Attack continued...pp4
"We were just riding along, talking about a vacation trip we planned to start the next day. Then a car pulled along side and the shooting started. My wife was hit first. I knew we had driven into a trap.(Buford Pusser with Malley Bird, “Buford Pusser Tennessee’s Living Legend Tells It Like It Was”, True Detective, December 1970, pp 60)
Pusser had weapons...
"I had a shotgun on the floorboard, two pistols in the trunk, one in my belt. There was no way, just no way, to use them. My wife grabbed my arm and fell over. She was only wounded then. When I thought I had them lost, I stopped to help my wife. (Buford Pusser with Malley Bird, “Buford Pusser Tennessee’s Living Legend Tells It Like It Was”, True Detective, December 1970, pp 60)
Second ambush...
(Pusser drove) "two more miles down the road stopping at an intersecting dirt road. Pusser “I thought they had stopped chasing us and I stopped. I pulled Pauline over to me and tried to help her. I could tell she was dying. She was gasping for breath. I opened the door and looked back. About that time they were up on us again. J. Michael Willard, Fiery Death of the “Walking Tall” Sheriff, Inside Detective, December 1974, pp 68
The assassins would pull aside the parked patrol car and open fire a second time hitting Buford in the face (face wound photos) with at lleasi two shots and killing Pauline; blowing the back of her head. Buford never got out of the car.
Second Ambush Site
Rex went on to describe the second ambush scene and said, “Pusser had run off the road and his Fury and the Cadillac were side by side when he was shot”. He said Pusser “never got out the car during the attacks
"Pusser was shot inside the car because he found teeth and part of Pusser’s jaw on the passenger side of the car. ” (Armistead interview)
Buford would try to drive for help.
Buford Calls for help
“Despite a gaping wound in his own jaw, putting out a call to his father, McNairy County Jailer (Carl) Pusser, for help over his car radio. Kirkpatrick, who also heard the wounded officer’s incoherent rumbling on his car radio at about 6:20 a.m.; said Pusser drove about five miles until he had to stop at McCoy’s Store on Highway 45 South due to tremendous loss of blood.” (Commercial Appeal 8-13-1967)
Hugh Kirkpatrick also recalls...
(Kirkpatrick) “After being hit. Sheriff Pusser cradled his dead wife’s head in his lap, and started driving back toward Selmer despite a gaping wound in his own jaw, putting out a call to his father, McNairy County Jailer (Carl) Pusser, for help over his car radio.” (The Commercial Appeal William Way 8-13-67)
...........
Investigators would find pieces of Pauline’s skull and brain matter by the side of the road of the second ambush site.
Buford and Pauline found
The severely wounded sheriff and his mortally wounded wife were found shortly after the 6:20 a.m. distress call. Selmer Police Chief Hugh Kirkpatrick was the first on the scene followed shortly by a Tennessee Highway Patrolman:Mc Coy’s Store on Highway45. What they would find would shock the veteran law enforcement officer.
(Kirkpatrick) “After calling the ambulance I started to where Buford said he was-about one mile north of the Tennessee-Mississippi state line on U.S. 45 What I found was the worst thing I have seen during my entire career.” (Robert Kollar “The Nashville Tennessean” 8/13/67 pp8a)