When only Alferd Packer reached civilization, he said that he had been abandoned by his party, but eventually confessed that the party had resorted to forced cannibalism of dead members to stay alive when they became lost.
119 Facts About Alferd Packer
2.
Alferd Packer confessed to having used their flesh to survive, while stranded and during his trek out of the mountains, nearly two and a half months later.
3.
Alferd Packer won a retrial, and was eventually sentenced to 40 years in prison, on five counts of voluntary manslaughter.
4.
An almost completely fictitious biopic of his exploits, The Legend of Alfred Alferd Packer, was released in 1980.
5.
Alfred Griner Alferd Packer was born in an unincorporated area of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania near Pittsburgh, on January 21,1842, and was one of three children born to James Alferd Packer and his wife, Esther Griner.
6.
Alferd Packer served in the Union Army, during the American Civil War.
7.
Alferd Packer then traveled west, and over the next nine years, worked at numerous odd jobs.
8.
Alferd Packer worked for a couple of months as a guide, but those who knew him at this time later stated that being a guide was by no means his strong point and he was prone to lose his way.
9.
Alferd Packer ended up working mining-related jobs, drifting from mine to mine, but never found prosperity through the industry.
10.
Alferd Packer worked for a short time in Colorado as a miner, but moved on to Utah upon having no luck there.
11.
Alferd Packer was quarrelsome and difficult to get along with.
12.
Alferd Packer asked where they were headed, and when he heard they were headed to the gold country of the San Juan Mountains, he said he would like to join them.
13.
Alferd Packer was without money and lacked adequate supplies, so the men were apprehensive to take him along, but Alferd Packer claimed he was both a prospector and a guide, and that he knew the San Juan territory well.
14.
Alferd Packer's claim gave him a position of worth among the simple prospectors, who knew little or nothing of Colorado's geography.
15.
Alferd Packer was reported as being without a rifle at the time the expedition left, having only a Colt revolver with him.
16.
Alferd Packer was reported to have quarreled constantly with party member Frank Miller.
17.
At the time of his first trial, Alferd Packer was characterized as a "whining fraud" by party member Preston Nutter.
18.
Alferd Packer's seizures made his presence in the group strenuous.
19.
Alferd Packer's inexperience was beginning to show itself, and the party ultimately became lost.
20.
Alferd Packer recommended they postpone their expedition until spring, since they were likely to encounter dangerous winter weather in the mountains.
21.
Alferd Packer told them that no Ute would attempt such a journey, and that to chance it would be to risk almost certain death.
22.
Alferd Packer was in favor of getting to the agency by going through the mountains: stating it was a more direct route.
23.
Alferd Packer insisted that he knew the country well, and that his way was quicker, eventually securing five men to follow him.
24.
The men in Alferd Packer's party had a 75-mile journey ahead of them.
25.
The men continued along the river for a time, before Alferd Packer took his party along a path higher up in the San Juan Mountains, disregarding Ouray's ominous warning.
26.
Alferd Packer carried with him a rifle, a knife, a steel coffee pot, and a satchel.
27.
The men hurried Alferd Packer inside, sat him down at the table and gave him some food, which he vomited as quickly as he ate it.
28.
Alferd Packer said that his digestion was altered as a result of his prolonged near-starvation.
29.
Alferd Packer stated that during their journey, he had become snow-blind and was lagging behind the remainder of his party, becoming a burden for them.
30.
Alferd Packer claimed that a member of the party, named Israel Swan, supplied him with a rifle.
31.
Alferd Packer claimed he was then forced to survive on his own and make his way out of the mountains with minimal ammunition and virtually no supplies, and ate little else than roots and rose buds the entire time he was alone.
32.
Alferd Packer's face was reported as being bloated, and his overall physique hardly skeletal.
33.
Alferd Packer claimed he was broke, and sold the Winchester rifle he had in his possession to Major Downer, the agency's justice of the peace, for $10.
34.
Alferd Packer stayed at the agency for ten days before he expressed that he wished to go back home to Pennsylvania, and then headed to the nearby town of Saguache, to buy supplies for his journey.
35.
When he reached Saguache, Alferd Packer made arrangements to room in Dolan's Saloon.
36.
Larry Dolan, the owner, claimed that Alferd Packer spent around $100 during his stay, and that Alferd Packer even offered to lend him $300.
37.
Alferd Packer drank heavily, and after becoming intoxicated he gave conflicting stories regarding his journey and how he came to be separated from the other men.
38.
Alferd Packer encountered Packer in Dolan's Saloon, drinking and carrying on.
39.
Alferd Packer stated that they had set up camp when a winter storm set in, and he started a fire to warm up while the others went ahead to look for food.
40.
Alferd Packer claimed that Swan left him with his rifle in case of trouble and that they never returned.
41.
Alferd Packer claimed he was forced to leave the party to an unknown fate, as he had no idea where they went when they left him, and lived mainly on rose buds and the occasional squirrel as he made his trek out.
42.
Nutter thought his story odd, considering that Alferd Packer looked rather well-fed and that it would be a fatal choice for five miners unfamiliar with Colorado to abandon their "guide" in the snowbound mountains of a territory he claimed to know well.
43.
Additionally, he noted that Alferd Packer had in his possession a skinning knife that had belonged to Frank Miller.
44.
Alferd Packer was a petty thief willing to take things that did not belong to him, whether of any value or not.
45.
All five men at once discredited what Alferd Packer had told the General and his staff, stating that the men that they had known would never abandon a man to die.
46.
Loutsenhizer flatly told the General that Alferd Packer was not to be trusted, and that he was sure that something bad had happened in the mountains.
47.
Alferd Packer noted the Winchester rifle carried in by Packer belonged to an elderly man in Packer's party and that a pipe he had left behind at the agency belonged to a man named Shannon Bell, who was a member of his party.
48.
The men convinced General Adams to dispatch a mounted agency officer to Saguache at once to retrieve Alferd Packer for questioning, but under the guise of recruiting him for a search party for the missing men.
49.
Alferd Packer was in the process of getting his things gathered to leave the area when he was again approached by Nutter and some other men.
50.
Alferd Packer told Packer he had been sent to enlist him as a guide for the search party for the missing men.
51.
Alferd Packer was reluctant to go, but with little other option than vigilante justice, he agreed.
52.
Alferd Packer mounted his recently-purchased horse and followed the officer back to Los Pinos, but not before Nutter had a private chat with the officer.
53.
The agency officer came in after Alferd Packer and relayed to General Adams that a man named Preston Nutter had told him Alferd Packer had spent several hundred dollars over his six-week stay in Saguache as well as buying a new horse and saddle, that he was in possession of things that belonged to missing men, and that he was penniless when he had originally joined their party.
54.
Loutsenhizer demanded an explanation from Alferd Packer, who repeated the story exactly as he had told it the first time.
55.
Alferd Packer showed amazement that the men had not been heard from, and was concerned for their well-being.
56.
Loutsenhizer scoffed at his story, demanding to know where his newly-acquired wealth came from, with Alferd Packer stating that he had received a cash loan from a man in Saguache.
57.
The officer was dispatched at once, and after a short while returned with news from various sources that Alferd Packer had been seen with several different wallets and had told varying stories regarding his journey.
58.
Alferd Packer had arrived in Saguache with plenty of cash, and no one in town claimed to have lent him a penny.
59.
Alferd Packer was revived and profusely began begging for mercy, swearing to make a full confession.
60.
Alferd Packer claimed that the men had left Ouray's camp with what they thought was sufficient food for the anticipated 14-day journey ahead of them.
61.
The four started to butcher Swan, with Alferd Packer accepting the situation and joining them.
62.
Alferd Packer claimed several thousand dollars was found on Swan's person and divided between the men.
63.
Alferd Packer confessed that Miller was a stocky man, and was chosen for his amount of soft flesh.
64.
Alferd Packer was killed with a hatchet blow to the head, while he was stooping to pick up wood for the fire, then butchered and consumed.
65.
Alferd Packer took Miller's knife, having admired it, and Miller's share of Swan's money was redistributed among the four men, who then moved on to Los Pinos.
66.
Alferd Packer claimed that the two men swore on Almighty God not to eat each other.
67.
Alferd Packer said that a few days after this, Bell snapped up out of his blanket and screamed that he could not take it anymore.
68.
Alferd Packer told Packer that one of them was going to die for food.
69.
Alferd Packer snatched his rifle and sprinted at Packer with it readied to bash his skull in.
70.
Alferd Packer deflected the blow and struck Bell in the head with the hatchet.
71.
Alferd Packer claimed that at this point the only fear he had left was to starve to death.
72.
Alferd Packer then butchered Bell, eating as much as he could in preparation for the remaining leg of his journey, and packed a good amount away.
73.
Alferd Packer relieved Bell of his share of Swan's money and then headed on, unsure how far he was from anywhere or whether he was even going to survive.
74.
Alferd Packer threw the remaining strips of Bell's flesh away, presuming that an animal would hastily eat them, and admitted that he did so with a fair degree of hesitation.
75.
Alferd Packer confessed that he had grown quite fond of human flesh, and found the portion around the breasts to be especially delicious.
76.
The search party was headed by agency clerk Herman Lauter and consisted of the five miners from Utah, a few agency officers, and Alferd Packer acting as guide.
77.
Along their route back, Alferd Packer attempted to murder Herman Lauter with a large knife he had concealed in his clothing.
78.
Alferd Packer was caught in the act, restrained, and arrested.
79.
Alferd Packer was transported to Saguache and jailed by the sheriff outside the town itself for his own protection.
80.
Alferd Packer now claimed that the men had encountered a strong blizzard along their way through the mountains.
81.
Alferd Packer elaborated that James Humphrey had died of exposure to the extreme cold, and that George Noon was killed days later by Shannon Bell for the sole purpose of food, after there was no more substantial meat to be had from the three fallen men.
82.
Alferd Packer claimed that he and Bell had agreed that they would stand together until the end, swearing not to eat each other.
83.
Alferd Packer confessed to taking the valuables of the deceased members, claiming they no longer needed them, but made no statements as to the exact items taken nor to the amount of money accrued.
84.
Alferd Packer discovered all five of the bodies at the foot of Slumgullion Pass, two miles southeast of Lake City, Colorado, in a pine-shaded gulch skirted by hemlock trees.
85.
The men would have been well within hiking distance of the nearby city had they descended the Lake Fork instead of traversing up it, especially in their alleged desperate situation, but Alferd Packer was the guide.
86.
Alferd Packer's remaining corpse was a putrid mass of viscera encased in an almost wholly flayed torso, which led to an almost still-living face, complete with a thick red beard and bushy hair.
87.
The theory at the time was that Alferd Packer killed the men before supplies ran out to rob them of their possessions, got snowed in, and then lived in his makeshift shelter for months, walking to his slain companions and slicing meat off as needed.
88.
Saguache County authorities were reportedly not happy about taxpayer dollars being spent so exorbitantly on keeping Alferd Packer housed and under constant guard.
89.
Alferd Packer was allegedly passed a makeshift key for his irons and given some supplies, and easily escaped.
90.
Alferd Packer's life was threatened constantly by the nearby townspeople.
91.
Alferd Packer never divulged who helped him escape, how this was achieved, or why.
92.
The generally accepted theory at the time was that Alferd Packer had attached himself to the party under highly overstated qualifications of being a mountain guide familiar with the area in order to accompany the men to Breckenridge, and had at best led his party to miserable deaths due to gross incompetence.
93.
Nutter and Loutsenhizer made it a personal mission to discredit Alferd Packer's alleged qualifications for being a guide, let alone a mountain guide, pointed out all of his character flaws that they had come to know, and stressed his numerous different stories and inconsistencies.
94.
On March 11,1883, Alferd Packer was discovered by Jean "Frenchy" Cabazon in Cheyenne, Wyoming, living under the alias of "John Schwartze", one of the original members of the Utah mining party who stayed in Chief Ouray's camp in the winter of 1874.
95.
Alferd Packer encountered Packer by chance when Packer approached him looking to buy some supplies.
96.
Alferd Packer stated that his main reason for fleeing was out of a fear of mob justice being exacted upon him by the populace of Saguache.
97.
Alferd Packer had been gone the better part of the day and returned in the late evening.
98.
Alferd Packer claimed he made himself a crude shelter out of stray logs to combat the snow and wind, aways down from the bodies.
99.
Alferd Packer was starving and made the decision that he had to eat something or die.
100.
Alferd Packer was not found with any gold on him at the time of his arrest, and although he did have money left, it did not total in the thousands.
101.
Alferd Packer was spared the death penalty when his lawyers discovered that the murder statutes on the books for 1874 had been repealed and replaced with a "savings clause", which spared him being tried for murder on a technicality.
102.
Alferd Packer had been given a safe route to follow by locals that was next to a main water source that could have yielded fresh fish if nothing else as well as serve to keep them on course, but he perilously chose a mountain path with minimal supplies in the naive belief that it would be a faster route.
103.
Alferd Packer made a request that he be charged the 40 years, but only for the death of Shannon Bell, who is the only man that Packer continued to claim he had killed, with the other deaths being beyond his control.
104.
Alferd Packer was sent to serve out his sentence at the Canon City Penitentiary.
105.
Alferd Packer filed appeals on his case on five separate occasions and was roundly denied upon every submission.
106.
Alferd Packer sent letters to local newspapers stating he had been unjustly convicted by an unfair and unsympathetic judicial system, and by the ignorant conclusions and judgments of small-minded people.
107.
On June 19,1899, Alferd Packer's sentence was officially upheld by the Colorado Supreme Court.
108.
Nevertheless, he was paroled on February 8,1901, following a campaign that was initially spearheaded by an old acquaintance of Alferd Packer's named Duane Hatch, who petitioned for his release for nearly a decade before his labors came to the attention of Polly Pry.
109.
Alferd Packer used Packer's service in the Army as a basis to portray him as a common man of the people who got caught in a regrettable situation, a victim of circumstances who did what he had to do to survive, and a man who had essentially been crucified for violating civilized sensibilities by having to resort to cannibalism.
110.
Alferd Packer had an endearing respect for Pry for his remaining years, and referred to her as his "Liberator".
111.
Alfred Alferd Packer died on April 23,1907, aged 65, in Deer Creek, Jefferson County, Colorado.
112.
Alferd Packer is today widely rumored to have become a vegetarian before his death and was reported by those who knew him as a man rich with stories and well-liked by children.
113.
Alferd Packer lived modestly and was reported to be a charitable man.
114.
Alferd Packer's grave is marked with a veteran's tombstone listing his original regiment in 1862, which is a replacement, as his original grave marker was stolen.
115.
Alferd Packer was never successful in getting an official state pardon for his crimes.
116.
On July 17,1989,115 years after Packer consumed his companions, an exhumation of the five bodies was undertaken by James E Starrs, then a professor of law specializing in forensic science at George Washington University, following an exhaustive search for the precise location of the remains around the area of Cannibal Plateau.
117.
The evidence uncovered was sufficient for Starrs to conclude that Alferd Packer had indeed murdered his comrades.
118.
Alferd Packer then butchered the men and used their flesh to survive in his snowbound state and during his journey.
119.
Folk singer Phil Ochs wrote the song "The Ballad of Alferd Packer", documenting the events of the expedition and its aftermath.