Tonight we have Mike Elam y'all know him.

He's the author of Bewford Pusser, the other story.

He's been with us, and tonight we are going to really talk about some evidence that some of you may have heard, most of you have not.

We also have Jason White, another Zone seven alum.

Y'all know him from the first forty eight out of Oklahoma and his podcast.

And then we have Dennis Hathcock.

Now Dennis has never been with us before, but I have been able to walk the scene, not only with Mike but also with Dennis.

Dennis was a witness to some of the activity before the ambush and after.

Then we have Danny Couples.

Y'all know Danny emt from that from the surrounding area, and he has got some information even about a family member and ironically he found out that he was related to Dennis.

There has been a break in the unsolved murder of Pauline Pusser, wife of legendary Sheriff Beauford Pusser from the Walk and Tall Fame.

What's really bizarre about this entire case to me is the fact that they never did an autopsy on Pauline.

And you would think that a case of this magnitude, I don't care what decade it's in, that they would have actually done some sort of an examination of her.

They had a corner system there.

I believe they also had a medical examiner at that time as well.

Yeah, so the fact that they didn't do that, I would be interested to know.

You would think that Buford would have demanded it, you know, and it doesn't.

It doesn't sound like that was the case.

I'm just I think we're really fortunate that she was not cremated.

Actually, that was.

One of the things that was very suspicious to me that, for instance, when Sheriff Pesser had killed Louise Hathcock, Dennis's aunt they're at the Shamrock.

Of course they called a Kelly Hacker in the movie, but they did an autopsy on her which came out in a very suspicious manner, with very suspicious results.

But yet eighteen months later, they for some reason didn't do one on a sheriff's wife.

I mean that really caught your attention.

Well, that's one thing I was going to ask you, Jason, because you know the full court press that happens when an officer is killed in the line of duty.

But can you imagine the sheriff's wife.

You would have never gone home, You wouldn't have gone to sleep.

Now, this would have been all hands on deck.

And I'm not just in the not just in the Tennessee area.

I'm guessing that you would have had people that would have been bending over backwards from Mississippi, UH volunteering about to come up there, and they wouldn't have stopped until they found the people responsible for this.

And that's you know, I you know, that's that's gonna happen, ladies and gentlemen.

That's that's that's a given.

So I just didn't see that sense of urgency at least, you know, I haven't seen that from from any of the interviews or anything along those lines, where you know, after the the aftermath, you know, you don't really see him searching under every you know, every possible avenue for the killer of his wife.

So I find that a little bit strange.

Jason.

This is a man that took a stick in town and was gonna bust heads over a steel.

I mean, if you're going to do that type of damage over moonshine when it comes to your wife, somebody is going to go to prison, somebody might die in the street.

But that's the part that shocked me.

So when you hear these stories that he was on the take, that he had already shot and killed other people, that he was a violent person, the way he ruled that town, and then when it came to his wife, nobody's ever arrested, nobody's ever put up against a wall, nobody's ever beat till they gave a confession.

Cheryl, I might add that, you know, Youwford claimed that he was getting all these death threats and all these things that were happening to him in McNairy County, but yet all the surrounding counties basically had the same issues and same problems as he did.

But nobody else was going through all that, nobody else was being threatened the way he.

Was, right, people trying to stab him, people trying to shoot him, or did shoot him.

I mean, it just seems unusual, doesn't it.

And it was one of those things where you get to looking at that, and that was very suspicious as well.

Why was it just him?

Why was he the only law enforcement officer anywhere around, including in his own department.

I mean, his daddy worked at that department.

He was fine.

I mean, that's just really unusual to me.

There's a lot of things in this file that we're all about to see that's going to really enlighten a lot of people.

I know that just from reviewing the parts of it that I have just seen in the last couple of days.

As a matter of fact, I haven't had a chance to look at it before this afternoon.

And while we were sitting here and Dennis was talking, I was over here highlighting some of the things about the ambush is Youford described it, and seeing a lot of discrepant and what he would tell investigators as opposed to what he would later tell the media.

And it was like, the man has always been building his own legend from day one, and that's where he turned this to ambush into you know, I thought that Gewford was the greatest thing since pockets on shirts, sliced bread and other things, and you know so much Snow I wanted to learn more about the man, and all that taught me was you don't ever research your heroes, because you're going to find some a lot of things that you weren't expecting and things that just changed your whole thought process about the individual.

Dennis, I'm gonna tell you something.

If I had been sixteen with you and the idea that we would have been able to stalk that sheriff and see what was going on in that town, Honey, I would have been in that car or that motus with you, hanging on, having the time of my life.

Well, that's what I thought.

You would have been lucked, honey.

I would have been on the back of your minorcycle.

Come on, now, Oh my gosh, So Jason, in a situation like this, you got to check all traps, that's what we call it, y'all, and you got to connect all these dots.

And in this case, you would have local moonshiners that might have a grudge against the sheriff.

You got Dixie mafia that you know wanted him dead.

You had the Halfcock family that was wanting to take him out, and you had the sheriff that was on the take.

So other people that maybe even on your radar, would have wanted to get rid of him.

When you watched the press conference and you're literally watching them take down a legend, what was going through your mind as a detective.

Well, first and foremost, what was going through my mind was that I was My personal take on this is I was extremely impressed with the Attorney General and with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation for number one, taking this case serious.

This is not an easy case by any stretch.

We're talking about a case from nineteen sixty seven.

I have no doubt that there's witnesses along the lines that maybe not eyewitnesses to the actual event, but witnesses along the way that have since died, people that would have been great to talk to if you would have been able to.

There's no doubt that you have some of these witnesses that probably still to this day won't speak on it.

And one of the things that Dennis brings up to me that brings a lot of credibility is the fact that that is exactly what a sixteen year old kid is going to be out doing in a town that there's nothing else to do in.

I don't see an adult doing that and following the sheriff to see what he's up to, but a kid.

That's credible to me.

And so when I was watching that press conference, and there's a lot of people that have commented since this this thing has came out more so on the positive side actually in support of what the what their conclusion was.

But there are those that have actually, you know, they're like, what's the point everybody that's involved in this case is dead.

Well, the point is Pauline.

And that's probably the most disappointing thing when you do get some of the naysayers that are that are you know, they continue to comment about this and that they just never mentioned Pauline or how about let's get into the truth.

I mean, there really is no statute of limitations on murder.

And either way, Pauline's family deserves the truth, as does Bufford's as to what's going on there.

I mean, everybody deserves to know what's up.

Yeah, her brother, I mean he's in his eighties.

It's way past time for him to know.

The truth it is.

And I just think I just think that there's some things that I was a little There was one thing that they didn't talk about that they kind of just diverted you to to wait for the reports to come out, and that was whether or not the gun was a match the cartridge casings.

I'm going to assume that there's cartridge casings out along the roadway or somewhere, and and so I would think that that would be a relatively easy question to answer.

It's either you know, I, me and Mike have talked before, and I told Michael a long time ago, I said, by them not coming out with a press conference in about an hour after testing that gun to say that it's not the gun, that's pretty telling to me that they're that you know that they're believing that this gun is going to be involved.

And then of course, Cheryl, we all know that that led to the exhumation, and and but anyway, I just to answer your question in a very short way is I was impressed with the fact that they're being transparent.

And I think that another thing that bears mentioning is the fact that they this is the second time in history that TBI is actually completely I don't know what the first case was, but this is the second time that they're gonna They're going to be completely transparent with all of the records, with the exception of some minor reactions.

And in saying that, I have no doubt that they're wanting to be transparent because they already know that people are going to question how they got to this conclusion.

And I think that that's really a brilliant move on their part to allow people to be able to see exactly what they're talking about.

To me, regardless if the gun is a perfect match or not.

That kind of inspired them to take a look at other things.

Other witnesses that, you know, we brought forward people that had never had a statement taken.

They were able to share things that they knew about it because over these years, you know, there's been a lot of people stayed quiet about what they were aware of.

And it's not like anyone knew the whole story.

Each person that I had visited with they just had a small piece of it, and it was kind of like putting a puzzle together and after a while, the full picture begins to form.

And so that was what I felt like was so important.

I don't know if that gun was a perfect match, but I do know that that's what kicked it off, and that's what got the TBI to look into all these other issues.

And when they did, I mean, it became pretty clear to them what was happening.

And I'm sure that they've wondered how this got swept under the rug, if you will, prior to this, but you know, back then, it was a different time.

Standards for law enforcement were very much different than they are today.

The current sheriff over there and I kind of halfway teas and were serious but saying things that they did back then that were just considered standard of the day.

An officer would be arrested for those things these days.

Sure, Look, there was only two camps in that town, the people that worshiped him and the people that were scared of death of him.

So when this went down, they either believed him or were never going to say nothing.

Well, and the reason a lot of these people I don't believe came forward is either because you know, you've had something on them and or they had a fear of him, and sometimes probably both.

So Danny, let's talk about the autopsy.

So you have to live in Tennessee to get it, I believe, But tell me your thoughts about what you think it's going to reveal.

I've read it a couple of times, and a lot of people that read it outside the medical knowledge or the law of the medical terms doesn't really understand some of the things.

But what's very clear is for one thing, I want to say this, and this is my opinion, and my opinion only.

It's nothing against TBI and their investigation.

I feel they got it wrong about where she was shot.

And that's just my opinion from me examining the evidence that I've seen.

I feel like they got it wrong.

The outcome came out good, but here's why.

The autopsy report says that she has They called it, you know, we don't like to call moons entrance or exits, but they say that they they assume that there is an entrance won to the back of her head four inches from the top of her head, just left of center, which will be in there, simple little lobe if her head is facing to me, if her head is facing towards that car door and leaning against the door, her forehead, you remember that BOYD spot just kind of threw that in there, left from centered occipital region and it exited, as they say in the report, her right temporal and front lobe, which again direction if someone was in the car and shooting, it would go.

And then to me, that part of her head that would have come off would have been what Dennis found or he discovered on the scene.

And I've read through that many many times, and I think they did the lab work.

Onlything that was in her system was catheine that they saw.

They saw some they called it healing wounds to her nasal area like maybe someone that she was hit in the nose, and some fractures in that area as well.

But they also say they found bullet fragments inside her skull, which a lot of her skull was gone.

It had packing, cotton, packing, and plaster.

I think they said to fill that area so that she could be visualized at the funeral home.

I'm trying to think of something else that was really big in there, but they don't.

They can't be conclusive if she was shot more than once.

They do know for a fact that they can say she was shot at least once.

Well, the hood of the car, Mike, was real significant to me and Jason and Danny, and I'm sure Dennis, but I haven't spoken to Dennis specifically about it.

But you cannot see that blood spatter on the hood of that car and then hear him say we never got out of the car.

Well, somebody was shot in the front of that vehicle.

It's one of those issues where one of the things that I've looked at and I haven't been able to verify or confirm in anyway was that.

You know, Pauline and Beauford for different blood types, So you know it's if that is correct.

It makes you wonder whose blood that is out there on the hood.

Yeah, if they swabbed it, then they would know because the blood is going toward the windshield.

There's no doubt about it.

You know, Like we've discussed on previous podcasts.

You know that blood when it hit that flat surface, it has a tail that points in the direction the projectile was going.

And they seem to think that someone was shot in front of the car.

Obviously that happened.

But the real question that I've still gotten.

We'll know more about that, hopefully when we see the full report.

It's which one of them it was?

Was it Beaufort, was it Pauline.

That's going to be a big tail right there.

I think, well, I'm going to make a prediction, and I'm going to make it based on that blood.

So you're talking about somebody that said they ran that car eighty ninety miles an hour all over town looking for the blue Cadillac, right, that engine would have been hot.

When you've got blood, which is a liquid and something hot.

It will change the way that blood looks, it'll change the shape.

Some of those tails are intact.

So there's two things that should have been happening.

If he was somehow out of the car and got shot and then was driving all over creation, those tails would have been wider, if not completely out of shape because of the heat and the wind.

So it looks to me and this is why I think he did the self inflicting wound in front of that car, embraced himself, and that's why the bullet hole is low, and you've got high velocity spatter that is still in shape and intact.

I know you know as well that Jason and I went through a bloodstained pattern analysis class.

If you look at that those blood stains on the hood of that car, and Jason, you remember stringing our stringing exercise, you can actually tell where that blood, the actual heights of where that blood came from, if they can, if they can study that, I don't remember what they had to do.

It really had to do that, because I've never strained a seen But you can actually do that now and see how maybe how high the bullets or the blood was coming from whoever it came from if it could be that could be a tail tale to say, well, if it's six foot high, well that's a pretty good idea that it didn't come from Pauline, you could have come from Buford.

Yeah.

Well, the other thing that's important to mention too, is that based on Buford's account, this whole thing happened inside of the car.

They were struck inside the car.

It might correct me if I'm wrong.

So, therefore that blood is and we all agree on this, there's no way in the world that that blood has that type of Uh, you're not going to have that coming through that bullet hole.

And there's not even any blood coming through the bullet hole, I mean, you know at all, So, uh, you're not seeing any blood stains of blood traveling.

You're just not going to have that pass up on the hood period.

And so and and then the other thing that that jumps out to me, Cheryl, and I've never really talked to you about this, but the one thing that you know, if she's laying in this car and he's and he's flying through the city trying to find the perpetrator, and she's laying up against that door panel, you're going to have momentum.

And and if you look at the blood, that's kind of you can see the void where her head probably was laying.

But but you see the lines, they're pretty much vertical.

You know, you don't have a lot of movement.

He's around, no, not at all.

And and I think that's that's pretty telling as well.

Those are the things that I can guarantee you that if I was if we were flies on the wall at TBI, I guarantee you there was a room full of people going why wasn't this looked at?

And why wasn't that look that looked at?

And why are we even here at this point?

And this wasn't handled back in the day, And that's uh, that's interesting.

But that I think the blood on that hood is key here.

The question I have for you, for you guys that know about all this, is that the hood of that car obviously would have been hot, but still it's going to take that blood for just a bit too dry, I would think.

And of course on the inside panel of that door, there doesn't appear to be any big motion at least to me.

And wouldn't that suggest that possibly that less it was Buford that was out there that shot himself, like the TBI suggested that, you know he did.

Indeed, his wound was indeed self inflicted.

Well, let's let's just imagine that it was him out there.

He gets in the car and he has to sit there for a little while and regain his composure.

Because while that was pretty serious wound, So it's not like I think he'd just get in the car and take off driving.

So wouldn't that have a lot to do with the fact that there was no motion in a lot of this.

Well, that's what I was implying that to me, that period of time where he says the ambush happens around four o'clock, but he doesn't call for help till six o'clock.

He is sitting somewhere trying to plan this out.

What am I going to do?

What am I going to come up with?

Pauline's already dead, so now he's got to come up with some type of plan that is going to satisfy not just his officers, but other officers, the district attorney, you know, and the community at large.

So I think that's when it cools down.

I believe he braced himself and shot himself in the front of that car.

That's exactly what I'm getting too, is that if it was him that standing out there, I doubt he was standing up straight.

He probably leaned over on that hood to brace himself.

Yeah, he braced himself.

And that's why the bullet hole.

You can see it plain as Dallas.

It goes right.

I would imagine if we could have that hood today and we could put a rod in it.

It's going down.

It's a downward angle.

I can see the little half moon.

So to me, that's what it looked like.

I mean, as soon as I saw it, I couldn't none see it.

And it's right there in the middle of that high velocity.

Yes, exactly what happened.

Brilliant spot.

By the way, good job on that.

He did kind of explain it in the movie.

And in the movie, you know, he had a call that he had early in the morning and she's like, well, Buford, I don't want you to go, and basically, oh, well, let's go and we'll make a day of it and have a picnic.

Well that's not the case at all.

As a matter of fact, she's on the verge of leaving him and taking the kids out of stea eight and and how many, Cheryl, how many murders?

Is that the story where it starts where the husband kills the wife over.

You are in the most danger when you leave.

That's that's something that a lot of people, I think they forget, and those that are that are saying, oh, there's just no way he could have done this.

Well, these are people that watched the movie and and they're they're they're forgetting.

They don't know that little tidbit, And that's an important part to this story.

And Mike, I think you probably should mention a little bit about that story, about what preceded her even getting into the car, because that's that's another huge part to this story as well.

Well.

Of course, Levon Plunk, which was Deputy Plunk's wife, and Pauline were best friends, and I got to interview her name by then was Sullivan, but I had the opportunity to interview her before she passed away, and she told me that she and Pauline had got together that night because Pauline was leaving Beauford and they just wanted to see each other one more time before Pauline left.

And you know said that Levaughn told me that, you know, I took her home that night.

She invited me into the house.

I was afraid of Beuford and afraid he might come home and catch me there, and you know, I didn't want to deal with that, So I just told Pauline that I would park a little ways down the street, and you know, whenever she was ready, just to give me a signal with porch lights, something on that order, and i'd drive up there.

We'd get the kids in the car, throw the personal items in the car, and we'd be gone.

So she hadn't much more than got parked until Beuford passed by.

Now this would have been most likely shortly after he left Dennis and Selmer.

At any rate, he gets home.

She said he went in the house and said she heard a gunshot, and she didn't know what to do.

Told me said, I couldn't call the Sheriff's office because Beaufort's dad was the jailer and dispatcher that night, and I knew that wouldn't do any good.

I couldn't call my husband because he was one of Buford's most loyal deputies, and I knew he'd probably life for Beauford to get him out of trouble, so I couldn't call him, and she said, of course, I left and I was trying to think of what to do, when a little bit later, said Pete, her husband calls her and said, well, you know, Pauline just got killed in ambush meant for Beauford.

But in between those two events, Diane, Pauline's oldest daughter, she had been living in Memphis with a Buford's sister because she wanted to be away from Adamsville, wanted to be away from Bewford, just what I'm told, and Pauline had called her the night before and told her she needed to come home, that Buford and her were having problems, and she didn't say it in so many words, but I just surmised from all this that Pauline were probably trying to get all the kids there so that they could all leave with her.

And so Diane did go home.

She was there with Mike and Dewana that night when all this happened, and said she heard them having words out in the living room, and she heard what she described as a pop, and said that she a little bit later she heard the front door open, and she said that she was afraid to go out and see what had happened, because she was so afraid of Buford, and she described him several times as a very dangerous man.

Well, she hears the front door open, and she tells that she saw Beauford kind of half dragging, half carrying Pauline too the car and he puts her in the front seat and he walks back toward the house.

And you know, she has told people that, well, I thought I was going to be next and said about that time he picked up the shoes that had fallen from Pauline's feet and took them over and put them on the floorboard.

Well you look at that photograph of the passenger's door.

It's opened up and those shoes are sitting there like you normally pick up pair of shoes with one hand and you just place them there.

And I found that very odd that Cheryl, you know what it's like.

Usually when you go on a trip and you decide to take your shoes off and you're in a car, you don't reach down there and play some in the floorboard that way.

Generally you just kind.

Of know, sugar, I kick them off, yeah right, yeah, And so that's the way you see him in that photograph.

Well, they're also toes going in like you would pick them up, and that's how you would place them in if you were on the outside of the car, not if you're on the inside of the car.

Right, absolutely, And she was so scared that he might come back to the house that she went and got under the bed to hide, and she heard the car start up and leave and that was it.

And you know another thing I have always been wondering and I don't have an answer to it, and hopefully the files will reveal something.

But I don't know how you are.

I know how Mss Connie is.

She does not leave the house without her purse, and I'm wondering if they found a purse in the car.

Well, there's not one in the photograph that you can see.

Yeah, I think she carried a twenty five didn't She might?

Didn't she carry like a twenty five pistol or twenty five caliber.

That's what I'm told as a matter of fact, that's how Dennis and I met.

I don't know if he remembers, but I was on a website one night firing line.

You have a lot of people talk about firearms, and there was somebody mentioned something about a little twenty five caliber semi automatic can gun, and when they did, somebody else says, well, that's like the one that Pauline Pesser carried.

And of course when you mentioned Pusser, everybody jumped on the conversation about what a great law enforcement officer he was and how we needed more like him.

And by that time I knew just enough about all this to be dangerous.

And this was around two thousand and five or two thousand and six, and I started saying, well, guys, you don't know a lot about the story, and so I shared a little bit of what I knew, and of course I took a lot of abuse from some of them, and I had others that were really curious about what I was saying.

Anyway, I got off the phone.

A little bit later, I get a phone call and this guy says, well, you know, you've got the story about astraight as anybody I've ever heard.

And you know, I spoke with him a little bit, and I got kind of uncomfortable, and I said, well, okay, mask who this is and he said, my name is Dennis Halfcock.

And I knew who he was because his name and appeared in the Condo News article.

And so I spent the next few several nights.

He and I'm speaking on the phone and I was over there taking down notes and all this, and finally decided to just go over and meet him.

And of course I had this big knowledge in the back of my head about what the half cock were supposed to be, but I didn't believe it all by then, but still yet I wanted to be a little cautious.

So we agreed to meet at the courthouse, and you know, because that was easy to spot, and you know, just to save place to meet somebody that you only knew from a telephone.

And that's when we kind of started building a relationship that's kind of grown over the years.

So there you have that.

Well, I'll tell you what, Dennis, I got a question for you.

Do you think Louise hath Cott's case is next?

I have no idea.

I've had a lot of people talk to me about that, and you know, I don't know.

I don't know.

I have no idea.

I hope they do.

I wish they would, because in some ways it would be his chief deputy QUI.

Right.

He killed the Louise and told his family that if anything happened to him, to not look any farther than look than to Buford Pusser, because what he told happened at the Shamrock and at the state line is not what happened.

Well, if you read what happened to her with her teeth being embedded, it looks like a coup de gras.

Would you agree, Jayson.

Yeah, I mean I absolutely would.

I think that there's you know, my thought is is that they're definitely going to look at it.

I think that they would be irresponsible not to.

I think that in light of I think that in light of what they've already what what they've already came out and said, Uh, there's no doubt in my mind that they're going to actually, for no other reason just for being thorough, they will.

They will take a look at that case very closely.

Well, you know, my dad had to dig her teeth out of the carpet, and the bullet that went into her head went under the carpet.

Because she was already on the ground.

Yeah.

Yeah, it followed the followed that concrete under that carpet and hit the wall over there.

I don't know what they did with that bullet I know they had they dug that bullet out.

Of the wall, but you know, it's.

It's it's sad to say.

But the thing.

About the deal with Louise is, you know, her running a nightclub and everything.

There's a lot of people that thought she got what she deserved, especially women, because their husbands would go there and get drunk and.

Spend their money and then.

Tell tale it was about somebody robbed them and all that kind of stuff, you know.

And I've talked to my uncle a lot about it.

It don't get me wrong.

It is like any nightclub, any beer joint in the country.

Things happened there, but Youfred Tusser double over exaggerated all of it.

And she was she was paying him so much, uh, not to sell white whiskey like they want to try to make out like, but selling some bonded whiskey like all the nightclubs and around.

That area did.

And uh, he kept going up and going up and want more and more.

And she had told him about two days before he went down there and killed her that she could not pay him, that she wasn't making that kind of money.

And she made the same same mistake that Pauline made she threatened him and threatened to expose him.

Well, I mean, you know, you bring up a great point, Dennis, that's that that very well could have been one of the reasons that she was leaving, and that could have came up in the conversation.

And quite frankly, I know I'm going way out on a limb on this one, but but I'm not totally convinced that she wasn't shot at the house.

And and and that's why he's carrying her to the car, and that's.

Why the shoes are like they are.

I agree, Well, absolutely, and and and then and then now he's got to come up with some sort of an idea or what what are we going to do?

Now?

Uh, she could have been killed right there in that house, and and quite and it could have been.

I don't think it's from the car being it's going to be.

It's going to be from the twenty five that probably Pauline had, you know that that she's been known to have, and she very likely could have pulled that out on him and he took it from her and anger got the best of him or whatever.

And I'm and I'm speculating here, Uh, just just for your viewers know this.

You know, none of us that are sitting in here I have seen the report.

I mean, we're going off of what Mike has uncovered in his efforts.

I mean, kudos to you, Mike.

We're we're we're putting some deductive reasoning here based on the stuff that's been learned by Mike and and Dennis's account.

But really, I'm not, I mean, we really don't.

We really haven't mentioned that at all, that that there's a real possibility she could have got killed at that house and then taken to the car and then and then he had to then then all this other stuff basically just happened thereafter.

And the way the shoes are mean, you just can't ignore that.

But y'all, I think we are out of time.

But let me just one by one, Danny, I appreciate you.

I appreciate you telling us the information in the autopsy.

That's first I've heard.

So I am just I'm itching to get my hands on the rest of what they're going to give us.

But thank you for that.

You're You're very welcome.

And if anything good, if one thing good comes out of Bee for Pusser, he got every one of us together in a sense because Jason and I become friends several how longs have been jud in fifteen.

Oh fifteen, almost twenty years, and be for Pusser is what got us together because we were talking about how Beef Pusser came and picked me and my sister and my mom up to carry us to the hospital to identify my grandmother that was murdered in the Catherine's Club in McNary County.

And then all of us others had become friends because of Beef for Pusster.

So if there's anything that's one good thing we can.

Say, oh, no doubt, no doubt.

And Dennis, I tell you being on scene with you and here your story in person, and standing there with you and walking that zcene with you while you point out where you saw the glass and where you saw the skull fragment and the hair and the brain matter.

You know, that was one of those things that again you know as a child, I mean I admired him too.

It's the very first our movie I ever saw when I was six years old, and you know I framed him as a hero my whole life.

So I just appreciate you coming forward.

I appreciate your story.

And again, if we had been sixteen at the same time in that town, we'd have had a good time.

Dennis.

Oh, I know you'd have been on that motorcycle with me.

Honey, I'd have been hanging on to you.

Following that sheriff, we'd have told everybody.

The next day at school, we'd have had all the news.

I tell you, that's exactly right, that's exactly right.

And right after the ambush, you would have been going to military school, just like Dennis, to get you out to mc marytown.

Yeah.

Oh, they would have probably shipped me somewhere for sure.

I want to thank you very much, very much for having me on there.

You are so welcome.

It's my honor.

And Jason, thank you for being my buddy.

Thank you for introducing me to all these other men, and you know, walking me through this case, because you and I have had some great conversations about it, and I think once we get all the information, we're going to have some more great conversations.

Absolutely well, thank you for at least thinking that what I have to say or my opinion is important enough to have here.

Dennis, Man, I I can't say this enough, you know, Mike, we're here because of you, Okay, we are.

And and Dennis, I got to tell you, buddy, you, in my opinion, based on everything that we've heard, and I think we're going to hear a lot more that's going to really shed a lot more light on this, I think you're you're really.

I think it took a lot of courage for you to step up living in a small area like that where you have such a divisive situation here you've got one group on one side and one group on the other.

And really, and I said this before on my podcast, but your family in a sense, I'm not saying that you know that that Louise wasn't involved in some stuff and this and that, but but your family kind of got vilified.

I just think that you've had a lot of courage by by standing up, making the stand, and you've been consistent in your story based on what I've seen, So I want to thank you for that.

No, he's a hero in this thing, period.

Absolutely, absolutely, yep.

And Mike, what can I possibly say to you?

You know, you called me and you're like, hey, you want to ride out here and get on a bus with me and Dennis and Danny and possibly Jason if he could make it out.

Honey, I couldn't have that way quick enough.

And for you to be so generous, Mike, not just with your information and your research, but you're You could have held this as your own.

You could have not shared it with anybody.

You could be the one that you know was Harold, but you didn't do that when you asked me and Jason and Danny to look at stuff, and you allowed us to be a just a microscopic part.

But I was thrilled to do it, and I appreciate that opportunity and I cannot thank you, and you're lovely bride enough for being just so gracious to have me there and drive me around and host me and let me meet Danny and Dennis in person and go to the scene with the three of you.

It transformed the way I saw this case.

And you are a hero.

You have done something that is historic period.

I appreciate that.

But you know, like I say, for me, this was all about Pauline.

I felt like she needed justice.

And you know, I appreciate you guys because you and Danny and Jason all have skill sets in different places that I do not.

I felt like I was on the right track as I was seeing all this stuff.

But I value people who have had a lot more experience with these things that I have, and I was glad you allowed me to use you guys as a sounding board for some of my thoughts and ideas.

And you know, if you don't mind, I might say one thing.

You know, there are a lot of people out there that are telling me that we've got it wrong, that they believe Buford and so on, and up until now, all they wanted was proof.

Well, the TBI is handing it to them on a silver platter, and you know, now they're still not accepting the proof.

And I would suggest that if they feel like Bufford is innocent, that they need to get some proof of their own.

I mean, we've got photographic evidence, ballistic evidence, blood pattern evidence.

Uh.

We had a time and motion study where I understand the TBI, I took a a scanner, scanned a card just like Buford's, tried to recreate with all the modern technology that they have, and they couldn't make it work out any better than I did when I did that.

So, you know, I would just suggest that before they, you know, complain too much about losing their hero, that they stop and think about what Pauling the price that she paid for Buford's fame and fortune that he got to enjoy for a short time, and that, you know, if they want to discuss it, bring out some proof of their own.

And I think that's when they get a little confused about what to do next.

And I will say one thing about Dennis I guess is that a lot he takes a lot of flag as I do about his last name being a half cocked.

Dennis has never tried to say that his folks were innocence and all this.

He said, yeah, technically they were criminals, they sold bootleg alcohol and such as that.

But what Beuford did with the half cock name was to embellish all those stories to where they were throwing bodies in the Tennessee River and everything else that does not stand up to scrutiny.

So but for all those that hear this, you know, Dennis has never claimed that all those people were innocent of anything criminal.

All he's pointed out is that they were the victims of Buford telling highly embellished stories about his relatives.

So there you have that glass houses, y'all.

Glass houses.

I don't think none of us want to go too far back in time and point out anybody in our past.

I mean, everybody's got a colorful family, everybody, So that's got nothing to do with it.

To me.

What's important is he came forward.

Then he came forward twenty years ago, and he came forward recently, and like Jason said, his story hadn't changed, and his story's going to line up with what the evidence showed, and that to me is proof positive in the actions that TBI took.

But Mike again, I just appreciate all the friendship, all the information, and let me look at those pictures.

It meant a lot to me.

All Right, well, y'all, thank you all so much, and we'll be maybe talking again soon once all the information comes out.

But I'm going to end Zone seven the way that I always do with a quote.

There's only two rules, that's all.

Number One, we enforce the law equally.

Number two, any man call taking a bribe gets his head knocked off by me.

What's right and right and what's wrong is wrong, share Bruford Pusser from the movie Walkin Talk.

I'm Cheryl McCollum, and this is own site