The Story of Sheriff Buford Hayse Pusser

One-time wrestler and dedicated crime crusader on behalf of the Tennessee public, Burford Pusser stares out at the world from old black and white photos with that clean-cut look so redolent of the 1960s and 70s American dream.

A man passionate about public order and a crime-free society, Buford was cast in the mold of the American heroes of a much earlier time.

**Photograph of Sheriff Buford Pusser.**

He looked and acted the part and led an incredible life until his untimely passing at age 36 in a car accident.

Fame and controversy were never far away from Buford Pusser. His rather unusual life was made into a film and has been reprised in music endlessly since his passing well into this century.

Truly and physically larger than life, this is the remarkable story of Buford Hayes Pusser.

The Story Behind The Man

Pusser was born in McNairy County, Tennessee, in December 1937 into a family with strong links to crime fighting and public service; his father was the Chief of Police in Adamsville.

With a solid family background and athletic prowess at school as a football and basketball player, Pusser’s background and physical stature, at 6.6″ tall, made him an ideal candidate for the United States Marines, which he joined after leaving high school.

However, his service career was short-lived after he received a medical discharge due to asthma.

Pusser married Pauline Mullins in December 1959 and returned to Tennessee in 1962 from Chicago, where he was well-known as a local wrestler, ‘Buford the Bull.’

His short service career and family background made the police force an obvious career choice.

Pusser was the Police Chief in Adamsville from 1962 -1964, and he was also elected Sheriff of McNairy County in Tennessee after the resident sheriff passed away in a car accident.

He was the youngest man to hold this role at the age of only 26.

It was when he took over as sheriff that Pusser began to wage war on unregulated crime along the border of Tennessee and Mississippi, in particular, to weed out the Dixie Mafia and the State Line Mob, two gangs who sold moonshine illegally.

His task was made all the more difficult because his predecessor was involved in criminal operations and took bribes. Pusser was a whole new broom and a force to be reckoned with.

**Buford Pusser. Image via Jackson Sun.**

His crackdown was not just on illegal alcohol but gambling and other things, too, anything that offended public morals. His stance made him Public Enemy Number One with many very dangerous people.

At election time in 1970, Pusser was ineligible to run for the position of sheriff again and two years later was defeated, a move he blamed partly on the furor surrounding the movie, ‘Walking Tall’ which was a semi-autobiographical account of Pusser’s life.

Local people had not been happy about the way in which they were portrayed in the film; Pusser had become unpopular even with law-abiding folk.

However, he was re-elected as Constable of Adamsville and served for two years between 1970 and 1972.

Dodging A Bullet

One of the many remarkable things about Buford Pusser was his ability to seemingly dodge a bullet.

In 1966, he was shot whilst investigating a complaint of a robbery at the Shamrock Motel; he fired on and killed his potential assassin, a woman and the common law partner of Kirksey Nix, the head of the Dixie Mafia.

The motel in question was one of many that were run by the mafia to support the sale of moonshine, illegal gambling, and prostitution. The following year, Pusser was shot three times by a gunman who was never identified and survived.

In 1967, another attempt was made on Pusser’s life, but unfortunately, the assassin missed their target and shot and killed Pusser’s wife, Pauline.

The bullet was definitely intended for Buford as the man behind the ambush was the common law partner of Louise Hathcock, the woman Pusser had shot and killed a year earlier at the motel.

Whilst Pusser survived the incident, the damage done to the left-hand side of his jaw was significant, and he spent nearly three weeks in hospital.

The left-hand side of his face had been essentially blown away, and it’s thought the assassins only left the scene because they believed no one could have survived the hail of bullets.

Pusser needed several more operations to reconstruct this part of his face – sixteen in total – but did survive.

Above The Law?

Whilst Buford Pusser was a law enforcer beyond compare, he wasn’t frightened to take the law into his own hands, or so it was alleged at the time. Some called it playing the mob at their own game.

Pusser was never able to bring his wife’s killers to book, but one of the group, Carl ‘Towhead’ White, was gunned down several years after Pauline’s passing, with many people believing that Pusser hired an assassin to do it.

**Buford Pusser pictured with his weapon. Photo via The Tennessean.**

Fast forward a few years, and two more of the killers were found shot in Texas, with rumors circulating that it was Pusser who had killed them.

In more recent times, an American publisher has actually claimed that Pusser staged the whole incident with his wife, shot her himself, and then shot himself to cover up the crime.

The subsequent deaths of the alleged hitmen are part of that cover-up.

Live By The Sword, Die By The Sword

The rumor mill went into overdrive when Buford Pusser passed away prematurely in a car accident on 21 August 1974.

Pusser was driving his own car, a specially modified Corvette, which struck an embankment at high speed on a return journey from the McNairy County Fair.

The vehicle caught fire and was destroyed, but Pusser had already been ejected from it by the force of the impact and died of his injuries at the scene.

The local investigator who dealt with the accident claimed that Pusser had been drunk, was driving too fast, and had not been wearing a seat belt.

This state trooper later stepped into Pusser’s former shoes as Sheriff of McNairy County.

Rather remarkably and even more suspicious, a post-mortem was never performed to establish the exact cause of Pusser’s death.

Local and media speculation included stories that the car had been tampered with, specifically the steering or the tire rods.

Pusser’s mother and daughter believed that a disgruntled felon had ordered a hit and that this was not a genuine accident.

After his passing, Pusser’s obituary credited him with surviving a total of eight shootings plus seven stabbings.

Pusser had been stabbed seven times by members of one of the gangs he sought to destroy shortly after he was elected sheriff in 1964.

He had also survived an attack by six men at the same time; three of them ended up in hospital whilst the other three went to prison.

Gone But Never Forgotten

After Pusser’s death, the Buford Pusser Museum was established at his home in 1974. The museum was run by Pusser’s daughter, Dwana Pusser, who was the guardian of her father’s life story and reputation until she died in 2018.

The stuff of legends, Buford Pusser, was also seriously the stuff of filmmakers.

The original movie about Pusser’s life, ‘Walking Tall,’ has had two sequels and was reprised into a series for television in 1981. The film was re-made in 2004, bringing Buford Pusser to a whole new audience.

Pusser is a folk hero, a larger-than-life character, and almost something out of a storybook, so it’s not surprising that he is regularly mentioned in modern popular culture. He has been the subject of several books since his death in 1974.

A Buford Pusser Festival is held annually in May in Adamsville, Tennessee.

This three-day festival will be in its 36th year in 2024 and has a carnival, live music performances, and a bus tour of sites essential to the Buford Pusser story.