One hundred and fifty years ago, during a brutal winter in the San Juan mountains of Colorado, legend states Alfred Packer survived by eating at least some of his five companions.
What exactly took place, only Packer knew, and over his lifetime, the details of his story changed making the account of what happened read like a novel.
Alfred G. Packer was born in Pennsylvania in 1842. As a young man, he was a shoemaker by trade. When the Civil War broke out, he joined company F, 16th U.S. Infantry. Afflicted with epilepsy he was discharge a few months later. Having a feel for army life, he then enlisted in an Iowa regiment, but was soon let go for the same reason.
Heading west to search for gold, by 1873 he was working as a guide in the wilds of Utah and Colorado. During the winter in question, he was employed to lead twenty-one men to the gold fields of Breckenridge Co. After three harrowing months of deadly storms, the group was saved when they located the camp of Ute Indian Chief Ouray. This was near Montrose, Co.
The Chief generously provided food and shelter and advised the men to wait out the weather. Ignoring the sage wisdom, Packer and five men left on their own. Sixty six days later, Alfred Packer came out of the mountains alone. Parker stated he got separated from the others and survived on rabbits and rose buds. The fact he carried a good amount of cash and personal possessions of the other five men, raised questions. When pressed, he changed his story stating along their travels, one man after another succumbed to the treacherous weather, and to survive, each man in turn was eaten by the rest. Finally when only he and a man named Shannon Bell were left, Bell went crazy and Packer had to kill him in self-defense.
Although a horrible tale, cannibalism was not unheard of (the Donner party of 1846–1847), and the story would have been taken as truth until the skeletons of the five men were eventually found and they were all together not strung out along a trail indicating they had not died one by one.
Israel Swan's body showed signs of struggle, and Parker was charged with his murder, but he escaped jail the very night of his arrest, and remained at larger for nine years.
Finally recognized in Wyoming, Parker was captured and returned to Colorado. His ever changing story now stated all the men were alive in camp when he took off alone seeking a useful trail. Returning after several hours, he found Shannon Bell had gone mad and killed the others. Then Bell attacked Parker who shot Bell in self-defense at which time he resorted to eating the dead.
This time a jury convicted Packer of the single murder and he was sentenced to hang. Due to some typed of legislation error the conviction was over turned, but then at a new trial he was charged with five counts of manslaughter and was convicted and sentenced to forty years in prison. He was remanded to the State Prison in Canon City in 1886.
Due to the efforts of Denver Post editors and reporter Polly Pry, who were convinced of his innocence, he was paroled in 1901 and went to work briefly as a guard at the Post building in downtown Denver.
Packer spent the final years of his life living in and around Littleton —on Harrison Avenue and on west Hampden. According to Littleton historian Dave Hicks, "He was described as a kindly man who would take children on his lap and tell them of his early days in the old west."
He died April 24, 1907, evidently of liver and stomach troubles. Because he was a Civil War veteran, the military paid for the funeral and provided the tombstone, which reads: "Alfred Packer, Co. F, 16 U.S. Inf." His dying words, according to the Littleton Independent, were "I'm not guilty of the charge."
On a dark humorous note, CU Boulder has a the Alferd Pacer restaurant & Grill. (His first name was occasionally spelled Alferd due to the misspelling of a tattoo he got.)https://www.museum.littletonco.gov/Research/Littleton-History/Biographies/Packer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_PackerWikipedia
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