Speaker 1: Happy Saturday, everybody. We're once again pulling from a previous
Speaker 1: October episode. This one comes from previous hosts Sarah and Deblina,
Speaker 1: dates back to it's on Alfred Packer, also known as
Speaker 1: the Colorado cannibal who. The end of the episode takes
Speaker 1: a lighter tone than you might imagine because Alfred Packer
Speaker 1: has become something of a folk hero in spite of
Speaker 1: the immense taboos surrounding cannibalism. So as long as you
Speaker 1: are not too squeamish, enjoyed. Welcome to Stuff you missed
Speaker 1: in History Class. A production of I Heart Radios How
Speaker 1: Stuff Works. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm de
Speaker 1: Blin a Chuk reporting and I'm Faradali. And if you're
Speaker 1: a regular listener of this podcast, you probably know that
Speaker 1: we've covered our fair share of historical murder, serial killers,
Speaker 1: and similar topics, especially during this time of year October
Speaker 1: series tradition. Yes, but it's rare that we talk about
Speaker 1: killers who have taken their crimes a step further to
Speaker 1: include an act that some considered to be even more disturbing,
Speaker 1: and that's cannibalism. We've actually never really explored this topic though.
Speaker 1: Candice and Josh did back in two thousand and eight
Speaker 1: when they talked about the infamous Donner Party, a wagon
Speaker 1: train that got trapped by the harsh, snowy winter weather
Speaker 1: in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in eighteen forty six. Now,
Speaker 1: with that story, out of the eighty seven people who
Speaker 1: set out on that trip, only forty seven lived to
Speaker 1: tell about it, and some of those people did resort
Speaker 1: to cannibalism in order to survive. So our story today
Speaker 1: is somewhat similar, and in fact, it's often confused with
Speaker 1: the Donner Party story. It involves a man named Alfred
Speaker 1: Packer who was among a group of prospectors who went
Speaker 1: into the San Juan Mountains in the Colorado Rockies near
Speaker 1: the end of eighteen seventy three and also ran into
Speaker 1: some pretty treacherous winter weather on his trip. Unlike the
Speaker 1: Donner Party situation, though, when the thaw came the following spring,
Speaker 1: Packer was the only guy from his party to emerge
Speaker 1: from the mountains alive. A little more suspicious, and it
Speaker 1: certainly adds to the mystery of the story it does
Speaker 1: and what kind of set up this mystery was a
Speaker 1: series of suspicions, accusations, and confessions that didn't really match
Speaker 1: up that followed Packer emerging from the mountains. According to
Speaker 1: Michael Mayo in his book American Murder, all of this
Speaker 1: led to Packer becoming the American West's only convicted cannibal.
Speaker 1: Quite a distinction exactly, But it also created one of
Speaker 1: the great mysteries of the American West because to this
Speaker 1: day people still debate about whether Packer was guilty as charged.
Speaker 1: So we're going to look into that a little bit.
Speaker 1: And in order to do that, of course, we have
Speaker 1: to start where the story begins. So it all started
Speaker 1: in November of eighteen seventy three when a group of
Speaker 1: about twenty or so would be a prospector set out
Speaker 1: from Bingham Canyon, Utah, and headed towards Breckenridge, Colorado, in
Speaker 1: the Rocky Mountains in search of what else gold And
Speaker 1: serving as a guide on this expedition was Alfred Packer.
Speaker 1: And just a little note before you start writing your
Speaker 1: email thing you were pronouncing it incorrectly. There is some
Speaker 1: debate about Alfred Packer's name, even though he's generally known
Speaker 1: as Alfred like with the r D E. R D
Speaker 1: official documents list his name as the more traditional Alfred,
Speaker 1: and it's supposed that he might have started going by
Speaker 1: Alfred when a careless tattoo artist misspelled the name on
Speaker 1: his arm. Even though that's just kind of a rumor,
Speaker 1: I do like that idea. Though you know your tattoos
Speaker 1: spelled wrong, You're just gonna go with it, Alfred. According
Speaker 1: to information from the Alfred Packer Collection of the Colorado
Speaker 1: State Archives, Packer was born in Pennsylvania on November twenty one,
Speaker 1: two and during the Civil War he enlisted in both
Speaker 1: the sixteenth U. S. Infantry of Minnesota and the eighth
Speaker 1: Regiment Iowa Cavalry, but he was discharged from both of
Speaker 1: these due to epilepsy. The rest of the details of
Speaker 1: his life are a little bit sketchy. The next real
Speaker 1: evidence that we have of his whereabouts is from when
Speaker 1: he joined up with those miners in Utah. He wanted
Speaker 1: to be a part of their prospecting party, but he
Speaker 1: didn't have a lot of money for provisions to make
Speaker 1: the trips, so, according to an article by Diana to
Speaker 1: Stephano in the Journal of Social History, he offered up
Speaker 1: twenty five bucks and his services as a guide to
Speaker 1: join them in their journey and he told them that
Speaker 1: he knew Colorado's high country well, so his offer was accepted.
Speaker 1: They didn't know their way around, and he did, so
Speaker 1: it seemed like a good match, he claimed he did, because,
Speaker 1: according to De Stefana's article, it didn't take long for
Speaker 1: Packard to really robe his traveling companions the wrong way,
Speaker 1: and there were a few reasons for that. First of all,
Speaker 1: there was a rumor going around that Packer had served
Speaker 1: some hard time I'm back in Salt Lake City because
Speaker 1: he was suspected of murdering his trapping partner. So not
Speaker 1: the kind of guy you might want with you out
Speaker 1: in the wilderness. Second, he was also inappropriately interested in
Speaker 1: the amount of cash that the other men were carrying
Speaker 1: with them. He would apparently ask them outright, how much
Speaker 1: money do you have on you? And Then, thirdly, and
Speaker 1: perhaps most importantly, especially considering that the group was making
Speaker 1: this track with limited provisions and really relying on Packer's expertise,
Speaker 1: he seemed to have exaggerated his skill as a guide.
Speaker 1: According to the article we just mentioned, he got them
Speaker 1: lost more than once, not something that would endear him
Speaker 1: to his traveling companions. So they're getting lost, they're running
Speaker 1: out of food, and the weather just keeps getting worse
Speaker 1: and worse. By the time they make it to the
Speaker 1: winter camp of Chief Uray along the Uncompagre River in
Speaker 1: Colorado in mid December, they were starving pretty much. The
Speaker 1: chief made it really clear to them that he thought
Speaker 1: it was a really bad idea for them to continue
Speaker 1: you on with their journey. At that point, he advised
Speaker 1: them to just stay where they were and wait until spring,
Speaker 1: and about ten guys out of the party followed this advice.
Speaker 1: A small group of men led by Oliver D. Lutzenheiser
Speaker 1: was itching to get started, though, so they set out
Speaker 1: with directions from the Chief toward the Las Penos Indian
Speaker 1: Agency on the other side of the mountain. According to
Speaker 1: Di Stefana's article, Packer wanted to be a part of
Speaker 1: this group, but Lutzenheiser didn't trust him and threatened to
Speaker 1: shoot him if he tried to follow him. So he
Speaker 1: really did not like Packer at all, know that maybe
Speaker 1: that first point on the jail time and all the
Speaker 1: lies that he'd been seeing along the trip not exactly
Speaker 1: the kind of guy you want with you and already
Speaker 1: rough journey. But another eager group of men also set
Speaker 1: out in the same direction, and Packer again served as
Speaker 1: their guide. The other men in this group where Shannon Bell,
Speaker 1: James Humphrey, George Noon or perhaps his last name was
Speaker 1: Moon we see it both ways is real Swan and
Speaker 1: Frank Miller. Chief Eray gave them supplies and advised them
Speaker 1: to stay close to the river. But it's clear from
Speaker 1: what happened that spring that things soon went awry. April sixteenth,
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy four, it was only one disheveled prospector who
Speaker 1: stumbled into Las Pinos Indian Agency near Gunnison, Colorado, and
Speaker 1: that was, of course Alfred Packer, our old friend. So
Speaker 1: the first thing that Packer asked for when he stumbled
Speaker 1: in from the wilderness was a drink, specifically a drink
Speaker 1: of whiskey. And of course people wanted to know what
Speaker 1: had happened, what his story was. He told them that
Speaker 1: he had set out from Chief Eray's winter camp with
Speaker 1: the five other men, but the other men had soon
Speaker 1: abandoned him when he wasn't able to keep up due
Speaker 1: to snow blindness, and he said that he spent the
Speaker 1: rest of the winter after that trapped in the mountains,
Speaker 1: living off the land. But many people, and especially those
Speaker 1: other members of the Utah Party, the ones who had
Speaker 1: opted to wade out the winter with the Chief who
Speaker 1: finally did make their way to the agency. Those guys
Speaker 1: especially were immediately suspicious of this story. And there were
Speaker 1: a few reasons for that. One, he just seemed too
Speaker 1: well fed for somebody who had been existing off the
Speaker 1: land off of boiled buds and pine gum all winter.
Speaker 1: And according to Mayo, Chief Ray astutely observed this that
Speaker 1: he seemed a little too hefty and said, you too
Speaker 1: damn fat. Another thing that seemed really off. Packer suddenly
Speaker 1: had all this cash on him. So not only was
Speaker 1: he packing a few extra pounds, he had all this
Speaker 1: money even though he had been pretty much broke before.
Speaker 1: Two really strange points. So, of course people are asking
Speaker 1: more and more questions about this, and so, feeling under pressure,
Speaker 1: Packer offers up a very different version of events. This
Speaker 1: one includes a kind of confession. According to De Stefano's article,
Speaker 1: Packer said that just ten days after the six men
Speaker 1: left the chiefs camp, quote one after another, the men
Speaker 1: quote had been killed by the remainder to be used
Speaker 1: as food by the rest. After the men were picked
Speaker 1: off one by one. Eventually, of course, there were only
Speaker 1: two of them left. Packer said he shot his last
Speaker 1: remaining companion in self defense. So, uh, disturbing story, but
Speaker 1: one that sort of spreads the guilt around. At least
Speaker 1: he's not seen as a murderer, not a murdering cold
Speaker 1: blood anyway. They were all trying the cannibalism together. Later
Speaker 1: that summer, though, a search party was set out to
Speaker 1: look for the bodies of Packer's former companions. Packer led
Speaker 1: the search party, interestingly enough. I guess they needed him
Speaker 1: to try to show where he went, but they couldn't
Speaker 1: find anything. Still though, even without any physical ence, Packer
Speaker 1: was arrested under the suspicion of murder anyway, and the
Speaker 1: authorities just really had a feeling about this guy. They had,
Speaker 1: They had a suspicion that something was up. And confirmation
Speaker 1: of those feelings, or at least what seemed to be
Speaker 1: a confirmation, came in August of eighteen seventy four, when
Speaker 1: an artist for Harper's magazine named John A. Randolph discovered
Speaker 1: the bodies of the missing prospectors near Lake City, Colorado.
Speaker 1: An article by Andrew Curry and Archaeology includes just a
Speaker 1: little snippet from the beginning of the Harper's account of
Speaker 1: the find, which read quote, they were lying in a gloomy,
Speaker 1: secluded spot, densely shaded by tall trees, at the foot
Speaker 1: of a steep hill, near the bank of the Gunnison River.
Speaker 1: Marks of violence on each body indicated that a most
Speaker 1: terrible crime had been committed there. The bodies lay within
Speaker 1: a few feet of each other in their blankets and clothes.
Speaker 1: There had been no attempt to conceal the remains, and
Speaker 1: Curry's article also mentions that the Harper's account came quote
Speaker 1: complete with lurid illustrations of the badly composed bodies. Lovely, yeah,
Speaker 1: pretty graphic. According to Mayo's account, all the bodies were
Speaker 1: missing most or at least some of their flesh. DeStefano
Speaker 1: says that an inquest conducted after the bodies were found
Speaker 1: determined that it looked like the men had been brutally
Speaker 1: murdered in their sleep, and as a result of this
Speaker 1: fine Packer was formally charged with the murder of all
Speaker 1: five of his former companions. So facing this hefty charge,
Speaker 1: Packer somehow managed to escape from jail and was on
Speaker 1: the lamb for nine years. After that, he was finally
Speaker 1: discovered by a merchant named Frenchy Carbon Zone in a
Speaker 1: saloon in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and picked up March eleventh, eighteen
Speaker 1: eighty three. From there, he was sent back to Colorado
Speaker 1: to stand trial. But he had a little bit more
Speaker 1: to say before that trial. Yeah, March sixteenth, eighteen eighty three,
Speaker 1: he offered up his second confession, and this one was
Speaker 1: the one that he would more or less stick to
Speaker 1: you throughout his life, though in later confessions some of
Speaker 1: the details did change, but they were more ancillary details.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is I guess sort of not to
Speaker 1: make a bad pun, but the meat of the argument
Speaker 1: stays the same from here on out. Okay, So basically
Speaker 1: his second story went like this. He said that he
Speaker 1: and his party got lost in the mountains and had
Speaker 1: to resort to boiling rosebuds and pine gum as you
Speaker 1: referred to before, after their food ran out. After wandering
Speaker 1: around on ridgelines for a while, the prospectors made camp
Speaker 1: on the banks of the Gunnison River. Packer said he
Speaker 1: took his gun and he went off by himself to
Speaker 1: see if he could find a way out, but when
Speaker 1: he returned, he found four of his companions lying there
Speaker 1: around a fire, and they had all taken a hatchet
Speaker 1: to the head. The one remaining, who was Bell, was
Speaker 1: by the fire roasting a piece of meat which was
Speaker 1: supposedly yes flesh from one of the men. Upon spotting him,
Speaker 1: pack said Bell immediately came after him with a hatchet,
Speaker 1: and Packer shot him in self defense and then hit
Speaker 1: him over the head with his own hatchet. He had
Speaker 1: then eaten the flesh of the men to survive the
Speaker 1: harsh winter, So he admitted to cannibalism it was just,
Speaker 1: and to killing Bell in self defense, but he wanted
Speaker 1: it to be I mean, murder was the thing that
Speaker 1: people were really up in arms about here murdering five men.
Speaker 1: It suggested when you read these accounts that people would
Speaker 1: have pretty much understood the cannibalism. You know, you have
Speaker 1: you gotta do what you gotta do to survive when
Speaker 1: you're out there and in these harsh conditions. But it
Speaker 1: was the fact that Packer was also suspected of murdering
Speaker 1: these guys that murdering for the for their money as well,
Speaker 1: it seemed. So the jury apparently didn't buy this new confession, though,
Speaker 1: because Packer was found guilty and was sentenced to hang.
Speaker 1: When the judge, who was Judge Melville be Gary, handed
Speaker 1: on his sentence on April three, legend has it that
Speaker 1: he said something to the effect of, quote, there was
Speaker 1: seven Democrats in all of Hinsdale County, and you ate
Speaker 1: five of them. I sentence you to be hung by
Speaker 1: the neck until you are dead, dead, dead, as a
Speaker 1: warning against further reducing the democratic population of this county. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this looks act worrying about the Democrats. It doesn't seem
Speaker 1: to be in the version of sentencing that's in the
Speaker 1: Colorado State Archives. The dead, dead, dead part is. But
Speaker 1: according to Curry's article, during the New Deal, Colorado Republicans
Speaker 1: did form these Alfred Packard clubs, and members of these
Speaker 1: clubs swore to quote eliminate at least five Democrats. Oh,
Speaker 1: I hope they didn't have like luncheon parties for their
Speaker 1: Alfred Packard clubs. Ultimately, the Packer was not hanged due
Speaker 1: to a technicality. Essentially, the territorial murder laws had changed,
Speaker 1: and the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that prosecutions of murders
Speaker 1: before May eighteen eighty one were invalid. Packer's case was retried.
Speaker 1: He did get forty years in prison, he only ended
Speaker 1: up serving eighteen of those. He was finally paroled in
Speaker 1: nineteen o one. He died six years later, and according
Speaker 1: to the Colorado State Archives, the cause of death, which
Speaker 1: was on April nineteen oh seven, was listed as quote senility, trouble,
Speaker 1: and worry on his death certificate. So a court decided
Speaker 1: Packer was guilty of murder, and of course many people
Speaker 1: still assumed that he was. After all, it does make
Speaker 1: for a good grizzly legend. But throughout the years, what
Speaker 1: really happened on that mountain has really remained a mystery,
Speaker 1: and many have argued that Packer was convicted on pretty
Speaker 1: flimsy evidence. George Washington University law professor James starrs who
Speaker 1: he's been responsible for the exhimation of many controversial historical figures,
Speaker 1: including Lizzie Borden's parents and Jesse James. He was curious
Speaker 1: enough about this mystery that he organized a team to
Speaker 1: exhume and examine the remains of Packers prospecting party in
Speaker 1: nine and they found a lot of things there. They found,
Speaker 1: first of all, plenty of evidence of trauma on the bones,
Speaker 1: which suggested that almost all of the flesh had been removed. Also,
Speaker 1: a lot of the cut marks were on the victim's back,
Speaker 1: suggesting that the person removing the flesh didn't want to
Speaker 1: look at the victim's faces, which is just kind of
Speaker 1: an interesting look into the mind of psychological angle to cannibalism. Yes,
Speaker 1: according to Curry's article, Stars concluded that Packer was the
Speaker 1: killer because a war wound that was found on Bell's
Speaker 1: remains would have supposedly made it too difficult for him
Speaker 1: to inflict the wounds that they found on the other men.
Speaker 1: But not everyone agrees with stars findings. Now, the Museum
Speaker 1: of Western Colorado curator and historian David Bailey is one
Speaker 1: of those people who has led the charge to prove
Speaker 1: Packers innocence. So Bailey started digging into Packers story when
Speaker 1: he was working to tie a thirty eight caliber cult
Speaker 1: pistol from the museum's collection to the site where the
Speaker 1: bodies were found. He was working in the late nineties
Speaker 1: the early aughts, so he couldn't exhume the bodies, you know,
Speaker 1: which had just been exhumed in nine nine, because they
Speaker 1: were sealed off over after the last exhimation to protect
Speaker 1: them from relic hunters. He did, however, have access to
Speaker 1: some soil samples that were left over from the previous excavation,
Speaker 1: and by having those tested, Bailey was able to prove
Speaker 1: the pistol was at the site because lead found in
Speaker 1: the soil was an exact match for the bullets remaining
Speaker 1: in the gun. So it's starting to sound kind of
Speaker 1: like Packer's story of having to shoot Bell lined up
Speaker 1: a little bit. Also, the gun still had three bullets
Speaker 1: in it. There were two empty chambers, which matched up
Speaker 1: with some of the testimony Packer had given, So Bells
Speaker 1: skeleton had some holes in it, possibly gunshot wounds in
Speaker 1: the pelvic region. Also, his wallet or his pocket book
Speaker 1: whatever he was carrying with all that cash the theme
Speaker 1: Packer was interested in, also seemed to have been shot.
Speaker 1: So this was enough to convince Bailey and many others
Speaker 1: that Packer was telling the truth, that that second confession
Speaker 1: was real. He held a mock trial for him in
Speaker 1: two thousand two, in which Packer was found innocent. Whether
Speaker 1: he was guilty or innocent, one thing that's for certain
Speaker 1: is that Packer became sort of a kitchy kind of
Speaker 1: folk hero in the twentieth century. Since the nineteen sixties,
Speaker 1: for example, students at the University of Colorado at Boulder
Speaker 1: have eaten at the Alfred Packer Grill, and according to
Speaker 1: Curry's article, that l Cannibal burrito is apparently a popular
Speaker 1: menu item there. Oh goodness. A bust of Packer was
Speaker 1: also placed in the Colorado state capital in two So
Speaker 1: he made it into the capital. I mean he did.
Speaker 1: That's pretty official. There are also a lot of references
Speaker 1: to Packer and pop culture, and one of the funniest
Speaker 1: examples is Trey Parker, who co created the animated TV
Speaker 1: series South Park, which we all know and love, wrote
Speaker 1: a play about Packer when he was studying at the
Speaker 1: University of Colorado called Alfred Packer the Musical. Later he
Speaker 1: turned it into a film called Cannibal the Musical. And unsurprisingly,
Speaker 1: Packer has also just made his way into folk songs too.
Speaker 1: There have actually been several songs written about Packer, including
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty four is the Ballad of Alfred Packer, which
Speaker 1: was written by folk singer phil Ochs. The chorus for
Speaker 1: that song went, they called him a murderer, a cannibal
Speaker 1: of thief. It just doesn't pay to eat anything but
Speaker 1: government inspected beef. There's even a cookbook out there called
Speaker 1: Alfred Packer's High Protein Cookbook. Al Right, well, I feel
Speaker 1: like you may be picking that up. Oh you do,
Speaker 1: after I go try the l cannibal burrito. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Well, you like to cook, I mean
Speaker 1: like you like meat, like cooking, but I usually try
Speaker 1: to avoid any associations with cannibalism. And as to my cooking,
Speaker 1: as a rule of thumb, I guess that's a pretty
Speaker 1: good it's a pretty good rule of the thumbs in
Speaker 1: your daily cuisine. There you go. Well, I feel much
Speaker 1: more comfortable sitting in the studio with you right now.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm glad I was able to reassure you I'm
Speaker 1: not a cannibal. Thank you so much for joining us
Speaker 1: on this Saturday. If you have heard an email address
Speaker 1: or a Facebook you are l or something similar over
Speaker 1: the course of today's episode, since it is from the
Speaker 1: archive that might be out of date now, you can
Speaker 1: email us at History Podcast at how stuff works dot com,
Speaker 1: and you can find us all over social media at
Speaker 1: missed in History, and you can subscribe to our show
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