Buford Pusser
American sheriff (1937–1974)
Buford Hayse Pusser (December 12, 1937 – August 21, 1974) was an American police officer, and politician, who served as the sheriff of McNairy County, Tennessee from 1964 to 1970 and constable of Adamsville from 1970 to 1972. His time in office inspired several books, songs, and movies, most notably Walking Tall. He was also a wrestler known as "Buford the Bull" in the Mid-South.
In August 2025, following a three-year investigation conducted together with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, the local district attorney's office concluded that he has enough evidence that if Buford Pusser were alive today, an indictment could be presented to the McNairy County Grand Jury for their consideration against him for the murder of his wife, Pauline Mullins Pusser, in 1967.
Life and career
Buford Pusser was born in Adamsville, McNairy County, Tennessee, on December 12, 1937. He was the son of Helen (née Harris) and Carl Pusser. 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. He enlisted in the United States Marine Corps when he graduated from high school, but his service ended in boot camp when he was given a medical discharge for asthma.
In 1957, he moved to Chicago, where he was a local wrestler known as "Buford the Bull".
“Buford Pusser” enters the record as american sheriff (1937–1974). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Buford, Pusser and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4986044. VIAF identifies the subject as 13704480. The Library of Congress control number is n84032515. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1937, 1974, 1964 and 1970.
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This entry incorporates text from “Buford Pusser” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.