Joe Don Baker’s Performance Was Magnificent, but the Story Was Always Suspect

Many years ago, I saw the movie Walking Tall on television, and I enjoyed it a lot, but never rang true to me.

It succeeded beyond any reasonable expectations because of the Joe Don Baker. 

Biopics always approach the truth as a suggestion, so I didn't give it much thought, but there was always this feeling in the back of my head that the real Buford Pusser was more Jackie Gleason's Buford T. Justice than he was ……… well ……… Joe Don Baker's Buford Pusser.

It now seems that I too charitable. Pusser probably was more Neshoba County Sheriff Lawrence A. Rainey than he was Gleason's character. 

Well, now the late lawman has been accused of murdering his wife and staging an attempt against his life to cover it up by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.

Yeah, that rings truer:

A sheriff whose crusade against corruption inspired a string of Hollywood films is now suspected by Tennessee authorities of killing his wife before 1973’s “Walking Tall” was released, in a dramatic fall for a small-town hero whose fabled deeds are honored with an annual festival and museum in his name.

Prosecutors said Friday that they had enough evidence to posthumously accuse Buford Pusser, who worked as McNairy County sheriff from 1964 to 1970, of killing his wife, 33-year-old Pauline Mullins Pusser, in 1967.

Pusser died in a car crash in 1974 after plowing his Corvette into an embankment. Hours earlier, he had signed a contract to star in a sequel to “Walking Tall,” which was inspired by his life story. A 2004 remake starred Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.

In the 1973 film, Pusser, played by actor Joe Don Baker, suffers the ultimate sacrifice for his tough stance on crime when his wife is killed in an ambush on his police car. The plot recalls the story Pusser told police about a real-life incident in which his wife was fatally shot and he was critically injured on Aug. 12, 1967.

………

Tennessee authorities began reexamining the Pusser files in recent years amid a broader push to review cold cases in the state. Pauline Pusser’s body was exhumed after officials received a tip about a suspected murder weapon.

An autopsy revealed that she had suffered a broken nose that healed before she died, and investigators uncovered other evidence of domestic violence. Authorities were able to use forensic science that was not available in the late 1960s.

Investigators found inconsistencies between Pusser’s testimony and the scene: Blood spatter was found on the exterior hood of the vehicle, suggesting that his wife had not been shot while in the car, and the nature of her head trauma did not match photos of the car’s interior. The gunshot wound to the sheriff’s cheek was fired at close range and “was likely self-inflicted,” District Attorney Mark Davidson of Tennessee’s 25th Judicial District said. 

Cops break rules because they are lazy, stupid, and/or corrupt, and whenever you see a "Based on real events" hagiography, you can be pretty sure it's wrong.

The good cops follow the law, and the smart ones know how to get their jobe done while following the law.