Overview

• A cold-case reexamination by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, including a 2024 exhumation and new autopsy, concluded Pauline Pusser was likely shot outside the car and then placed inside.
• Blood-spatter and cranial trauma evidence conflicted with Buford Pusser’s account, and a forensic review found his cheek wound was a close-contact injury likely self-inflicted.
• District Attorney Mark Davidson said the findings establish probable cause sufficient to present an indictment to a grand jury if Pusser were alive; he died in a 1974 car crash.
• The autopsy documented a previously healed nasal fracture consistent with prior interpersonal violence, and Pauline’s brother said the investigation brought him closure.
• Investigators began the renewed review in 2022 and pursued a 2023 tip about a possible weapon, and the TBI plans an online, searchable archive of the case file after redactions.