton had threatened his landlord with a gun.

Pusser was ineligible for re-election in 1970 due to the term limit then in effect. He was defeated in his bid as sheriff in 1972. Pusser blamed the loss to incumbent Sheriff Clifford Coleman in part on the controversy surrounding the making of the semi-autobiographical movie, Walking Tall. He was again elected as constable of Adamsville by a majority of voters who wrote in his name on their ballots. He served as constable for two more years (1970–1972).

Death

Pusser died on August 21, 1974 from injuries sustained in a one-car automobile accident. Earlier in the day, Pusser 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 .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.

Pusser's memorial service was held at the Adamsville Church of Christ.

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 (2001), 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.

Pop Culture

Pusser was the subject of three biographical books written by W.R. Morris: The Twelfth Of August: The Story of Buford Pusser (1971), Buford: True Story of "Walking Tall" Sheriff Buford Pusser (1984) and The State Line Mob: A True Story of Murder and Intrigue (1990). In addition, Morris also created a pictorial history book of Buford called The Legacy of Buford Pusser: A Pictorial History of the "Walking Tall" (1997). Pusser's daughter Dwana, released a book in 2009 entitled "Walking On," which is also an account of his life.

The 1973 movie Walking Tall was dedicated to Pusser. Based on Pusser's true story, it was a combination of very loosely based fact and Hollywood revisionism. This has since become a well known cult classic (with two direct sequels of its own, a TV movie, A Real American Hero, and a brief TV series, also called Walking Tall).

A remake by the same name was released in 2004 as a somewhat less realistic and more mainstream film. Also dedicated to Pusser, the remake stars Dwayne Johnson and again takes liberties with the story, giving the action a more modern setting and premise. In this version the main character is not referred to as Buford Pusser but as Chris Vaughn.

On a 2004 episode of the HBO drama The Wire titled "Moral Midgetry", Baltimore Police Detectives Jimmy McNulty and Kima Greggs leave Baltimore for Virginia where McNulty derogatorily refers to the southern sheriff as Buford Pusser.

Drive-By Truckers wrote songs about the events surrounding Pusser's wife's death and his colorful tenure as sheriff for their 2004 album, The Dirty South. The album contains a three-song suite, "The Boys from Alabama", "Cottonseed" and "The Buford Stick", that claim to tell "the other side of that story".

Jimmy Buffett references a run-in he had with Pusser in the lyrics of two of his songs: "Presents to Send You" ("But my last little bout/I had my hair pulled out/by a man who really wasn't my friend") and "Semi-True Stories" ("A walkin' tall sheriff/and a big Cadillac/and me in my golf shoes/on the hood makin' tracks/this daring young singer/was under attack").

After the success of the 2004 film, Walking Tall: The Payback was released in 2007 direct-to-video. The main character (Kevin Sorbo)'s name was changed to Nick Prescott, and the movie was set in the Dallas area. Later that year on September 25, 2007 Kevin Sorbo returned in Walking Tall: Lone Justice.

In a November 16, 2007 column, Bill Simmons, "the Sports Guy," compared NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell to Pusser. Comedian and talk-radio host Dennis Miller occasionally refers to a "Buford Pusser Stick" on his radio show, in reference to a fictional scene from the movie Walking Tall where Pusser uses a stick to beat up everyone in a roadhouse.

External Links:

Official website

Official Buford Pusser Museum Home Page

Buford Pusser at the Internet Movie Database

Buford Pusser Gravesite

History of Buford Pusser

Tennessee Historical Marker for Buford Pusser

Video about Buford Pusser

Source: Internet