Please share this info, and keep pushing this petition folks.
Okay folks, Louise Hathcock was a criminal, yes. Louise sold boot leg whiskey, she may have dabbled in thievery, she ran a razzle game, and she let carneys scam folks in rigged games of chance. She had a short fuse, liked men, liked to drink, and Towhead got her addicted to some things, and used and manipulated her.
However Louise was no where near as bad as person or criminal, as W.R. Morris's books, the film Walking Tall, or the Pusser family made her out to be. She lived a tough hard life, especially when she was a child, and she did what she thought she had to to provide for herself, and her family. She raised 3 of her relatives as her own children, including Bobby and Susan. She helped out the poor and paid a lot of folks bills, when they needed it. Yes, and big portion of her income came from bootlegging and other vises, but not all of it.
Louise was from the poor Mississippi Delta, and she passed through the Stateline area as a young teen. Old Hwy 45 was major route from the Gulf Coast of Chicago, before the US Interstate system today. It's Northern Sister road stretches all the way to the Artic Circle. Many folks passed through the Missippi Tennessee State Line. Tourists Carneys, Gypsies, Runaways, Criminals, and folks heading North looking for work. Louise fit in more than one of these categories, and the Timlakes offered her and others work.
The State Line was an area, that folks could fill there gas tanks, fill their belly's get a drink, or satisfy other needs. The Timlakes and others took advantage of these opportunities, because in rural West TN and North MS, their were not many jobs or to make a totally legit buck.
State Line was a wild Place during the 40s and 50s, but had died down mostly by the early 60s. Point of all this is, while Louise wasn't perfect, and made a lot of her money illegally, or semi, illegally, the area, times, and circumstances are more than partially to blame. When you think about Louise's she was pretty good to her family, and many in need. Louise wasn't perfect, but she did not deserve to get gunned down by a brutal, greedy, and corrupt Sheriff who was tired of what he was getting paid by her, wanted more, and thought he could find her 200,000 savings stash of cash.
Folks, Louise Hathcock was killed by Sheriff Buford Pusser, in 1966, it what was ruled as a justifiable homicide. An Autopsy was performed, but was never presented to the Grand Jury. Louise was shot twice in the back, and once in the head as she was lying on the ground. Please sign this petition to reopen the case.