Phoebe Judge

They wrote, quote, "'Every wall was banked with flowers.'"

Less than a month after the attack, Sheriff Buford Pusser was back at work.

When reporters interviewed him about the ambush that had killed his wife, he told them, I'm pretty sure about who did it, and I'm pretty sure about where he is.

I'm Phoebe Judge.

This is Criminal.

Buford Pusser was elected sheriff of McNary County in 1964.

He ran against the incumbent sheriff, who died in a car accident just a week before the election.

Buford won by a few hundred votes.

He was the youngest sheriff to be elected in Tennessee history.

He was 26.

Buford Pusser grew up in Adamsville, in McNary County, a rural area about 100 miles east of Memphis.

His father was a local police chief.

Buford was tall and athletic.

He played football and basketball in school.

When he graduated from high school, he enlisted in the Marines, but quickly was discharged due to asthma.

Eventually, Buford left Tennessee and went to Chicago, where he attended mortuary school, worked at a factory, and started a professional wrestling career.

Pauline Mullins was a divorced mother of three.

She was six years older than Buford.

They got married in Chicago in December of 1959 and moved back to Adamsville a few years later.

Buford Pusser was elected police chief of Adamsville after his father stepped down.