Walking Tall and Buford Pusser Expert Tells us the FACTS

Scott
00:00:00.240 – 00:00:37.660
Welcome to Talk with History. So we are doing something very different for us this week. We’re doing a follow up episode to a previous podcast and previous video.

So we’re doing a follow up episode on Buford Pusser. And you would know that because you clicked on this thumbnail and you’re listening to this episode.

We had quite a bit of feedback on our Buford Pusser video.

Both the video itself from the locations where we talk about the facts presented at the museum and we go around Adamsville and we talk a little bit about the movie and some of the facts is there known to the public. And then we did the follow up podcast and the comments that we got were very interesting.

Jenn
00:00:37.900 – 00:01:01.560
So we got both. We got people who strongly believe the, the museum story and the Hollywood story. And there’s people who feel like that is all debunked.

And so we make a point to say we were taught we were telling the story of the museum. If there is a different story, let’s tell the different story. And we found the, the head honcho, the thought leader of the different story.

Scott
00:01:01.560 – 00:01:29.700
So Mr. Mike Elam, he’s a retired police officer. I don’t know. He wasn’t the police force. I don’t remember if he retired or not. Law enforcement, he’s been looking into this for quite some time. Right.

So using the skills he learned while he was in law enforcement and kind of taking that approach.

And he even talks about how he was just like us, he got into the, in law enforcement, you know, in the 70s, as right after Buford Pusser died or just before then, he started saying, you know what, I’m going to take an open mind to this and started investigating it himself.

Jenn
00:01:30.100 – 00:01:59.420
And that’s what he does.

He kind of asks the questions, pokes some holes, trying to find out if things are plausible, if they’re not plausible, listen to stories putting evidence together with different interviews and things like that, and finding that some things are not adding up.

And so much so he had enough evidence that he presented to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and it was, it was his push that actually had Pauline Bucer’s body exhumed in and autopsied for the first time.

Scott
00:01:59.660 – 00:02:34.600
Yeah.

So I hope you enjoy our conversation with someone who I think, as you put it appropriately, is one of the thought leaders or who’s done probably some, some of the most research out there on this. He talks about his experience, everything that he has learned over the years. And he’s been doing this for, I’ll say, a couple decades.

And it’s really, really interesting. So stick with this till the end. He talks a little bit about kind of when he’s hoping the report’s going to come out.

We try to touch on it a little bit. So I hope you enjoy our con. Mr. Mike Elam and the true story behind Buford Pusser and Walking Tall.

Mike Elam
00:02:43.320 – 00:03:36.630
The autopsy reports show that she was shot twice in the back. And when you compared the autopsy report to the statements that he had made about it, she was shot in the head as she lay on the floor.

And you know this because when Jim got home and he told him, if anything ever happens to me, me, you don’t need to look any further than Buford Bus. Pauline threatened to report Buford’s corruption to the tbi, and he allegedly said, if you try that, you won’t live to see the light of day.

If there is one thing that I. I can say about Buford that I really appreciate, he did encourage people through that movie to get into law enforcement Illusionary Truth, where somebody hears the story so often that eventually they believe it’s true, even if it’s not.

Scott
00:03:42.150 – 00:04:04.590
Thank you for coming on our podcast and for those listening and for those watching. You guys can find this, hopefully on Mike’s channel as well as our channel, because we’re going to try to share this with both of our audiences.

So, Mike, can you tell us a little bit about yourself, at least for our audience, your background and how you. You came on to this topic, topic of Walking Tall and Buford Pusser and all that?

Mike Elam
00:04:05.150 – 00:05:35.980
Okay. I got into law enforcement in the early 70s. I was getting into it about the time that Buford was getting out.

And of course, when the movie Walking Tall came out, I was fascinated by it and, you know, I wanted to know more about him. Of course, back then you couldn’t find much information. You know, we didn’t have the Internet yet, anything like that.

That didn’t come along till the 90s. Well, when it did come along, I got on and I started researching for information about Buford because I was impressed.

And after a while, I started a Yahoo page, and that page gave me access to some people that lived over in the area. And they started telling me I was all wrong about Buford, that he was not that great of a guy. And.

And it took me a while to get past my own perceptions about Buford because I. I was defending him. And then as things moved along and the Internet got more information out there, you know, I discovered is I had a party send me his.

The ambush photos showing the car.

Scott
00:05:36.700 – 00:05:37.100
Yeah.

Mike Elam
00:05:37.100 – 00:07:37.180
And then I had another individual that sent me information relating to Louise Hathcock’s death when he shot and killed her there at the Shamrock Motel. And, of course, you’d always thought that, oh, well, the movie showed she was in a crowded bar when she was shot.

Come to find out, she was in her personal living quarters there in the motel that she operated. And the autopsy report showed that she was shot twice in the back.

And when you compared the autopsy report to the statements that he had made about it, you realize the first two shots that he took at her were to her back. And then now she was shot in the head as she lay on the floor.

And you know this because her teeth, some of them, were blown out the back of her skull, and the bits of teeth were embedded in the carpet.

And, you know, that was really a shocker to me, and that got me to paying more attention to what I was looking at in the photographs of the ambush, and that. That just kind of snowballed at that point in time. You know, you. You looked at the blood spatter on the hood.

You look for trailing or tailing, and just so many things about the photos that just when you approached it with an open mind caught your attention. And then the more I would dig, the more I would find I had.

I started using my Facebook page initially, I switched over from Yahoo to Facebook to do this, and I started using it as a fishing hole for information, and people from that area would share things that they knew. And, of course, you spent a lot of time trying to sort out all the misinformation from the real information.

Scott
00:07:38.060 – 00:07:38.540
Yeah.

Mike Elam
00:07:38.540 – 00:07:49.820
And, you know, went through this quite some time. As a matter of fact, I wrote a book about all of this. Future Pusser, the other story.

Scott
00:07:50.620 – 00:07:51.180
Yeah.

Mike Elam
00:07:51.900 – 00:08:27.220
And it was one of those things that after I wrote the book, even more people came forward with information. I had one individual here about 18 months, two years ago that contacted me and says, you know, I think you’re the real deal.

You’re actually trying to figure out who killed Pauline. And I said, well, yeah. And he said, well, I think I have the gun that may have been used to kill her.

He says, I’m not sure, but it very well could be. And I thought I’d heard this story a dozen times before, and every time.

Scott
00:08:27.220 – 00:08:27.620
Sure.

Mike Elam
00:08:28.240 – 00:10:01.450
And went nowhere this time. It checked so many of the boxes, and you’re sitting there saying, I’ve got to see this thing. So it’s 465 miles away from me.

But I got in the car, drove over there, photographed the gun, ran the serial number. I found out where it was manufactured, found out it was stolen from the Air Force. And so I was convinced that this possibly could be the gun.

Now I realize that Buford had more than one of these guns in his possession. Just wasn’t sure if it’s where I want, and I’m still not because I convinced him that we need to contact the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.

And I gave them the background on the. On firearm itself. And they came by over there, picked it up.

And a short time later, I was contacted with them, wanting to know if I had any other information to share. And it was basically like, sure, how much do you want? You know, because by then I’d gathered a lot of. A lot of stuff.

And so that’s how it all got started. Just being interested in his real story and wanting to learn more about this incredible man, just to be really disappointed from what I learned.

Scott
00:10:02.330 – 00:11:28.080
Yeah, well, and I appreciate you giving us that backstory.

And it’s funny as you were talking about how your own perspective changed from early on of, hey, starting off fan of the movie and starting a page and defending him, but then saying like, hey, no, I’m going to have an open mind. I’m going to approach it, approach this with an open mind. And that’s something that we try to talk about here on Talk with History. Right.

And on the Walk With History Channel is when it comes to history. And obviously this would be a more recent history. Right. It’s obviously current, more current history for us.

But when new facts arise, then that changes the narrative, that changes the story. And so we always talk about that because that happens even for ancient history, Right.

If they dig up some new thing or the Dead Sea Scrolls or whatever it is, when new facts arise, those who think critically and think with an open mind, those are the ones who are eventually going to get it right. You don’t want to be right. You want to get it right.

Now, you mentioned one of the things, a question popped to my head when you were first starting the Facebook page and you were, you were getting all sorts of input from people from the area, and you were saying, I was. Had to sift through the misinformation, like, what’s. How did you screen that information initially when you were coming through?

Are you just saying, hey, this person told me this story, but I know that can’t be true because, you know.

Mike Elam
00:11:28.160 – 00:11:54.730
You’Re comparing to other information that you know is accurate. Branch Leetz. I have a lot of FBI files on the Case some TBI correspondence.

Of course, in Tennessee, as you may know, back in the early 80s, the state legislature passed basically a law that prohibits the TBI from sharing information in their files.

Scott
00:11:55.210 – 00:11:56.050
Oh, interesting.

Mike Elam
00:11:56.050 – 00:11:58.170
To the public, right?

Jenn
00:11:58.410 – 00:11:58.890
Yeah.

Scott
00:11:59.050 – 00:11:59.570
Okay.

Mike Elam
00:11:59.570 – 00:12:37.060
And so at that point, you know, you were stuck with what you had.

But as I would speak with people that are from the area that claim that they knew something, you know, you’d kind of compare it to what you didn’t know to be fact and try to sort out who was for real and who wasn’t. Because there are a lot of people that try to gain their own personal notoriety from claiming that they knew Buford and they were part of this story.

So a lot of that.

Jenn
00:12:39.140 – 00:12:52.180
So you got. You were contacted by people. Did anybody. Was there ever. Conflicting stories, like somebody who was like, well, this did happen, and I know.

And someone else was like, well, this didn’t happen, and I know. How do you.

Mike Elam
00:12:53.390 – 00:13:50.950
Not necessarily that so much. You would just see people. For instance, there are a lot of pages out there that are about.

On Facebook that are about Buford, and it seems like they’ll disagree just to be disagreeing with you. But, for instance. Well, mother, key questions I ask whenever they want to get into a debate.

And I always like to start with the question like, okay, I understand that you appreciate the legend as you know it, but, you know, Buford is credited with having cleaned up the state line. What state line establishments can you tell me about that were actually closed down? Or what state liners did he send to prison?

And that sends them in a tailspin because they can’t name any. And, you know, that’s kind of one of the first big things I’ll look at.

Jenn
00:13:51.910 – 00:14:34.010
Sure. That they have credible facts behind their shipments. When. So when we made this video, we went to the museum, right? And we.

We walked around the museum and we took photos and stuff of the museum, and we listened to what the. The docents had to say there and. But you believe a lot of what they state at the museum is also wrong. Why?

If that’s supposed to be the credible location of his story, but it’s not accurate. Who is pushing that narrative to keep the untrue story?

Mike Elam
00:14:35.290 – 00:16:07.620
Well, you’ve got to understand that Adamsville is Buford’s hometown, and so he is the biggest icon, I guess you might say that Adamsville has. And after that movie came out, they became invested in the story. And it’s one of those things that over the years has brought in some tourism.

And so you go in there.

I Stood there and listened to them tell visitors, for instance, that, oh, the state liars, you know, they finally managed to get Buford, you know, and they caused his wreck and all this and that, but yet I have a 58 page FBI report where they examined all the key components of the vehicle and didn’t find any signs of sabotage.

The Tennessee Highway Patrol did the same thing and even Helen Pesser hired her own experts from GM to examine the vehicle and they couldn’t find anything. So it’s kind of like one of these things where that is one of their claims to fame.

And you know, I’ve heard them tell stories like how it Elvis came to the funeral and waited in. It’s changed over the years. They used to say it was Dana’s room. Lately they’d been saying it’s Mike’s room that.

Scott
00:16:07.860 – 00:16:10.500
Oh, really? Yeah.

Mike Elam
00:16:11.300 – 00:16:43.680
And. But when you look at his schedule, he had two shows in Las Vegas that day, both of his planes.

According to information that I’ve got from people who research Elvis, say his planes were on the ground that day. They didn’t fly.

And you know, even if you were to fly into Memphis, you’ve got, or you probably know as well as I do that it’s a well over an hour’s drive each way just to get there.

Scott
00:16:43.680 – 00:16:44.360
Hour and a half.

Mike Elam
00:16:44.680 – 00:17:05.650
And so you’re sitting there saying, why would Elvis go and not go to the funeral? And why does absolutely no one have a photograph of Elvis being there?

It seemed like Dewana was the only one that was aware that Elvis was anywhere around.

Scott
00:17:06.370 – 00:17:06.850
Yeah.

Jenn
00:17:06.930 – 00:17:10.290
So I agree with you, Mike. Why would they lie about that though?

Mike Elam
00:17:11.650 – 00:17:40.900
Well, it’s income for always has been. The tourism has been a source of income for a small town like Adamsville.

You know, they’re a little over a thousand people right now in population and that’s just always been one of those things. And I’ve tried to convince them that, hey, just tell the real story about Buford, that his was a Wyatt Earp type story.

He walked on both sides of the law.

Scott
00:17:41.300 – 00:17:41.700
Sure.

Mike Elam
00:17:42.100 – 00:17:45.460
But, you know, they want to stick with what they’ve always done.

Scott
00:17:46.500 – 00:17:47.780
Yeah. And that’s interesting.

Mike Elam
00:17:48.660 – 00:17:59.220
Far enough away from, from the movie and all that that, you know, tourism is now really dwindled down to next to nothing.

Scott
00:17:59.620 – 00:17:59.980
Sure.

Mike Elam
00:17:59.980 – 00:18:10.800
And I think their best shot getting it out there again as far as having tourists come back is to change the narrative to what it really is.

Scott
00:18:11.680 – 00:18:14.720
Yeah. And that’s a, that’s a fair, that’s a fair point.

Jenn
00:18:15.200 – 00:18:38.570
So in my research, the reason why it wasn’t filmed, though, in Adams county is because they didn’t want that negative publicity. Right. And that’s why they filmed it in Chester county instead. But then all of a sudden, because the movie did well, they wanted.

Now they wanted to be recognized as the location. Is that true? Is that. Is that not true?

Mike Elam
00:18:39.130 – 00:20:43.150
Well, the way I understand it from my own research is that there were multiple reasons why it probably wasn’t filmed there. Number one, of course, was that county officials at the time thought that the story gave McNary County a black eye. And they said it wasn’t that way.

You had judges and such coming out and saying that County Judge Moore was one of them. They said, you know, it just. It just didn’t happen the way that the movie showed.

And at the same time, then the production company had their own reasons for not wanting to film there, other than, you know, not getting a lot of cooperation from the county itself. But Selmer is a very small town.

You know, even today it’s only about 7,000 people and it’s has a lot more accommodations than it did back in the mid-60s.

And the production company, as I understand it, took a look at it and said, you know, there’s not enough hotel motel rooms, there’s not adequate restaurants or anything that to like that to provide for the needs of the cast and crew. And they just decided that they would just go ahead and move up to filming locations there in Henderson.

And, you know, because it was so much closer to Jackson where they kept the cast and crew and housed them, that it was just closer. You know, they were paying people union wages to riding vehicles for several hours a day just to get to and from the sites. So.

So I think that weighed in along with that decision.

Scott
00:20:44.200 – 00:21:43.230
Yeah, that makes sense. Now, as far as you mentioned, the city and that area was pretty small, so lots of people knew him.

And a bunch of the other comments that we saw on our video was, hey, as you mentioned, but some people are more extreme obviously online when they just drop a comment. I think you said it a better way of saying he had the more Wyatt Earp style. So he walked on both sides of the lines.

And some people are saying, oh, he was super corrupt. And you know, it’s always. It’s probably somewhere in the middle.

Now, if the thing that I was trying to reconcile to me is like, what did he do while he was there? Because he was elected sheriff multiple times.

And then I don’t know if the story is true that he was written in to be constable after his Maximum term limits kind of ran up. So I assume that he was doing something positive there because he kept getting reelected for as a sheriff. But maybe I’m, maybe I’m misreading that.

Mike Elam
00:21:44.190 – 00:23:43.800
Well, actually, you know, like Walking Tall misrepresented the first election. Sheriff James Dickey was the sheriff that was actually killed in the car wreck. There was no food like you saw in the movie or anything like that.

Ran off the road, hit a tree, ejected from the vehicle and was pronounced dead about 30 minutes later. A lot of people will tell you that Buford and Carl Douglas Toed White were behind that. I, I can’t say for sure that that actually is the case.

But at any rate, this happened just right before the election took place. And Dickey was a Democrat, whereas Buford was a Republican. Well, Buford won the Republican ticket to be their nominee for sheriff.

And he ran against a guy named George Weatherford. Well, he beat Weatherford and Weatherford ran as an independent.

And of course everybody expected Dickie to win the election had he lived, because it’s difficult to beat an incumbent. And then after he was gone and they didn’t have time to find a replacement, it came down between George Weatherford and Buford Pusser.

And Buford won by 288 votes. Now they throw this figure around about how he beat a dead sheriff by 307 votes.

Well, James Dickey, his name was still on the ballot and he did get 307 votes. But you know, history kind of twisted that around to make it sound like, yeah, okay, that Buford just barely beat him when that was not the case.

Scott
00:23:44.520 – 00:23:45.160
Yeah, yeah.

Mike Elam
00:23:45.160 – 00:23:48.280
Buford beat Weatherford by 248 votes.

Jenn
00:23:49.400 – 00:23:55.360
Okay, okay. And then. But how long is the sheriff term for? Is it three years?

Mike Elam
00:23:56.240 – 00:24:04.960
It was two years and they could run three consecutive terms. And then they had to sit out because of turmoil at that time.

Jenn
00:24:05.680 – 00:24:07.520
He won the next two elections.

Mike Elam
00:24:07.920 – 00:24:59.770
Yeah, okay. Never seemed to carry Selmer, which was the county seat.

When you go back through the election results, he won most of the outlying areas, not all of them, but most of them. And that was enough to swing the total over to him.

For instance, Adamsville, like I say, was about a thousand people, maybe a little more at that time. Selmer was much larger. But, you know, it could be kind of close.

And after he got in the first time, like I was saying, Lincoln is just difficult to be any sheriff that, you know, would tell you that if you want to get re elected, you have to do some good things. And Buford did. I’m not taking that away from you.

Scott
00:25:00.090 – 00:25:00.490
Sure.

Mike Elam
00:25:01.130 – 00:25:41.430
But, you know, he did a lot of things that. That, of course, when you’re doing something crooked, you don’t let people see that. You just want to see good things you’re doing. And that.

That was a lot. Why he got reelected. And finally after, you know, he had to sit out one term, and so he ran again later.

And Clifford Coleman was the incumbent sheriff. And his pitch to the public was, if your son or daughter had to be arrested tonight, who would you rather do it, Buford or me?

Scott
00:25:42.310 – 00:25:43.670
And interesting.

Mike Elam
00:25:43.910 – 00:25:48.150
That was enough to kind of keep things over in Coleman’s favor.

Scott
00:25:49.110 – 00:25:58.150
Oh, so. So he. So he ran. So Buford actually ran for sheriff again after he took that break and lost that election to the. To the current incumbent.

Mike Elam
00:25:58.790 – 00:26:32.920
Yeah. And then you mentioned being a constable. Of course, they’re an Adamsville. Every area, county is broken up into different civil districts.

And the residents of Adamsville, where he was making that town at that time, they wrote him in so that he could become a constable and at least have authority over a small area of the county.

Scott
00:26:33.340 – 00:26:34.460
Sure, sure.

Jenn
00:26:35.820 – 00:26:59.380
Okay. So what is interesting is during that time as sheriff, that’s when he has the murder where he shoots Louise Hathcock.

Now, looking through your research, there was an autopsy report done on her that wasn’t admissible in court, or they didn’t. They didn’t have it. It wasn’t like it wasn’t admissible. They just didn’t have access.

Mike Elam
00:26:59.380 – 00:29:26.260
It was not presented by the district attorney. I interviewed one of the last surviving people that were impaneled on the grand jury. And, you know, I didn’t. He had also been a sheriff after.

After Buford sometimes, and I called him up to interview him about Euford being a sheriff, and he didn’t have a whole lot to say.

And I asked him about the state line and he’s, you know, that’s all said and done, and you didn’t have any problem with it if you didn’t go down there. But at any rate, I didn’t think I was going to get that. Anything out of him.

And right at the very end of our conversation, I said, is there anything else that you can tell me? And he said, well, I did sit in on the grand jury panel that. For Louise Hathcock’s death. And of course I had the autopsy report.

And I said, how could you, you know, give him a no true bill when you saw that autopsy report? And he told me that didn’t realize there was an autopsy report because the prosecutor didn’t present it a lady.

One of those that had been trying to convince me that Buford was not a good guy was riding a little book of her own. And she sent me a copy of the autopsy report that she had been able to locate.

And when you looked at it, you realize that she was indeed shot in the back twice. What Buford claimed was his first shot struck half cock in the back of the left shoulder and exited out right in through here.

Second shot was right under. Into the left of her left shoulder blade and exited under her right breast. And then while she was on the floor, she was shot again.

And you know that she was. That had to be the final shot because her teeth were actually blown out of her head and embedded in the carpet.

So, you know, that really kind of got you going. And, you know, it’s almost like the autopsy report for decades was a. A well guarded secret. So.

Jenn
00:29:27.620 – 00:29:41.500
So his testimony lines up with the autopsy report, though, like, because he testifies he shot her. He shot her in the back twice. And then what happened? She rolled over. He rolled her over.

Mike Elam
00:29:42.620 – 00:33:03.280
His version was that, well, he’d gone into her private living quarters because she wanted to talk to him without the two deputies he had being there in the room with him.

So he followed her into her room and they attempted to close the door, but there were some clothes from a dry cleaner hanging on the doorknob so the door wouldn’t completely close. The chief Deputy, Jim Moffitt, did follow as far as the hallway from the motel office, which they were just feet apart.

And he stood there in the hallway. And, you know, Buford’s story was that when they got in there that she pulled a gun, cursed at him and fired a shot.

He fell across her bed and the bullet went through a window and struck an awning post outside. And that in return he pulled his gun, a.41 Magnum, and shot her. And. But he was claiming and made it sound like that she was facing him.

But when you see the autopsy response, that’s when I finally had a clue that he was shooting at her with her back turned to him. And, you know, two gentlemen that were in that.

In a little living room kitchenette that, you know, people there at the motel would go to when they were working to watch tv, whatever, you know, when they weren’t busy. And the two individuals in there, one that I still can’t name, said they heard her begging for her life right before the shots were fired.

And when the shots were fired, they heard Buford’s.41 Magnum go off. Before final shot being from her little.38. And, you know, that gets you to thinking and about the autopsy report itself.

And then you look the hole that’s in the window pane.

And I actually went over and got one of the bricks that were still there at the time that had cement on it, and compared that to photographs, counting how many rows of bricks there were up to the window. So you could get some idea about at what point that bullet went through the window.

And then you try to get an estimate of how high it landed up on the iron post that it was lodged in. And it was at a very much an upward angle. And that didn’t fit with his story either.

Well, Jim Moffitt, he was there and heard all this, but he never would really say what all went on. What I have been told by his son, who was also a criminal investigator later on, that Jim came home that night.

Now, o’ Neal Moffitt, his son, was on leave from the military, and he was there visiting with his mom whenever Jim got home. And he told him, if anything ever happens to me, you don’t need to look any further than Berford Pusser. So.

Jenn
00:33:03.360 – 00:33:05.200
So his. His deputy said that?

Mike Elam
00:33:05.360 – 00:33:06.980
Yes, Deputy.

Jenn
00:33:08.740 – 00:33:19.620
So, so. So. So what you. What you believe happened was he shot her twice, she fell on the ground, she begged for her life. He shot her in the head.

Mike Elam
00:33:20.020 – 00:33:24.500
No, she was begging for her life before that. He shot her the first time.

Jenn
00:33:25.140 – 00:33:27.620
Oh, so she was begging for her life before he even shot her in the back.

Mike Elam
00:33:28.260 – 00:33:28.820
Yeah.

Jenn
00:33:29.540 – 00:33:41.140
Okay. And then he shoots her twice in the back.

And do the people hear her screaming like the people who are listening who heard all of us, do they hear her screaming then? Because she would be screaming. Right.

Mike Elam
00:33:42.740 – 00:34:22.220
No one has said anything about her screaming after she was shot. When you read report that that second shot was devastating, and the third shot certainly was.

And second and third, I spoke with Dr. Jerry Francisco, who did her autopsy, and when I referred to him as first, second, third shot, he said, no, you can’t go by the numbers there on the report. That’s just a reference point for us. And he said, we don’t know what should order the shots were fired.

Scott
00:34:22.220 – 00:34:22.700
Okay.

Mike Elam
00:34:23.100 – 00:34:59.160
And that’s when I told him.

I said, well, I’m comparing what I’m seeing on the autopsy report, because you said his first shot nicked her in the shoulder, and then his second shot hit her in the torso. And he never did.

Buford never really talked about the third shot, but, you know, you can surmise that that came while she was laying on the floor, but because of the way that her teeth were fragmented and blown out the back of her head and embedded in that carpet.

Scott
00:35:00.760 – 00:35:07.640
Was there any. I mean, do you have any idea, like, why he would have shot her? Because.

Mike Elam
00:35:07.800 – 00:37:23.610
Well, you know, was going downhill at that time. They had Prohibition and it was ending. Mississippi was the last state in the union to recognize that the end of Prohibition had come around.

So, you know, they made their big money selling bootleg alcohol. Well, there wasn’t any need for that any longer because it was legal to sell it, you know, in Mississippi.

And so, you know, those days were over for him, and Buford was still. Now, I had Louise Hathcock’s niece that lived there part of the time, told me that, you know, Louise, like everybody else, had to pay Buford.

And apparently Louise had told Buford that, I can’t afford to do it anymore. We’re not making the money we once did. But he was aware that she kept large sums of money there at the place, according to Barbara.

And, you know, the IRS was about to take the place because Jack Hathcock, who originally built the Shamrock complex along with Louise, they were divorced in 1957, in September, and, like, 10 years, one of those cases where she ran the business like she always had, and allegedly he rented it to her. I don’t know if that were the case, but how they still operated just like they were married.

And as a matter of fact, even their family members didn’t know that they’d been divorced for so long.

According to Dan Beaufort did all this so that he could have time to search for the money that she might keep there prior to the IRS actually taking possession of the property.

Jenn
00:37:25.770 – 00:37:39.110
Okay, and so. And so let me go back a little bit. So people say they heard his three gunshots and then her shot, or was her shot before or after her shot.

Mike Elam
00:37:39.110 – 00:37:40.830
Was the last shot, according to the.

Jenn
00:37:42.510 – 00:38:13.010
So. And if this. If this is plausible, let’s say he shoots. He shoots her in the arm. She doesn’t scream or yell. He shoots her in the gut.

She doesn’t scream or yell. Maybe it hit her heart. And then he shoots her in the head. Her teeth go into the carpet. He finds her.38 and he fires the.38. Okay, so that.

So that’s what they think. Like, he. Okay, and so then. Does he look for the money then? Or is that what the deputies say? Is that what the people say there?

That he, like, searched everything?

Mike Elam
00:38:13.570 – 00:39:31.150
The following day after her death, investigation was finished, according to family, he went back and tore things apart. They’re looking for it but didn’t find it. Barbara did tell me that she knew of three places where Jack and Louise had kept money.

One was in kind of a closet, they called it a vault at times, in the office there in the motel. And of course, it was in a hidden panel, and he didn’t find that. And then another one was almost an identical type situation where they had a.

A panel in the kitchenette there behind the registration desk in that little private area where she kept money.

And then Barbara said that in the early days, there were times when they would be bringing in so much money that they would actually put it in buckets or cans, seal it up, and bury it out in the horse pasture because they didn’t feel like they’d go to banks. Because how do you make it appear that a small motel like that is tremendous sums of money?

Jenn
00:39:32.510 – 00:40:15.450
Yeah, exactly. So. Well, then he’s. So. So the movie makes it sound like the. There was retaliation to him because of this.

And that’s kind of what the ambush on Pauline was all about as well. But from what you’ve gathered and from what I watched your show and people who haven’t heard, there is.

There is another side of that story that Buford and Pauline were actually separated. When the ambush happens, she comes over to the house to have a conversation with him. It gets heated. And then Beaufort.

Mike Elam
00:40:15.450 – 00:42:33.560
That’s not exactly it. They had been separated. I don’t know if they were back together at that time. No one has been able to tell me.

I did interview Pauline’s best friend, Levon Plum. Her husband was one of Buford’s deputies, and Lavon said that they had been separated.

She didn’t know if for sure if Pauline had gone back, but she said Pauline did call her oldest daughter home from Memphis. Diane, that you never saw in the movie.

She was staying with Buford’s sister in Memphis because she didn’t like being around Buford because of things he’d allegedly done. And Pauline called her the day before, told her that she needed to come home, that she and Beautran were having problems, and Diane did so.

And so that kind of relates back to the ambush itself, because Diane was there. I had some of her friends, and she would only tell this to close friends, but all of them seemed to tell the same story.

And that being that Euford came home that night right after Lavon brought Colleen home. Now, Lavon was actually waiting down the street for her to gather up some of the personal belongings and the kids, and they were going to leave.

And Buford came home about that time, and Lavon said that she was sitting down her street, down the street in a car, waiting for Pauline to flash the porch light on so she would know to drive down there and pick him up. Lavon didn’t want to be in the house in case Buford did come home. But at any rate, while she’s waiting, Buford comes by, goes in the house, and.

And a very short time later, she hears a gunshot. She doesn’t know what to do. She can’t call the sheriff’s office because Buford’s father was the jailer and dispatcher.

Jenn
00:42:33.560 – 00:42:33.840
Right.

Mike Elam
00:42:33.840 – 00:44:15.410
Then, okay. She couldn’t call her husband because she knew that Petey would probably lie for Buford.

And so she’s trying to figure out who she can call, who she can trust. And so she leaves out of fear. And at the same time, Diane, who is inside the house, said that she heard it pop. She didn’t tell me this directly.

She told an associate of mine who did interview her, said she heard a pop. She then heard a noise out in the living room that sounded like the front door openings that she looked out.

Said Buford was carrying Pauline to the car, placed her in the front seat, and then he started walking back toward the house.

And Diane was afraid that he was coming back to do something to possibly her or her siblings, and said he got about halfway to the house, and he bent over, picked up her shoes and placed them in the. In the front floorboard of the car.

And when you look at the photo of that, shows the shoe sitting there, they appear to have been placed by somebody rather than a woman leisurely kicking them off while they’re taking the drive. So that was kind of suspicious. But Diane would. She even told one individual, Sonny Olin Davis, who was a police officer that she knew in Jackson.

She told him about it.

Jenn
00:44:15.890 – 00:44:18.610
So how old was Diane at the time?

Mike Elam
00:44:20.130 – 00:44:23.810
She was probably 16, 17 years old.

Jenn
00:44:24.610 – 00:44:31.130
Okay. And Pauline had told her to come home to kind of help get the kids and get out of time.

Mike Elam
00:44:31.130 – 00:44:33.090
She was asked to come home other than.

Scott
00:44:33.350 – 00:44:33.750
Okay.

Mike Elam
00:44:33.830 – 00:44:38.710
Pauline had told her that she and Buford were having problems.

Jenn
00:44:39.430 – 00:44:39.990
Okay.

Mike Elam
00:44:40.390 – 00:48:38.740
I think what Pauline was probably doing was gathering up all the kids so, you know, she’d make sure she had them all when she left, you know, and prior to that, it’s. The events that surround the ambush like this are so amazing, is that couple of.

Well, quite a few hours before, two ladies at the Old Hickory Grill overheard Buford and Pauline and argument out in the parking lot there. And according to them, Buford. Pauline threatened to report Buford’s corruption to the tbi.

And he allegedly said, if you try that, you won’t live to see the light of day.

And then a little bit later, two guys, young men, about 16 years old, one of them being Dennis Hathcock, Louisa’s nephew, they were following Buford around.

You know, they didn’t have video games back in those days, so they had to insert their own entertainment because there wasn’t anything around for kids really to do. So one of their pastimes was to follow the sheriff because he’d like to meet up with women.

And so they knew one of those places was at the state maintenance office there in East View. So they went up there one night, and they figured that Buford was probably going to meet one of the girlfriends. And they parked their.

Their motorcycle behind a place where it could be concealed. And they climbed up on a pile of rock, and they were watching down. And sure enough, well, Beaver pulls in and parks a couple of minutes later.

Well, this young lady’s car pulls in and she gets out. Her and Buford are talking, and there were some angry words passed. He told her that she needed to get.

She needed to get out of there, and she was angry. She left. And Buford followed her out of the lot and then immediately returned.

Then the two boys said that they couldn’t figure out why that he came back. At about that time, a 65 Chevy Biscayne with Oklahoma tags pulled in one of two people in it. Only the driver got out.

Well, Buford and this other party popped the trunk lids of the car, and they took two guns out of, oh, one car and put them in the other, closed them up, and they all left.

And so a little bit later that night is when the ambush allegedly took place, after we even got a call at home about a disturbance near the state line. And that’s another thing that drew my interest. I do a tour down there twice a year because I’ve got so many people that want to see all this.

And we take them down the route that Buford drove that morning, which was at the time, it’s still not a good route, but at the time it was mostly unimproved roads, and Buford chose to drive that way, avoiding any populated area when he lived two blocks from Highway 64. And he could have gone down Highway 64 into Silver, taking 45. And you would like to drive fast. And he could have been there.

Nothing planned why he took this road or route that he took, a combination of Roads actually to go to the state line is kind of a mystery. And what’s even more so is how an ambush party would not be waiting for him there.

Jenn
00:48:41.780 – 00:48:51.700
That’s interesting. So there was no. He never explained why he took that route or they were looking for something else, so they wanted to check on something else.

He never explained that.

Mike Elam
00:48:54.150 – 00:49:28.330
Call he got was that there was something on New Hope Road that he might find. But his initial story was that he was going to a disturbance at Hollis Jordan’s place there on 45, about another mile north of the state line.

And it would have been a whole lot faster initially for him to taken that route. And I don’t know if he got to thinking about, well, now I’ve got to find the. A way to explain why I took the route that I took.

So he changed his story to saying, well, there was something I was supposed to find on New Hope Pro.

Jenn
00:49:28.650 – 00:49:41.610
So my question too is like, so if Diane heard a pop, believes her, I would say that this is leading towards it. Buford shot her. Did this happen in the house?

Mike Elam
00:49:41.610 – 00:50:46.830
She shot him very. A little. She was mountain doed, carry a little.25 caliber semiautomatic handgun.

And there’s no proof that either way it went that anybody was really hit. Another strange thing that happened. I interviewed the coroner, Ward Moore, and he said that Carl Pusser was at the jail that night.

Called him and said, you need to get over the beaver. And Pauline’s are in the middle of a fight and they’re about to kill each other. Well, more got in his car, drove over there.

By the time that he arrived, both of them were gone. And he said that he did notice on the carpet a couple of drops of blood. Said it wasn’t anything major at all, it was just droplets.

And he, you know, he didn’t describe it as blood spatter like from a gunshot, anything like that. So I don’t know.

Jenn
00:50:46.830 – 00:50:49.590
He’s the coroner, so he would know. Right.

Mike Elam
00:50:49.910 – 00:50:51.430
County corps at the top.

Jenn
00:50:52.310 – 00:50:57.510
And they, they called him to come over because he was good at breaking up fights and he knew them or.

Mike Elam
00:50:57.510 – 00:51:03.510
Just because he was one of those people that had authority to arrest the sheriff if need be.

Jenn
00:51:03.510 – 00:51:04.950
Okay, okay.

Mike Elam
00:51:05.110 – 00:51:25.990
In, in Tennessee, Arkansas, still this way, if something that happens that a sheriff needs to be arrested, the coroner is actually the next person in line to hold that position until the new sheriff can be either elected or appointed. Okay, so.

Jenn
00:51:27.350 – 00:51:41.480
So a coroner can arrest a sheriff? Yes, now. And then Diane, they left. They probably don’t come back for hours. She never saw anything either. Right.

She never found like a towel of blood or she.

Mike Elam
00:51:41.480 – 00:51:43.840
She never said anything about that.

Jenn
00:51:44.160 – 00:51:57.710
Okay. Okay. So then the ambush happens. Buford’s story is that the car pulled up beside him, fired at them. He fires back.

And it doesn’t Buford get hit in the face face during this ambush.

Mike Elam
00:51:58.030 – 00:51:59.790
A lot of misinformation there.

Jenn
00:52:00.030 – 00:52:00.710
Okay. Yeah.

Mike Elam
00:52:00.710 – 00:52:22.590
Tell me what happened, Buford. According to the TBI information that I saw from reports early on. I mean this was before their files became closed. It was.

As a matter of fact, it’s in the newspapers at the time that the ambush with TBI and Jim Moffett established that the ambush took place around 4:45 in the morning.

Jenn
00:52:23.050 – 00:52:23.450
Okay.

Mike Elam
00:52:24.090 – 00:55:46.220
It was dark then.

Buford’s story was that as he passed by the church that a car must pulled out from behind there because there was no other place to conceal a car with and followed him without the use of their headlights for 7/10 of a mile. That’s it was only 7/10 of a mile from the church to the first ambush sight. Now you know, you do the math.

A car passes by the church at 50 miles an hour because that’s about an off grass buford setting. It’s going 0550 and you’re sitting there in a car dead stop.

And you have to get out on that road, all right, Chase this car down, Buford’s car down without the use of your headlights, navigate curves without any light whatsoever. And no road signs, no stripes on the roadway because it was just a chirp road, you know, where they put oil and then gravel down on top of it.

And you start doing the math on how fast would a car have to be traveling, catch up with him. 7 Chance of a mile if they started from a dead stop.

And then you take into consideration they’re doing without their headlights and they’re doing it going around a couple of curves and they’re on a gravel surface. And they would have gone off out in the woods, I would think, if they were trying to catch Muture and driving on that gravel and around the curtain.

So his story didn’t make sense in that regard to me. Of course, they didn’t really find anything at first. Ambush site, which is oddly the site that seems to get the most.

That’s the one that people want to see. I don’t know why. Because 2.1 miles on down the road was where the second ambush took place.

And Buford’s story indicates that they were still trying to chase him down without any headlights. Now to me, Your methods and motives have already been seen whenever they turn their headlights on.

The first time, when they pulled up along siding at the. At that little bridge, and he said lights came on, they fired a couple of shots. One hit Colleen in the head. And he described her as being wounded.

And so he said, you know, that he hit the gas and left him behind. Now, there were no side roads, no driveways, any place for them to really pull off and for him to lose them in any way.

But yet, he said 2.1 miles on down the road, he stopped. You check on Paulie? He started to get out of the car. He had his door open, one foot in, one foot out.

Car appeared again, stopped right beside him, started shooting again. And that he took one of the first rounds in the. In the. It was actually in the chin, not the jaw.

Scott
00:55:46.460 – 00:55:47.020
Okay.

Mike Elam
00:55:48.220 – 00:56:20.080
And that he fell to the floorboard. Said he was unconscious or semiconscious for a while. When he reached over and grabbed the steering wheel, pulled himself back up.

That’s when he realized that Pauline was hit again and killed this time. That doesn’t make sense because he had described her as leaning over on him, gasping for air. And Buford was a big man. I mean, 6, 6 and £250.

Scott
00:56:20.080 – 00:56:20.600
Oh, yeah.

Mike Elam
00:56:20.600 – 00:57:51.890
And he’s got her leaning against him. He said he didn’t fire any shots because with her body up against his, he couldn’t get to his firearm.

But yet he wore his gun on his left side and would cross draw.

And so you’re sitting there saying, how is it a guy his size, an ex wrestler, can’t get this small woman’s body weight off of him to pull out his gun and fire a shot. So that didn’t make sense. And then the fact that he was saying she was hit and wounded at the first side, killed at the second sight.

Or better yet, if the second sight, he said, you know, he grabbed that steering wheel, pulled himself back up, and the ambush party was still sitting there and said the gun was hanging out the window. And he reached over and grabbed the barrel of the gun and said he held on to it until they drove away.

Of course, he would tell that his chin was hanging down to his chest. Yeah, well, he was hit one time in the chin. Not the job. The jawbone was not broken. His jaw was not blown away. That’s all myth misinformation.

And his jaw was still right where it should be. Now, granted, it was mangled up.

Scott
00:57:52.210 – 00:57:52.690
Yeah.

Mike Elam
00:57:52.770 – 00:58:26.210
But it wasn’t shot away, as so many people have been led to believe. Over the years.

And so, you know, a lot of people suspect, as do I, under the circumstances and knowing a lot of the information about what happened, that it’s very possible that the whole thing was so that he could take Colleen out there and get rid of her. And that his gunshot wound was either self inflicted or possibly done by an accomplice that was there.

Jenn
00:58:27.650 – 00:58:31.090
Wow. But no one’s ever come forward to say they were an accomplice on that.

Mike Elam
00:58:31.330 – 00:58:31.970
Oh, no.

Jenn
00:58:33.410 – 00:58:37.570
And no one. He never was able to identify who ambushed him either.

Mike Elam
00:58:38.850 – 00:58:47.250
No. You know, and that’s another strange thing because he was able then, according to W.R. morris, to identify all these people.

Jenn
00:58:47.570 – 00:58:48.130
Yeah.

Mike Elam
00:58:48.210 – 01:00:07.670
And three of them were killed in unusual circumstances. But even that was misreported. For instance, he said Raymond Carmine Gagliardi was found floating in a Boston harbor where he had been killed.

And what is odd is that he died in prison of a drug overdose. In prison. So, you know, that one was false. He also claimed that a guy named George McGann was involved. George McGann got shot and killed by.

After he interceded in a dispute between a couple. And the guy pulled a gun and shot him, killed him. We didn’t have anything to do with that.

And, you know, courtesy Nix was the only one that he alleged may have been involved.

But here again, Vern Jones, the TBI investigator, took Buford over to Oklahoma when they found Nix in a jail over there for Buford to possibly identify. Buford couldn’t do it, huh?

Scott
01:00:07.910 – 01:00:08.430
Interesting.

Mike Elam
01:00:08.430 – 01:00:09.400
Or wouldn’t do it.

Jenn
01:00:09.870 – 01:00:19.790
So the three gentlemen he said that were there, two of them died after this happened in mysterious circumstances. And the third one he couldn’t identify.

Mike Elam
01:00:20.430 – 01:00:22.270
There was four people he named.

Jenn
01:00:22.670 – 01:00:23.070
Four.

Mike Elam
01:00:23.470 – 01:01:03.610
One was a. He was affiliated with a group that later became known as the Dixie Mafia. And you know, he was found floating in the Sabine River.

And a lot of people feel like that had more to do with the fact that he had allegedly been involved in the assassination of a district attorney and that the. His own people didn’t want him bringing that kind of heat down on everybody. So they just got rid of him. They.

They don’t think it had anything to do with Buford. Interesting.

Scott
01:01:04.540 – 01:01:04.780
So.

Mike Elam
01:01:04.780 – 01:01:15.180
And Nick’s is still alive. He’s over here, not that far from me in El Reno, Oklahoma, in a federal maximum security prison.

Jenn
01:01:15.260 – 01:01:16.020
Oh my gosh.

Scott
01:01:16.020 – 01:01:16.340
Wow.

Jenn
01:01:16.340 – 01:01:17.180
He’s still alive.

Scott
01:01:18.140 – 01:01:18.940
That’s wild.

Mike Elam
01:01:19.980 – 01:01:25.900
Trying to get out, you know, on, on parole even yet.

Scott
01:01:26.620 – 01:01:45.200
Yeah, I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t blame him. So it sounds like there’s a lot of information that never made it into kind of the mainstream. A lot. Right. You’ve, you’ve, you’ve seen a lot yourself.

You’ve talked to a lot of folks yourself. You’ve talked to fellow investigators.

Mike Elam
01:01:45.760 – 01:01:55.200
When it comes, you know, when found the rifle, I was asked if I had any other information. And it was kind of like, well, how much do you want?

Scott
01:01:56.000 – 01:02:21.230
Yeah, yeah. When it, when it comes to his death, I know that’s another question mark for folks.

Some people say, hey, he was drinking and he crashed because he was drunk. Some people say, oh, the brakes, brake lines were cut. But you had mentioned earlier that there was investigations done. So it’s, you know, it.

Nobody could determine if there was any tampering or anything like that with the car. So that seems to have put that part of the story to rest.

Mike Elam
01:02:21.230 – 01:03:22.170
There was no form of sabotage that was, was found. Okay. I did interview the trooper that worked his fatal accident. My name is Paul Irvin.

And he told me that, you know, it was a situation where they took blood from him that night when they got him back to Selmer, to the hospital, the local medical examiner, Harry Peeler, did that. And that was witnessed by a deputy sheriff from McNary County. And that the test came back as his blood alcohol concentration being 0.18.

And of course, they had several people that they interviewed following the accident that had encountered Buford at the county fair. And about half of them said that, yeah, they. He had alcohol on his breast.

Scott
01:03:22.410 – 01:03:23.570
Yeah, yeah.

Mike Elam
01:03:23.570 – 01:03:34.730
And of course, you look at the. His accident report, there’s something like 565ft of skid marks.

Scott
01:03:36.090 – 01:03:37.890
Sure. Yeah. That’s a lot.

Mike Elam
01:03:37.890 – 01:04:12.140
Even at that, he hit an embankment at around 40 miles an hour, so he would left a lot more skid. And Mark said it might have been for that embankment. The car flipped over, landed upright about 40, 50ft away from where the impact was.

Buford was ejected through the t top of the car and his body landed about three feet behind the car, his head being about 18 inches from Highway 64 pavement.

Jenn
01:04:12.220 – 01:04:12.940
Oh, wow.

Mike Elam
01:04:13.900 – 01:04:14.300
So.

Jenn
01:04:15.100 – 01:04:22.380
So. And real quick, real quick, Mike, going back to Pauline, no autopsy was ever done on her, right?

Mike Elam
01:04:22.459 – 01:04:38.290
No.

That was another thing I learned a long time ago that, you know, the TBI said they learned that no autopsy reported been performed or completed on Pauline. Well, I’ve known that for years.

Jenn
01:04:39.010 – 01:04:47.330
And, and the claim would be she died from two shots to the head. That would be, from what I hear this, that would be a one shot wounded her.

Mike Elam
01:04:48.610 – 01:04:54.610
That’s what’s going to Be interesting about when we finally do here. If they release the information.

Jenn
01:04:55.330 – 01:04:55.810
Yes.

Mike Elam
01:04:56.290 – 01:05:09.600
You know, because I have to look at it. Was Buford telling the truth when she was. Said she was hit twice in the head? What if it was only once? What does that say?

Jenn
01:05:09.840 – 01:05:43.160
Yeah, so that. And I wanted to lead into that. So Pauline’s body was exhumed in February of 2024.

And a lot of reasons, based on evidence that you presented back to this Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and that they took the time to. To review it and say, you know what? This does warrant being reopened and looked at again because you raised enough questions.

So they did exhume her body. An autopsy was performed. She’s been reinterred because we visit the grave. But that. We’re still waiting on that report. Right?

Mike Elam
01:05:43.160 – 01:06:09.350
Yeah. They’d had the report turned into the 25th to date. Judicial district Attorney general for quite some time now. And of course, he’s a busy person.

He’s had a lot of people don’t understand that he’s over more than just McNary County. He’s got about five counties that he’s over.

Scott
01:06:09.670 – 01:06:10.230
Gotcha.

Mike Elam
01:06:10.230 – 01:07:07.670
And right now, you know, he’s been in the middle of a big case with. With this Holly Bobo murder that occurred over there. They’ve been going to court over that recently.

And, you know, he’s said that he’ll release the information. I know that a lot of people are getting impatient because, sure, I possibly understand the process a little bit better than.

Than most, but these things take a little bit of time. Time. You know, there certain things that you just can’t hurry y. And I definitely think he’ll release the information, but, you know, it’s.

I. I do think that if.

If Buford had not been involved in some way that the public is not aware of, it would have been easy for him to come out and say, hey, you know, we found nothing. Yeah, so there is that. I don’t know.

Jenn
01:07:08.220 – 01:07:24.540
Earlier in the podcast, you said that you had a friend who had that weapon that killed Pauline, and you had looked at it and you’d saw it was from the Air Force. So what you’re saying is that Buford actually did shoot her with that weapon?

Mike Elam
01:07:25.180 – 01:07:25.580
No.

Jenn
01:07:26.220 – 01:07:30.620
Okay. So how did he say he had the weapon that killed Pauline? Is that the weapon from the ambush?

Mike Elam
01:07:31.020 – 01:07:32.380
Well, our tent.

Jenn
01:07:32.860 – 01:07:33.420
Okay.

Mike Elam
01:07:34.010 – 01:07:38.410
I can’t say right now. Okay. Fired the gun.

Jenn
01:07:38.730 – 01:07:39.370
Okay.

Mike Elam
01:07:39.530 – 01:07:51.130
I just know that when I checked into it, I learned that Buford did have the gun and that he had others just like it.

Jenn
01:07:51.370 – 01:07:51.930
Okay.

Mike Elam
01:07:52.490 – 01:08:02.690
I don’t Know, if the gun that they have is the one that was used or if it was one of the others. I’m waiting to see that would, would.

Jenn
01:08:02.690 – 01:08:12.410
Bullets, they would not still be in her body. They wouldn’t be able to do ballistics, fragments. Okay. You know, so there might be a way to do ballistics and see.

Mike Elam
01:08:12.410 – 01:08:28.210
Oh, yeah. I mean, a lot of people, of course, aren’t familiar with that line of thing, but, you know, an autopsy is going to show possibility of fragments.

It’s going to show the trajectories.

Jenn
01:08:28.210 – 01:08:28.770
Yep.

Mike Elam
01:08:30.050 – 01:08:54.899
Direction of travel and a lot of other things.

You know, I’m sure that they, they would look, depending on how well preserved her body was, to see if she had any defensive wounds of any kind that, you know, would be important in such a thing. Gunpowder residue there in the neck that is easily broken. And I’m sure that they’d want to check it, see if.

Jenn
01:08:56.179 – 01:08:57.739
Yeah. He didn’t choke her or grab.

Mike Elam
01:08:57.739 – 01:09:02.979
Yeah. And maybe shot her sometimes later. Who knows what they’re going to find.

Jenn
01:09:03.059 – 01:09:03.459
Sure.

Mike Elam
01:09:03.699 – 01:09:47.090
Okay, so. But the autopsy will tell them a multitude of things. It’s. It’s like every other investigative thing. It’s evolved so much since the mid-60s.

Like when I was in law enforcement, got into it in the early 70s. Things we did back then are now archaic to what they can do now.

I mean, investigations have changed so much and I’ve tried to keep up with a lot of it and it’s even kind of dizzying to me what all tools that they actually have now. So.

Jenn
01:09:47.490 – 01:10:03.450
So, Mr. Elam, you also say that you do tours, you take people to these. This locations and you say one of the most asked for is the first ambrush site.

Is that the most asked for site or is another site more asked for than that one?

Mike Elam
01:10:03.450 – 01:10:47.140
Probably, probably the most. What we do is. It’s something I’ve always done for free.

We’ve always done it as a caravan, even though now it’s getting a little out of hand to do that.

And by the fact that everybody wants to drive their own vehicle and just follow a lead vehicle to go to all these places is, you know, it’s kicking where I wouldn’t have to charge. I do one in May, one in October, and we start out there in Selmer. We drive initially to where Buford lost his life there on the Highway 64.

Jenn
01:10:47.460 – 01:10:48.420
Where the marker is.

Mike Elam
01:10:49.380 – 01:11:03.380
At any rate, from there we go on to the cemetery, which is just a short distance away. Let people visit the grave sites of Buford and Pauline and the family or from there, we go to the museum.

Jenn
01:11:04.400 – 01:11:06.240
So how do they receive you at the museum?

Mike Elam
01:11:09.440 – 01:11:10.320
Both ways.

Jenn
01:11:10.720 – 01:11:11.120
Really?

Mike Elam
01:11:11.840 – 01:11:45.030
Yeah. I mean, when I do, the Turret brings in a lot of money for. Okay, some of their biggest days because they have a lot of people that want to see it.

Other times they’re pretty cold. One time they circle my name on the book that you sign when you go in. And then they posted, look who visited the museum today and behaved himself.

It was kind of like, I’ve been in here many times. Have I ever misbehaved?

Jenn
01:11:45.270 – 01:11:45.750
Yeah.

Mike Elam
01:11:47.110 – 01:11:49.830
So they’re good as long as I’m bringing money.

Jenn
01:11:50.950 – 01:11:51.510
Okay.

Mike Elam
01:11:52.070 – 01:12:16.390
And. And personally, I hope the place never closes. Oh, I try to support it as best I can.

My views being opposed to what theirs are, has, you know, really means nothing to me because to me it’s just an interesting story. It’s a piece of history.

Jenn
01:12:16.870 – 01:12:18.630
Yeah, yeah. It’s American history.

Mike Elam
01:12:19.030 – 01:12:56.010
There are a lot of things in there that people appreciate saying, and I’m the same way.

But, you know, like I’ve told, it would just be nice to hear you guys finally tell this is a wider type story and that you could indeed take a lot of payoffs. He could be a very cruel individual. And that just a lot of these stories that the majority of that we’ve heard over the, the years are not true.

I made a movie about it and that just blew everything up.

Jenn
01:12:56.810 – 01:13:15.690
So I have one last question before we go. I had seen you do a podcast with someone and you talked about the, the scars that Buford had on his chest.

And then he showed the picture of Buford as a wrestler. And my confusion was I thought Buford was a wrestler before that happened.

Mike Elam
01:13:16.600 – 01:13:40.920
So that he was a, a wrestler before that happened, but.

Or, pardon me, after that happened because this alleged attack where he got beat up, carved up, thrown out, left for dead, happened in February of 1957. He didn’t get into wrestling until about 1959.

Jenn
01:13:41.810 – 01:13:42.210
Okay.

Mike Elam
01:13:43.570 – 01:13:51.650
And what a lot of people don’t know is that initially the scars were supposed to be to his head and face.

Jenn
01:13:52.370 – 01:13:53.570
Oh, okay.

Mike Elam
01:13:53.890 – 01:14:02.850
And I guess the movie companies, doing what they do best and trying to give us a lot of entertainment value, made it to his chest.

Scott
01:14:03.490 – 01:14:03.890
Right.

Mike Elam
01:14:03.890 – 01:14:33.740
And when you talk about that, then you would think that if he, he actually had 192 stitches to close the wounds in his face and head, you would think you would have some people in the small town of Adamsville that would have seen him back then with the. All these scars, but no one seems to know anything about It. And there’s no photographs of it. So where did all this come from?

Scott
01:14:34.260 – 01:14:36.100
Yeah, interesting, interesting.

Jenn
01:14:36.180 – 01:14:55.140
Okay. That was why I was a disconnect when I saw that. I was like, well, what did. What did. I don’t understand. That’s not evidence.

If it happened before, but you’re saying it happened after. And it wasn’t even the location in the movie. It was the head.

But even then, he’s almost has a buzz cut in that photograph, so you would see scars if, you know, your character.

Mike Elam
01:14:55.300 – 01:15:28.340
And the other thing is, you know, he joined the Marine Corps and he was discharged, allegedly for asthma, although that never seemed to give him a problem that I’ve been able to find when he was a high school athlete or wrestler. But be that as it may, you know, he was discharged.

He was never actually a Marine, because it’s my understanding that in order to be a Marine, you have to graduate from boot camp.

Jenn
01:15:29.060 – 01:15:30.740
Oh, he never even made it through boot camp.

Mike Elam
01:15:30.980 – 01:15:31.380
No.

Scott
01:15:32.020 – 01:15:33.380
How interesting. Okay.

Mike Elam
01:15:33.380 – 01:15:45.220
He had a medical discharge for asthma before he graduated. Again, the movie, they. I think they say, you know, that he was in the Marine Corps for three years, if I’m not mistaken.

Jenn
01:15:45.460 – 01:15:46.820
Yeah, I think that’s what they say.

Mike Elam
01:15:48.660 – 01:15:50.820
Total baloney. Okay.

Jenn
01:15:50.820 – 01:15:52.510
Interesting, interesting. Well, thank you.

Scott
01:15:52.670 – 01:16:00.030
Yeah. Thanks so much for joining us. This was very enlightening. And it’s. It’s interesting, too, because it’s not too common, and we’ve talked about.

Jenn
01:16:00.110 – 01:16:01.070
It’s a lot of work.

Scott
01:16:01.710 – 01:16:21.330
A lot, a lot of work on your part, and we’ve talked about other spots in history, you know, historians that have, you know, had. Had controversial things, you know, brought up about them because they either didn’t cover the facts Right. Or whatever. And that’s.

It sounds like that’s. That’s a little bit of what’s happened at the museum. And, And I really appreciate you coming on with us and having the, you.

Mike Elam
01:16:21.330 – 01:16:51.440
Know, having the discussion, you guys following up on your original podcast and videos, because, you know, it’s one thing to get it wrong, but then to realize it and not go back to correct it for me, is yet another thing. And I appreciate the fact that you guys would come back, check on it, and try to find out what really happened.

Scott
01:16:51.760 – 01:17:03.760
Now, I am always happy to be. To be proven wrong if that means that I can know it a little bit better. Right.

As long as I didn’t make too much of a fool of myself, you know, when I initially got it wrong.

Jenn
01:17:04.720 – 01:17:34.440
Well, I. I also think it. This lends itself to show that there’s these two There’s a duality of stories here. Right. Because the museum does protect the legend. Right. And so.

And so, if you thinking, you know, museums also have what they call public trust. People feel like when they go to a museum and they read stuff in a museum, that they trust what the museum is telling them.

And so you have to understand that sometimes even museums are protecting that legend, too. And like you said, for business and things like that.

Mike Elam
01:17:35.170 – 01:18:04.740
Um, one thing that I will say before we close is that if there is one thing that I. I can say about Buford that I really appreciate is even though his story is false, he did encourage more people through that movie to get into law enforcement than any other person I can think of. I mean, it’s incredible. A number of people that saw that movie and thought, you know, I’d like to be just like him.

Jenn
01:18:05.620 – 01:18:14.180
That’s so true, Mr. Elam, because when you go to the museum, it’s covered in those patches from all those sheriff’s departments from across America.

Mike Elam
01:18:14.660 – 01:18:55.040
You know, just always surprises me about how many people don’t know. And, you know, my last two podcasts, one comes out tomorrow.

You know, I talk about Illusionary Truth, where somebody hears the story so often that eventually they believe it’s true, even if it’s not. And the only thing that’s worse than that type of affliction is when you’re the one telling the story and you know it’s not true.

And after a while, you begin to believe what you say yourself. So.

Jenn
01:18:55.040 – 01:19:06.280
Yeah, what’s the saying from the man who Shot Liberty Valance? When the facts become legend, print the legend. Right, right. Isn’t that what he says at the end of that movie? And that’s what’s happened in this case.

Mike Elam
01:19:06.680 – 01:19:07.240
Yeah.

Scott
01:19:07.480 – 01:19:17.080
So, Mike, where’s the best place for people to find you is your YouTube channel, your main output, your main way of kind of sharing what you’re researching?

Mike Elam
01:19:17.650 – 01:19:50.380
Two places, my Facebook page, okay, about 20,000 followers on there and about probably another 80, 90,000 people to read that don’t necessarily follow it. A lot of that being that they get kicked off the other cusser pages if they found out that people were following me.

And then, of course, my YouTube page age and, you know, the episode that I just finished doing today was number 118.

Scott
01:19:51.660 – 01:19:52.140
Nice.

Mike Elam
01:19:53.420 – 01:19:55.980
There’s a. There’s a lot to tell about this story.

Scott
01:19:56.620 – 01:19:57.220
Sure, sure.

Jenn
01:19:57.220 – 01:19:59.820
Well, you’re peeling back the onion one layer at a time.

Scott
01:19:59.820 – 01:20:00.180
Yeah.

Jenn
01:20:00.180 – 01:20:03.180
You’re doing a good job, Mr. Elam. It’s a lot taken years.

Scott
01:20:03.980 – 01:20:33.920
Yeah. Hey, you’re the perfect person for it. So for our listeners and for our watchers, I will absolutely link the.

To Mike Elam’s Facebook page and to his YouTube page. So go check out his channel.

If this topic interests you, we absolutely encourage you to go take a look at that because we covered a lot here in an hour and a half, little hour and 20 minutes. There’s plenty more detail on Mike’s pages.

And so if you guys are interested in diving deeper into the story, the true story of Buford Pusser, please go check out Mike’s pages.

Jenn
01:20:33.920 – 01:20:42.670
Yeah. And when that report. Report comes out, I’m sure you’ll be posting. We’ll be posting when we get some more truth about what actually happened to Paul.

Mike Elam
01:20:42.670 – 01:20:49.350
Yeah, I’ve. I’ve got a ton of people waiting, wanting me to do things when this comes out.

Scott
01:20:51.670 – 01:21:25.710
So I hope you guys enjoyed that because it was just so interesting. He was help.

He was able to help us kind of clarify some of the timelines and some of the facts, some of the, the true legitimate legends like, you know, Buford wasn’t shot in the jaw, he was shot in the chin. You know, some details there and stuff like that.

But I thought he also had a great approach of saying, hey, the museum can just kind of tweak the story potentially to more of like a Wyatt Earp. Like, this guy was straddling both sides of the law. He did some good, but he also did it did some good and not the best ways.

Jenn
01:21:25.710 – 01:22:06.610
Yeah. His true light life story is still very interesting. Yeah. And, and Mr. Elam gives credit to him that he does inspire people to join law enforcement.

Now maybe he wasn’t, you know, as clean as he depicts in the movie and like Wyatt about Masterson fighting corruption with corruption, but we, I did find that this was a very interesting conversation. And tell us what you think. Did you learn more about Buford Presser?

Did it change your opinion about some things things, or were there just more questions and maybe some of his evidence wasn’t enough to push you one side or the other. Let, let us know how you feel about this, because for us, we just want to give you all the evidence and let you decide what you think.

Scott
01:22:06.610 – 01:22:22.660
Yeah. So thank you so much for joining us. It was a long conversation, but it was a good conversation, chock full of details and super interesting.

So thank you so much for joining us and for all the Buford Puser, you know, fans and kind of investigators, investigators out there. Again, please let us know what you think in the comments. We’ll talk to you guys next time.

Jenn
01:22:22.660 – 01:22:23.260
Thank you.

Scott
01:22:25.660 – 01:22:56.790
This has been a Walk with History production. Talk With History is created and hosted by me, Scott Benny. Episode researched by Jennifer Benny.

Check out the show notes for links and references mentioned in this episode. Talk With History is supported by our fans@thehistoryroadtrip.com our eternal thanks go out to those providing funding to help keep us going.

Thank you to Devin Clarity, Claire Myers, Patrick Benny, Gail Cooper, Christy Coates, and Calvin Gifford. Make sure you hit that follow button and that podcast player and we’ll talk to you next.