Phoebe Judge

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On Thursday, February 8th, 2024, 50 years after Buford Pusser's death, a team from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation went to the cemetery at Adamsville, Tennessee,

They were there to exhume the body of Pauline Pusser.

Oakley Dean Baldwin is a former sheriff's deputy from Wake County, North Carolina.

He's also a distant relative of Pauline Pusser.

Oakley Dean Baldwin started looking into Pauline's story in 2014.

He'd retired and was interested in learning more about his family tree.

Oakley Dean Baldwin read the 1960s case files, which detailed what Buford had said happened on the night of Pauline's murder.

And he started gathering other pieces of evidence.

At the same time, another person states away, in Arkansas, was also looking into the case.

A former deputy sheriff named Mike Elam.

Writer Jason Garacio interviewed Mike Elam, who told him that as he started looking into Buford Pusser's story more, he got interested in the death of club owner Louise Hathcock, who Buford shot and killed in 1966.

Mike Elam also found that Louise Hathcock's autopsy report was never shown to the grand jury that acquitted Buford Pusser of murder.

When Pauline was murdered, the year after Louise Hathcock's death, there was no autopsy performed at all.

There were other things about Pauline's murder that didn't make sense to Mike Elam or Oakley Dean Baldwin either.

Mike Elam and Oakley Dean Baldwin both published books about their findings.

And then in 2022, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation decided to reopen the investigation into Pauline's murder.

In August 2025, a press conference was held about Pauline's murder.

District Attorney Mark Davidson said the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation believed there were inconsistencies in what Buford Pusser had told law enforcement about Pauline's death.

One of those pieces of evidence was Pauline Pusser's autopsy, conducted in 2024.