Famed Tennessee sheriff who inspired Hollywood movie ‘Walking Tall’ implicated in wife’s murder
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(NASHVILLE) — It was long believed that Pauline Mullins Pusser, the wife of the legendary Tennessee sheriff Buford Pusser, was shot and killed in an ambush meant for her husband, but new evidence suggests that it was the late sheriff who killed his wife.
A Tennessee Bureau of Investigation report uncovered “inconsistencies in Buford Pusser’s statements to law enforcement and to others,” District Attorney Mark Davidson said at a press conference Friday.
Law enforcement uncovered physical, medical, forensic, ballistic and reenactment evidence that contradicted the McNairy County sheriff’s account of his wife’s 1967 murder.
The sheriff’s story inspired the movie “Walking Tall” in 1973 and several sequels, a 2004 remake and several books, Davidson said.
Buford Pusser died in a car accident in 1974.
“This case is not about tearing down a legend, it is about giving dignity and closure to Pauline and her family and ensuring that the truth is not buried with time,” Davidson said.
The sheriff had reported that his wife volunteered to ride along with him in the dark, early morning hours on a disturbance call. He claimed that a car pulled alongside his and fired several shots toward them, killing Pauline and injuring him in what he claimed was an ambush intended for him carried out by unknown assailants, according to Davidson.
The sheriff, who was also shot in the ambush, recovered from his injuries and no viable suspects were found and no charges were filed.
Investigators now believe that Pauline Pusser was shot outside the vehicle then placed inside the vehicle, which is not what Buford Pusser has told investigators at the time of the murder.
“This was a cold case for decades but in 2022 TBI agents took another look at the archive file and coordinated with our office. That work accelerated in 2023 and in 2024, Pauline Mullins Pusser was exhumed for an autopsy,” Davidson said.
“It’s been said that the dead cannot cry out for justice, it is the duty of the living to do so. In this case that duty is being carried out 58 years later,” Davidson said.
Investigators used modern forensic science and investigative techniques that were not available in 1967, officials said.
A new autopsy also revealed cranial trauma suffered by Pauline Pusser does not match crime scene photographs of the interior of the vehicle she was allegedly killed in. Blood splatter on the outside of the vehicle also contradicts Buford Pusser’s account of the murder, Davidson said.
A forensic investigator also determined that a gunshot wound to Buford Pusser’s cheek was a close contact wound, not long range as he had described, and was likely self inflicted, Davidson said. Blood splatter analysis also indicated that someone was injured both inside and outside the vehicle, he said.
A June 1978 sketch of the suspect accused of killing San Jose schoolteacher Diane Peterson, left, compared to then-student Harry Nickerson, now identified as her killer, in an undated photo, right. Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office
(SAN JOSE, Calif.) — The brutal murder of a school teacher, stabbed in the chest at a California high school in 1978, has finally been solved, according to authorities, with the district attorney’s office now revealing the then-16-year-old killer confessed to a family member minutes after the murder.
Diane Peterson was found stabbed at Branham High School in San Jose one day after school ended for the summer. And though they had suspects over the years, her murder had never been solved.
One of those suspects, Harry “Nicky” Nickerson, has now been confirmed as the killer, the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office announced Monday.
Earlier this year, investigators learned Nickerson had confessed to a family member he committed the murder. Investigators met with the family member, who admitted to police that Nickerson came to their home minutes after the murder and confessed to stabbing Peterson, solving the decades-old murder, according to the district attorney’s office.
The district attorney’s office will not be filing charges against the family member who revealed Nickerson admitted to the murder, the DA’s office told ABC News.
“The relative did not participate in the killing and did not provide protection or assistance. Just a witness. The relative was emotional and appeared relieved after having kept a secret for almost 50 years,” the office said in a statement to ABC News.
“The relative did not expressly say why they did not come forward,” the office said, saying it is “reasonable to surmise it was out of fear of retaliation.”
In the years after the murder, Nickerson was arrested and convicted of armed robbery, assault with a deadly weapon and kidnapping, according to the DA’s office. He was shot and critically injured in 1984 while attempting a drug robbery, but no charges were filed against him “given the circumstances,” the district attorney’s office said.
Nickerson died by suicide in 1993, according to the district attorney’s office.
“This marks the end of a terrible and tragic mystery. Ms. Peterson would have been a senior citizen today if she had not crossed paths with this violent teenager. I wish she was. I am pleased that we have solved this case, even though the murderer is not alive to face justice. I wish he was,” Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen said in a statement.
“Let this serve as a solemn reminder: no matter how much time passes, we will continue to seek the truth — because every victim matters, and every life deserves justice,” San Jose Police Chief Paul Joseph said in a statement.
A student found Peterson stabbed to death in the high school hallway in 1978, the district attorney’s office said. Peterson suffered a single stab wound to her chest, according to the district attorney’s office.
The murder occurred one day after school ended for the summer, while teachers were cleaning their classrooms, according to the district attorney’s office.
A witness had previously told police that Nickerson confessed to the crime and that he had seen Nickerson “carrying a knife that had written on it: ‘Teacher Dear,'” according to the district attorney’s office. Police were not able to corroborate that claim, according to the district attorney’s office.
Nickerson had long been a suspect in the killing, according to the district attorney’s office. Nickerson allegedly had a “strong similarity to a composite sketch based on eyewitness accounts of the attack,” according to the DA’s office.
The family of a student told police in 1983 that their son had claimed to have seen the killing and that he identified Nickerson as the killer. The student later denied this, according to the district attorney’s office.
In 1984, a witness told police that Nickerson implicated himself in the murder, claiming he killed Peterson after he was discovered making a drug deal, according to the district attorney’s office.
Extensive DNA work on the case in 2023 and 2024 was unable to identify the killer, according to the district attorney’s office.
A family member of the victim, who asked to not be identified by police, thanked investigators for “not giving up for 47 years.”
“Diane was a beautiful and wonderful person who is missed dearly,” the relative said in a statement.
(PHOENIX) — Lori Daybell is set to be sentenced in Arizona on Friday for conspiring with her late brother to kill her fourth husband in 2019.
She will also be sentenced for conspiring with her brother to kill her niece’s ex-husband in a failed drive-by shooting that same year.
Daybell was found guilty of two counts of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder in two separate trials in Maricopa County this spring. She faces life in prison with the possibility of parole after 25 years for each conviction, prosecutors said.
Her sentencing hearing is underway in Phoenix before Judge Justin Beresky, who presided over both trials.
The so-called “doomsday mom” is already serving life in prison after being convicted in 2023 of murdering two of her children. Prosecutors in the Idaho trial argued that she and her current husband, Chad Daybell, thought the children were possessed zombies and murdered them in 2019 so that they could be together. She was also found guilty of stealing Social Security survivor benefits allocated for the care of her children after they went missing.
Similarly, prosecutors in Maricopa County argued that she conspired with her brother to kill her estranged husband of 13 years, Charles Vallow, so she could get his $1 million life insurance policy and be with Chad Daybell, an author of religious fiction books whom she married four months after the deadly shooting.
Prosecutors further said she invoked their “twisted” religious beliefs as justification for the murder and gave her brother “religious authority” to kill Vallow because they believed he was possessed by an evil spirit they referred to as “Ned.”
In the first of her Arizona trials, Lori Daybell argued that her brother, Alex Cox, shot Vallow in self-defense in her home in Chandler, Arizona, in July 2019.
She was then found guilty in a second trial of scheming with Cox to kill Brandon Boudreaux, the ex-husband of her niece. Three months after Vallow’s killing, Boudreaux called 911 to report that someone driving by in a Jeep shot at his vehicle outside his home in Gilbert, Arizona.
Prosecutors said in a sentencing memorandum that Boudreaux continued to live in fear following the failed attempt on his life, wondering if Cox would “return to finish the job.”
Cox died from natural causes later in December 2019.
Lori Daybell, 51, did not take the stand or call any witnesses in either trial, in which she represented herself. In her closing statement, she argued that her family has been struck by tragedy and that she did not conspire to commit any crime.
Her sentencing hearing comes after failed attempts at getting new trials on both counts. After being convicted of conspiring to kill Vallow, she also unsuccessfully tried to remove Judge Beresky from the case, claiming he was biased against her.
She frequently clashed with the judge while representing herself during the trials. During the second trial, Beresky at one point removed her from the courtroom after she became combative during discussions about her character. The judge had warned that if she referred to herself as having “great character,” that could open the door for the state to introduce evidence to rebut that character, including regarding her previous convictions in Idaho.
Both Lori and Chad Daybell were found guilty of first-degree murder for the deaths of her children in separate trials in Fremont County, Idaho. Joshua “J.J.” Vallow, 7, and Tylee Ryan, 16, went missing months after Charles Vallow was killed. Their remains were found on an Idaho property belonging to Chad Daybell in June 2020 following a monthslong search.
They were also found guilty of conspiring to kill Chad Daybell’s first wife, Tamara Daybell, who died in October 2019 — two weeks before Lori and Chad Daybell married in Hawaii. Chad Daybell was found guilty of murdering her.
Lori Daybell is currently serving life in prison without parole, while Chad Daybell was sentenced to death for the three murders and now awaits execution on Idaho’s death row.
Victim impact statements
Several of Lori Daybell’s relatives have addressed the court ahead of the sentencing, touching on the loss of Vallow as well as JJ and Tylee.
Her eldest son, Colby Ryan, from her second marriage, remembered Vallow as a generous man.
“My father, Charles Vallow, cared for his family. He took care of our family, and he made sure we had a good life,” Ryan said.
He said his mother told him Charles Vallow had died from a heart attack, before he learned the truth, and spoke about the pain of losing his father and then his siblings.
“I’m here to tell you the effect that this has had on me. In simple terms, each one of my family members was taken from us all in one swoop,” Ryan said.
Regarding his mother, he said it “must be a very sad life to smile your way through all the pain you’ve caused.”
“Rather than being able to acknowledge the pain that she has caused, she would rather say that Charles, Tylee and JJ’s deaths were a family tragedy and not her evil doing,” he said. “Quite frankly, I believe that Lori Vallow herself is the family tragedy.”
One of Vallow’s sisters, Susan Vallow, said the day her brother died “changed my life forever.”
“My brother’s death was a deliberate act of evil and self-seeking financial gain. Your greed has caused so much pain to this day,” she said virtually.
Kay Woodcock, another one of Charles Vallow’s sisters and JJ’s biological grandmother, read a letter she wrote from the perspective of JJ in court.
“I can’t be here to read this letter, because I am dead. I was murdered by the defendant Lori Daybell, or as I used to call her, mom,” she read. “See, there are a whole lot of tragedies that have happened to my family, and all of them are the result of my mom’s actions.”
Vallow “never would have let her hurt me, and I know he died protecting me,” the letter said.
“I should be 13 years old now, but I’m forever seven,” she read.
At the end of the letter, she screamed at Lori Daybell, “I trusted you!” before breaking down in tears.
Her husband, Larry Woodcock, his anger visceral, called Lori Daybell a “narcissist, psychopath, delusional murderer.”
“You’re nothing, murderess,” he said. “I can’t stand you.”
Following remarks by several members of his family, including his siblings and current wife, Boudreaux addressed how the attempted murder has impacted him.
“The betrayal by someone connected to my family has left me battling overwhelming emotions over the years,” he said, his voice shaky. “I felt fear, paranoia. I lived with constant vigilance, loneliness, regret, sadness, depression, anger, heartache and embarrassment.”
He said he has chosen to forgive Lori Daybell so he can be a better father, husband, son, neighbor and friend. “But I had never seen any remorse or acknowledgement from Lori,” he said.
(DERRY TOWNSHIP, PA) — The death of a 9-year-old girl who drowned at Hersheypark has been ruled accidental, with no criminal activity found on the part of the park’s employees, according to police.
Sophia Subedi drowned on July 24 in the wave pool at the Pennsylvania theme park, the Derry Township Police Department said.
A review by police concluded that the park upheld safety standards and that the number of people in the wave pool at the time was “significantly less than it’s designed maximum capacity,” according to a Derry Township Police statement released on Friday.
Hersheypark had 10 lifeguards working specifically at the wave pool when Sophia drowned, the park said last month.
“Witnesses and lifeguards responded promptly, initiating rescue and resuscitation efforts within seconds of noticing Sophia’s distress,” police said. “The Derry Township Police Department, along with the witnesses, Hersheypark staff, and first responders who attempted to save Sophia, extend their sincere condolences to her family and friends, as well as the Bhutanese community, during this difficult time.”
“Our hearts break for this child and the child’s family. We extend our deepest condolences for their loss,” John Lawn, Hersheypark’s CEO, in a statement on July 24, adding that park-goers’ “safety and well-being drive every decision we make.”
