WEBVTT - Hungry For Justice 0:00:02.640 --> 0:00:06.600 You're listening to American Shadows, a production of iHeartRadio and 0:00:06.680 --> 0:00:16.240 Grimm and Mild from Aar and Manky. 0:00:20.079 --> 0:00:24.159 Humans have always explored. We've gone to the depths of 0:00:24.160 --> 0:00:27.400 the ocean and the reaches of space. It's brought us 0:00:27.440 --> 0:00:30.800 to new lands or new to us and into contact 0:00:30.880 --> 0:00:34.720 with all different kinds of life, and that contact with 0:00:34.800 --> 0:00:40.040 the other, the unfamiliar has often seemed scary. Just take 0:00:40.080 --> 0:00:42.839 a look at old maps drawn up by Western European 0:00:42.880 --> 0:00:46.400 travelers as ships began to sail around the world. The 0:00:46.440 --> 0:00:50.160 sailors brought home fantastic stories that were almost too big 0:00:50.200 --> 0:00:54.720 to believe. They talked about monsters, and about savages, and 0:00:55.040 --> 0:00:59.680 often about cannibals. The term was coined by none other 0:00:59.720 --> 0:01:03.440 than Christopher Columbus. He wrote in his diaries about his 0:01:03.640 --> 0:01:07.720 alleged encounters with them, describing cannibals as a dog headed 0:01:07.720 --> 0:01:12.080 men who ate human beings. Amerigo Vespucci did the same 0:01:12.160 --> 0:01:15.319 during his explorations of the continents that now bear a 0:01:15.319 --> 0:01:18.920 derivation of his name, and when Queen Isabella of Spain 0:01:19.120 --> 0:01:23.080 legalized the enslavement of Native Americans in fifteen oh three, 0:01:23.120 --> 0:01:26.479 she did so by alleging that they were cannibals too. 0:01:27.760 --> 0:01:31.480 What's true is that many cultures have participated in cannibalism 0:01:31.880 --> 0:01:36.000 long before records existed. We have evidence stretching back over 0:01:36.040 --> 0:01:39.520 one hundred thousand years that tells us as much. Today, 0:01:39.640 --> 0:01:42.479 the idea of eating a loved one or enemy might 0:01:42.640 --> 0:01:45.520 give you the itck like nothing else, But we have 0:01:45.600 --> 0:01:50.440 to understand that not all cannibalism was created equal across 0:01:50.480 --> 0:01:54.400 the world. Endo cannibalism has been a grief practice in 0:01:54.440 --> 0:01:58.400 which one's community consumed parts of their body. Rather than 0:01:58.400 --> 0:02:01.680 an act of destruction, it was a profound celebration of 0:02:01.680 --> 0:02:04.919 a life in which the dead carried on in the living. 0:02:06.000 --> 0:02:09.880 Exocannibalism is the act of eating those outside of one's community. 0:02:10.639 --> 0:02:14.160 This flavor of consumption, if you'll forgive the pun, was 0:02:14.320 --> 0:02:18.959 also marked by community ritual. Seldom was anyone eating someone 0:02:19.000 --> 0:02:22.800 else without a lot of care. It's very easy to 0:02:22.840 --> 0:02:26.400 point fingers at people who aren't us, to say, but 0:02:26.560 --> 0:02:29.240 we aren't like them. But where do you draw the 0:02:29.280 --> 0:02:34.160 line and how do you decide what's monstrous? What Queen 0:02:34.240 --> 0:02:37.280 Isabella and her ilk failed to acknowledge was the widely 0:02:37.320 --> 0:02:41.640 accepted practice of medicinal cannibalism in Europe, it leaned on 0:02:41.639 --> 0:02:45.720 the beliefs of sympathetic magic, or that like serves like. 0:02:46.600 --> 0:02:49.920 For example, drinking from a human skull was said to 0:02:49.960 --> 0:02:53.800 help with headaches, blood was said to help with bleeding. 0:02:54.520 --> 0:02:58.560 Rendered human fat had a number of uses. Executed bodies 0:02:58.600 --> 0:03:01.360 were the most highly prized, as it was believed that 0:03:01.440 --> 0:03:04.600 a quick traumatic death gave no time for a life 0:03:04.639 --> 0:03:11.080 force to slowly seep away. The hypocrisy is glaring. When 0:03:11.120 --> 0:03:14.040 colonists came to the New World, they were regaled with 0:03:14.120 --> 0:03:18.360 tales of indigenous cannibals. Cannibalism was practiced in some Native 0:03:18.360 --> 0:03:21.840 American societies, particularly in some groups in the North and West, 0:03:22.440 --> 0:03:25.799 but for many it was never simply to fill their 0:03:25.840 --> 0:03:29.080 bellies in a stroke of irony. It was likely the 0:03:29.160 --> 0:03:32.760 English settlers who became the first gastronomic cannibals in that 0:03:32.840 --> 0:03:36.080 part of the world. The winter of sixteen oh nine 0:03:36.120 --> 0:03:39.920 to sixteen ten in Jamestown, Virginia has been remembered as 0:03:40.280 --> 0:03:45.080 the Starving Time. A seven year drought, fractured leadership, and 0:03:45.200 --> 0:03:49.160 a siege by Powaton warriors had created a fatal predicament 0:03:49.400 --> 0:03:53.280 for the colony. In that period, about three quarters of 0:03:53.360 --> 0:03:56.800 Jamestown ended up starving to death. Of the sixty or 0:03:56.840 --> 0:04:00.360 so settlers who remained, they scraped by on whatever they 0:04:00.400 --> 0:04:05.280 could find, including the flesh of their recent debt. Archaeological 0:04:05.280 --> 0:04:08.560 evidence of these years was discovered as recently as twenty thirteen, 0:04:09.000 --> 0:04:12.280 when human bones bearing the marks of butchering were discovered 0:04:12.280 --> 0:04:15.040 in a trash pit. It was one of many pits 0:04:15.160 --> 0:04:17.479 and one of many bodies that have been found at 0:04:17.520 --> 0:04:21.960 the site. America has long been a land of cannibals, 0:04:22.400 --> 0:04:26.000 but that distinction has never really belonged to one group. 0:04:26.880 --> 0:04:30.960 Despite what European colonists thought about themselves, they were certainly 0:04:31.000 --> 0:04:34.920 not above cannibalizing their peers, as the incident in Jamestown 0:04:35.000 --> 0:04:39.920 proves to us. So what really separates the monstrous from 0:04:39.960 --> 0:04:44.880 the rest of us? If anything at all? I'm Lorn Vogelbaum, 0:04:45.440 --> 0:04:56.000 Welcome to American shadows. The promise of hidden riches sang 0:04:56.120 --> 0:04:59.920 like a siren, and hungry prospectors came from all over 0:05:00.240 --> 0:05:04.200 to heed its call. In November of eighteen seventy three, 0:05:04.400 --> 0:05:07.320 a party of twenty one men left Utah to search 0:05:07.400 --> 0:05:11.640 for silver in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado. In 0:05:11.720 --> 0:05:14.600 this group was the thirty one year old Pennsylvania born 0:05:14.680 --> 0:05:20.080 drifter named Alfred Packer. He was a curious man, this Alfred. 0:05:20.600 --> 0:05:22.920 He was a little bit odd. It was hard to 0:05:22.960 --> 0:05:26.560 know who he really was. He prided himself on being 0:05:26.560 --> 0:05:30.279 a great entertainer, but his tall tales often fell short 0:05:30.279 --> 0:05:34.240 of convincing. He had a way of contradicting himself and 0:05:34.600 --> 0:05:38.560 just seemed to try a little too hard to sell himself, 0:05:38.880 --> 0:05:42.799 often alterating important details about his life in the process. 0:05:43.480 --> 0:05:46.400 What we also do know as fact is that he 0:05:46.560 --> 0:05:49.240 was discharged from the Civil War on the account of 0:05:49.279 --> 0:05:53.599 being a severe epileptic, experiencing bouts of seizure as many 0:05:53.600 --> 0:05:57.200 as three times every forty eight hours, and he had 0:05:57.200 --> 0:06:00.040 worked all sorts of odd jobs, but it's likely it 0:06:00.120 --> 0:06:01.919 was hard for him to hold anything down for a 0:06:02.040 --> 0:06:06.120 significant period of time. Taking bromide seemed to help his condition, 0:06:06.480 --> 0:06:10.240 but they weren't totally curative. This was a part of 0:06:10.279 --> 0:06:13.880 the story he was always sure to leave out. Packer 0:06:14.000 --> 0:06:17.760 had volunteered to lead the silver hunting party. He set 0:06:17.800 --> 0:06:20.560 off with confidence with twenty men in tow into the 0:06:20.600 --> 0:06:25.440 dense forests and jagged mountains of Colorado. There actually wasn't 0:06:25.480 --> 0:06:29.599 even a set path to their destination. Any expedition to 0:06:29.640 --> 0:06:31.480 that part of the country was sure to be a 0:06:31.480 --> 0:06:34.960 treacherous one, and it was imperative that the guide knew 0:06:34.960 --> 0:06:38.280 the land well. What his team didn't know was that 0:06:38.360 --> 0:06:41.359 Alfred wasn't the expert on the Colorado Mountains that he 0:06:41.440 --> 0:06:44.440 claimed to be. Even so, the first part of their 0:06:44.440 --> 0:06:48.760 trip was fairly smooth. Spirits were high, folks were filled 0:06:48.839 --> 0:06:52.160 with hope. They had big dreams about what they'd find 0:06:52.160 --> 0:06:54.040 in the mountains and what they'd do with it all 0:06:54.080 --> 0:06:57.680 once they got home. But it wasn't long before things 0:06:57.720 --> 0:07:02.080 began to unravel. Into their journey, Packer had an epileptic 0:07:02.120 --> 0:07:05.640 episode and fell into the campfire. He was saved by 0:07:05.680 --> 0:07:08.640 a companion, but when he came to he brushed it off, 0:07:08.960 --> 0:07:11.880 claiming it was the first seizure he had ever experienced. 0:07:12.800 --> 0:07:15.800 But he soon began to have seizures several times a day, 0:07:16.160 --> 0:07:18.960 and the other travelers began to suspect that he was 0:07:19.080 --> 0:07:22.760 lying to them. It soon became clear that there were 0:07:22.840 --> 0:07:26.640 other things that Packer couldn't hear himself of. He was 0:07:26.680 --> 0:07:30.520 outed as an habitual petty thief. He was also quarrelsome 0:07:30.920 --> 0:07:34.960 whiny and apparently greedy with rations. He was said to 0:07:34.960 --> 0:07:37.880 be surly and bragged about a jail stint he served 0:07:37.880 --> 0:07:42.040 after buying the services of frontier sex workers. But Packer 0:07:42.360 --> 0:07:45.480 was no dummy. He knew his party had grown to 0:07:45.520 --> 0:07:48.840 disdain him, and he felt the same right back. He 0:07:48.920 --> 0:07:52.800 called this a cordial hatred and was happy to continue on. 0:07:53.520 --> 0:07:57.440 Others didn't share that feeling. By the time they crossed 0:07:57.480 --> 0:08:00.520 the Green River, about eighty five miles from the Colorado border, 0:08:00.960 --> 0:08:04.040 the party had come to the mounting realization that Packer 0:08:04.080 --> 0:08:06.560 had been lying to them about knowing where he was headed. 0:08:07.440 --> 0:08:11.280 Horror and rage gripped the men. All of the other 0:08:11.320 --> 0:08:14.840 issues they could live with, this they quite literally could not. 0:08:15.800 --> 0:08:19.320 On January twenty fifth of eighteen forty seven, the party 0:08:19.400 --> 0:08:22.240 was surrounded by a group of Ute warriors as they 0:08:22.280 --> 0:08:26.160 approached the Colorado border. The party was on reservation land, 0:08:26.440 --> 0:08:29.200 and one account tells that the Ute took pity on 0:08:29.280 --> 0:08:34.199 the sorry, hungry prospectors in front of them. Chief Urray, 0:08:34.400 --> 0:08:37.120 who was present that day, offered to take the men in. 0:08:37.800 --> 0:08:40.320 He warned them not to continue and offered them his 0:08:40.400 --> 0:08:44.679 hospitality until the spring thaw came. For a few weeks. 0:08:44.720 --> 0:08:47.840 The party stayed with the ute, but they soon grew 0:08:47.920 --> 0:08:50.840 Antsy worried that the riches would be gone if they 0:08:50.880 --> 0:08:54.160 waited until spring to set out again. They calculated that 0:08:54.200 --> 0:08:58.520 they only had forty more miles to go. On February second, 0:08:58.720 --> 0:09:02.200 five men broke from the park. Alfred tried to join them, 0:09:02.320 --> 0:09:04.880 but was threatened with a gun. He would get his 0:09:05.000 --> 0:09:08.360 chance a week later, when five other prospectors decided to 0:09:08.440 --> 0:09:12.600 leave the Ute encampment. Chief Yurey told them not to go, 0:09:13.080 --> 0:09:15.680 and that he wouldn't even allow for his own people 0:09:15.720 --> 0:09:20.240 to try. But the prospectors refused his advice, and Urrey 0:09:20.360 --> 0:09:23.800 reluctantly drew them a map in the snow. He illustrated 0:09:23.800 --> 0:09:26.840 two trails over the mountains, a lower trail which was 0:09:26.880 --> 0:09:30.120 eighty miles long, and an upper trail, which was only 0:09:30.200 --> 0:09:33.880 forty miles. The party set out for the upper trail 0:09:34.160 --> 0:09:37.440 in the dead of winter, without a single snowshoe in sight. 0:09:38.200 --> 0:09:40.200 Two and a half months later, on the morning of 0:09:40.200 --> 0:09:44.240 April sixteenth, Alfred Packer wandered out of the mountains and 0:09:44.440 --> 0:09:48.480 into the Las Pignos Indian Agency. He was alone, with 0:09:48.600 --> 0:09:58.760 none of his companions anywhere to be found. The winters 0:09:58.800 --> 0:10:03.120 in the San Juan Mountains are long, dark and harsh. 0:10:03.520 --> 0:10:07.640 The peaks are impassable and inhospitable, which are both very 0:10:07.679 --> 0:10:11.560 bad things if you find yourself stranded among them. By 0:10:11.640 --> 0:10:15.560 some stroke of luck that felt nothing short of divine intervention, 0:10:16.280 --> 0:10:18.960 Alfred Packer had made his way out of the mountains 0:10:19.120 --> 0:10:22.480 with just a backpack and a rifle. He was ragged 0:10:22.520 --> 0:10:25.880 and ravaged, but otherwise appeared to be in good health. 0:10:26.480 --> 0:10:30.120 He'd endured temperatures down to negative fifty degrees fahrenheit in 0:10:30.200 --> 0:10:33.480 the wild for over fifty seven days, and people were 0:10:33.679 --> 0:10:37.959 simply impressed. His party was lost. Packer told the folks 0:10:37.960 --> 0:10:41.679 at the agency, Oh, this surprised no one. What did 0:10:41.760 --> 0:10:45.120 surprise them, though, was that he didn't appear to be hungry. 0:10:46.080 --> 0:10:50.640 In fact, he looked rather well fed. According to one story, 0:10:50.920 --> 0:10:54.280 rather than scarfing down a breakfast upon arrival, he opted 0:10:54.320 --> 0:10:58.040 to throw back a few shots of whiskey instead. It's 0:10:58.160 --> 0:11:01.920 then that a story began to come now. He claimed 0:11:02.000 --> 0:11:04.600 that soon after he and the other men left Chief 0:11:04.720 --> 0:11:08.640 Uray's encampment, he began to suffer from frostbitten feet and 0:11:08.760 --> 0:11:13.040 snow blindness. His traveling companions elected to leave him behind 0:11:13.120 --> 0:11:17.760 with a rifle and supplies. Where they ended up, Packer said, well, 0:11:17.960 --> 0:11:19.960 he could only assume that they had died from the 0:11:20.000 --> 0:11:24.440 cold themselves. But as fate would have it, Parker wasn't 0:11:24.480 --> 0:11:26.920 the only one who showed up at the agency that day. 0:11:27.600 --> 0:11:30.760 A Preston Nutter, a doctor Cooper, and a fellow by 0:11:30.800 --> 0:11:33.600 the name of Italian Tom, all members of the crew 0:11:33.640 --> 0:11:37.200 who stayed behind at the ute camp, appeared just hours 0:11:37.240 --> 0:11:42.040 after Alfred did. This did not please him. In fact, 0:11:42.120 --> 0:11:46.520 Parker grew visibly upset at their arrival. Nutter asked where 0:11:46.559 --> 0:11:49.760 the rest of his party was, and Packer repeated his story. 0:11:50.640 --> 0:11:54.200 Packer began to move quickly. He started talking about returning 0:11:54.200 --> 0:11:58.000 home to Pennsylvania and sold his Winchester rifle for ten dollars. 0:11:58.840 --> 0:12:01.360 He and three other men to hit the road and 0:12:01.440 --> 0:12:05.319 head to the nearby town of Swatch. During their trek, 0:12:05.640 --> 0:12:09.319 Nutter poked at Packer. He had long been suspicious of him, 0:12:09.559 --> 0:12:12.520 and the intervening months apart did nothing to change that. 0:12:13.520 --> 0:12:15.920 Why he asked Parker did he have the knife that 0:12:15.960 --> 0:12:19.560 had belonged to Frank, one of their lost prospectors, and 0:12:19.600 --> 0:12:21.760 Packer quickly said that Frank stuck it in a tree 0:12:21.800 --> 0:12:24.480 and left it there, which of course made no sense. 0:12:25.360 --> 0:12:29.079 Once they arrived in Sewatch, Packer aroused even more suspicion. 0:12:29.760 --> 0:12:32.800 For a guy who was constantly broke, he seemed to 0:12:32.840 --> 0:12:37.480 have suddenly, somehow come into some serious money. He ended 0:12:37.520 --> 0:12:40.240 up spending almost two thousand dollars in today's money at 0:12:40.240 --> 0:12:43.600 a local saloon over a two week period. With every 0:12:43.720 --> 0:12:48.080 passing alcohol soaked night, Packer's story got more dramatic and 0:12:48.360 --> 0:12:53.840 more unbelievable. The inconsistencies were glaring, and the looks began 0:12:53.920 --> 0:12:59.240 to fly. But Packer wasn't wholly oblivious. He noticed that 0:12:59.280 --> 0:13:03.360 his companion were growing uneasy as soon he began to 0:13:03.360 --> 0:13:07.959 make plans to depart to Watch, but once again timing 0:13:08.120 --> 0:13:11.360 was not on Packer's side. As he prepared to leave, 0:13:11.400 --> 0:13:14.040 he ran into the general of the Las Pignots Agency, 0:13:14.320 --> 0:13:18.040 a fellow by the name of General Charles Adams, And 0:13:18.320 --> 0:13:22.240 even if he wasn't completely oblivious, he also couldn't resist 0:13:22.320 --> 0:13:25.920 sharing his story again, so he sat down for breakfast 0:13:25.960 --> 0:13:28.560 with the general's wife and told her all about his 0:13:28.679 --> 0:13:33.000 time in the mountains. While his wife was occupied. General 0:13:33.000 --> 0:13:36.080 Adams took it upon himself to do some digging. He 0:13:36.120 --> 0:13:40.120 was quickly informed about the suspicious Packer and soon formed 0:13:40.120 --> 0:13:43.520 a plan of his own. General Adams decided that a 0:13:43.520 --> 0:13:46.120 party would be formed to go search for Packer's men, 0:13:46.800 --> 0:13:50.640 and Packer, it was decided, would be their paid guide. 0:13:51.240 --> 0:13:54.280 What Alfred Packer, General Adams and all the men in 0:13:54.360 --> 0:13:57.960 Sewatch didn't know was that at that very moment, more 0:13:58.000 --> 0:14:01.240 men from Packer's original party were arriving at the Las 0:14:01.240 --> 0:14:06.400 Pinos agency. When General Adams and Packer returned, these prospectors 0:14:06.440 --> 0:14:10.040 did not give their former guide a warm welcome. Instead, 0:14:10.080 --> 0:14:13.400 it ended up being an interrogation. They wanted to know 0:14:13.480 --> 0:14:17.360 what really happened up in those mountains. It didn't take 0:14:17.480 --> 0:14:21.160 long for Packer to crack. He broke down, it suffered 0:14:21.200 --> 0:14:26.040 a short seizure, and then confessed the journey was harder 0:14:26.080 --> 0:14:29.360 than they thought. He admitted that they had been foolhardy, 0:14:29.400 --> 0:14:33.640 and over confident. The conditions were unlivable, with snow above 0:14:33.680 --> 0:14:37.520 their head for miles at some points. Soon they began 0:14:37.560 --> 0:14:40.280 to run out of food, so they began to forage, 0:14:40.560 --> 0:14:43.800 but that was no good. They grew hungry enough to 0:14:43.800 --> 0:14:48.360 start eating their leather shoes and then one by one 0:14:48.560 --> 0:14:52.440 they died. The first to go was old man Swan. 0:14:53.240 --> 0:14:56.360 They decided to eat him right then and there. The 0:14:56.360 --> 0:14:59.920 survivors ate their dead as they each slowly perished through 0:15:00.200 --> 0:15:03.080 their journey, and when they were down to two men, 0:15:03.480 --> 0:15:06.520 Packer and a man called Bell, they made a pact 0:15:06.640 --> 0:15:10.440 to not kill and eat the other. But Bell eventually 0:15:10.480 --> 0:15:12.800 went back on his word and came at Parker with 0:15:12.880 --> 0:15:15.880 the butt of his broken rifle. So Packer did the 0:15:15.920 --> 0:15:21.040 only logical thing, he shot Bell dead. While General Adams 0:15:21.040 --> 0:15:24.280 may have believed Packer's tale, the other men present didn't. 0:15:25.080 --> 0:15:27.760 They knew and respected Bell and doubted he would have 0:15:27.760 --> 0:15:31.000 gone back on his word. The General determined that if 0:15:31.040 --> 0:15:34.120 Packer's story was true, a Bell's body would be lying 0:15:34.160 --> 0:15:37.040 with his broken rifle, and if that's what was found, 0:15:37.240 --> 0:15:40.360 Packer would be set free and sent home to Pennsylvania, 0:15:40.480 --> 0:15:46.560 all expenses paid. So they all set off. Packer quickly 0:15:46.640 --> 0:15:49.560 became disoriented. Once he was back on the trail, he 0:15:49.680 --> 0:15:52.040 was lost and wouldn't be able to lead them to Bell. 0:15:53.000 --> 0:15:56.600 Perhaps this was disingenuous, of course, he didn't want to 0:15:56.640 --> 0:16:00.560 be caught, But don't forget that he actually wasn't a 0:16:00.560 --> 0:16:03.360 wilderness guide. He didn't have a very good idea of 0:16:03.400 --> 0:16:06.240 where he was going, and probably where he had gone 0:16:06.320 --> 0:16:09.560 to begin with. But Parker was taken into custody and 0:16:09.640 --> 0:16:12.280 installed in the cabin of the Swatch County sheriff for 0:16:12.400 --> 0:16:16.640 the summer. Three months later, an illustrator from Harper's Weekly 0:16:16.920 --> 0:16:20.600 stumbled across the mutilated remains of five men near the 0:16:20.640 --> 0:16:24.200 Gunnison River. Their bodies were all laid within a few 0:16:24.200 --> 0:16:27.000 feet of each other, covered in blankets and clothes, and 0:16:27.320 --> 0:16:31.600 badly decayed. All bodies showed bullet holes and all had 0:16:31.680 --> 0:16:35.520 flesh cut from bone. The one man's skull was crushed 0:16:35.720 --> 0:16:39.560 and another's was separated from its body. They were also 0:16:39.640 --> 0:16:44.360 missing all valuable assets cash included, of course. Finding the 0:16:44.400 --> 0:16:48.200 remains of all bodies together completely invalidated. Packers claimed that 0:16:48.200 --> 0:16:51.920 they had all died slowly over time. The artists drew 0:16:51.960 --> 0:16:54.760 a sketch and brought it to the local authorities. They 0:16:54.840 --> 0:16:57.520 quickly set off to the mountains to corroborate the story. 0:16:58.280 --> 0:17:01.520 After the authorities buried the remains of Packer's victims, the 0:17:01.560 --> 0:17:05.320 team returned to the jail to confront him. However, the 0:17:05.359 --> 0:17:16.359 cabin was empty. Packer had escaped, Alfred Packer took to 0:17:16.400 --> 0:17:19.399 the road again. It was easy to be anonymous in 0:17:19.440 --> 0:17:22.240 those days. For the better part of a decade, Packer 0:17:22.359 --> 0:17:24.919 stayed out of the hands of the law. He had 0:17:24.960 --> 0:17:27.800 gotten lucky. Though his digs at the watch hadn't been 0:17:27.840 --> 0:17:30.680 so bad. He was still being held without any evidence 0:17:30.680 --> 0:17:34.760 of wrongdoing. He maintained his innocence, and not everyone was 0:17:34.800 --> 0:17:37.800 as quick to blame him. It would later be revealed 0:17:37.840 --> 0:17:40.840 that two men not only helped Springham loose, but gave 0:17:40.880 --> 0:17:43.960 him food for the journey. They were upset the town's 0:17:44.000 --> 0:17:47.199 resources were going to behold a man convicted of nothing, 0:17:47.560 --> 0:17:50.880 and so they quietly released him, and just days before 0:17:50.920 --> 0:17:55.280 the bodies of Packer's party were discovered. His luck couldn't 0:17:55.359 --> 0:17:58.240 last forever, though, and he was recognized by a fellow 0:17:58.280 --> 0:18:02.520 prospector in Cheyenne, Wyoming in eighteen eighty three. The man 0:18:02.560 --> 0:18:05.240 wrote to General Adams, who made quick work of getting 0:18:05.280 --> 0:18:09.760 to town. There he found an apprehended Packer taking him 0:18:09.800 --> 0:18:13.440 down to Denver by train. A Packer tried to work 0:18:13.480 --> 0:18:16.560 a deal. If General Adams could protect him from the 0:18:16.720 --> 0:18:19.960 angry mob that surely awaited him back in Colorado, he 0:18:19.960 --> 0:18:22.960 would provide the real truth about what had taken place 0:18:23.000 --> 0:18:25.960 in the mountains all those years ago. The men made 0:18:26.000 --> 0:18:29.439 an agreement. Flanked by a sheriff and a deputy, a 0:18:29.440 --> 0:18:34.280 Packer made his confession. Packer claimed that his party fractured 0:18:34.320 --> 0:18:37.280 one day when one of the men, Swan, sent Packer 0:18:37.320 --> 0:18:39.880 ahead to scout into the mountains in order to find 0:18:39.880 --> 0:18:43.280 their way. A Packer claimed he was gone a whole day, 0:18:43.720 --> 0:18:49.119 and on his return saw something wildly frightful. There sat 0:18:49.160 --> 0:18:53.280 his companion Bell, hunched and wild eyed, over a fire 0:18:53.520 --> 0:18:57.400 and roasting a piece of meat. Four other men lay 0:18:57.440 --> 0:19:01.040 dead around him, all in various states of mutilais. Some 0:19:01.119 --> 0:19:04.359 were shot, and some were slashed, and some had hunks 0:19:04.400 --> 0:19:08.120 of flesh cut from their bones. It's then that Bell 0:19:08.280 --> 0:19:11.720 jumped up and came for Packer, and reacting quickly, Packer 0:19:11.760 --> 0:19:13.760 shot him in the stomach and then whacked him over 0:19:13.760 --> 0:19:17.560 the head with a hatchet. Bell was dead, and now 0:19:17.640 --> 0:19:21.440 Packer was alone. He tried and tried again to get 0:19:21.440 --> 0:19:25.000 out of camp, but the snow was impassable, so for 0:19:25.119 --> 0:19:28.959 sixty days he stayed, making fires and living off the 0:19:28.960 --> 0:19:32.800 flesh of his companions. As the spring pain he grew 0:19:32.840 --> 0:19:36.159 hopeful who cooked the last of the meat, took what 0:19:36.240 --> 0:19:39.639 he could and left the camp. This time he had 0:19:39.680 --> 0:19:42.920 make it out. His first confession. He told the men 0:19:43.119 --> 0:19:45.760 was crazed and he couldn't be held responsible for what 0:19:45.800 --> 0:19:48.479 he had said. He had been through quite an ordeal, 0:19:48.640 --> 0:19:52.320 and they had to understand. The news broke in papers 0:19:52.440 --> 0:19:56.560 from the mountains to the sea. It was a sensational story, 0:19:56.960 --> 0:19:59.560 and this man, after all, had just admitted to eating 0:19:59.600 --> 0:20:04.240 his friend. There was certainly a pantalizing drama to that story, 0:20:04.640 --> 0:20:09.080 but the question remained how much of it was true. 0:20:09.560 --> 0:20:13.560 Many thought Packer killed his companions in cold blood. Swan's 0:20:13.560 --> 0:20:15.960 family said that he had left home with six thousand 0:20:16.040 --> 0:20:19.119 dollars in cash and gold, which would have provided Packer 0:20:19.200 --> 0:20:22.960 with plenty of motivation for murder. Others suggested he had 0:20:23.040 --> 0:20:25.840 knocked out members of his party with morphine, which he 0:20:25.880 --> 0:20:29.440 had also used to treat his epilepsy, before killing them. 0:20:29.480 --> 0:20:33.280 In their minds, he had this particular condition and used 0:20:33.280 --> 0:20:37.679 it to aid in cold blooded murder. Packer's trial began 0:20:37.720 --> 0:20:40.760 on April ninth of eighteen eighty three. He was only 0:20:40.880 --> 0:20:44.320 charged with the murder of Swan. This was strategic for 0:20:44.359 --> 0:20:48.320 the prosecution. Team and hopefully an easy sell to the jury, 0:20:49.200 --> 0:20:51.560 and if he got off well, they could bring more 0:20:51.680 --> 0:20:54.359 charges against him in the deaths of the other four men. 0:20:55.160 --> 0:20:58.679 For the first two days, men testified against him. On 0:20:58.720 --> 0:21:02.000 the third day he took the stand. He told his 0:21:02.040 --> 0:21:05.680 story once again about finding Belle at a campfire, surrounded 0:21:05.720 --> 0:21:09.080 by his dead companions. He admitted to taking their money, 0:21:09.440 --> 0:21:13.359 he admitted to eating them. He denied killing anyone. But 0:21:13.440 --> 0:21:17.879 bell Packer left the courthouse that day feeling confident in 0:21:17.920 --> 0:21:21.400 his performance. He looked forward to being a free man. 0:21:22.760 --> 0:21:25.760 But even if he was telling the truth where it mattered, 0:21:26.240 --> 0:21:29.480 he lied about other things on the stand, his age, 0:21:29.680 --> 0:21:34.520 his military service, his epilepsy. He just couldn't stop himself 0:21:34.560 --> 0:21:38.280 from lying. He was convicted in the death of old 0:21:38.320 --> 0:21:42.639 man Swan and sentenced to hang. But once this verdict 0:21:42.680 --> 0:21:46.119 came down, his team petitioned since the crimes happened on 0:21:46.160 --> 0:21:49.520 the Ute reservation, it was out of the state court's jurisdiction, 0:21:50.480 --> 0:21:54.359 and they were right legally on the grounds of territory, 0:21:54.720 --> 0:21:58.240 Packer couldn't be charged with murder. They were also right 0:21:58.280 --> 0:22:02.280 about something else. Murders took place. Colorado was not yet 0:22:02.320 --> 0:22:05.600 a state that meant that they could not legally apply 0:22:05.840 --> 0:22:08.359 the laws of the state to the crime which had 0:22:08.400 --> 0:22:11.920 been made after the crime occurred. There had been a 0:22:12.000 --> 0:22:15.040 law allowing the state to prosecute murders that had happened 0:22:15.040 --> 0:22:18.280 in the territory, but that law had since been repealed 0:22:18.320 --> 0:22:22.760 and rewritten. Packer could not legally be tried for murder, 0:22:23.240 --> 0:22:26.800 but he could still be tried from manslaughter the laws 0:22:26.800 --> 0:22:30.439 allowed for that. Packer won his rights to a second trial, 0:22:30.600 --> 0:22:33.840 which took place in eighteen eighty six under the new 0:22:33.920 --> 0:22:37.879 Colorado legislation. He was tried for a voluntary manslaughter of 0:22:37.920 --> 0:22:42.199 all five men instead of the murder of one. His 0:22:42.240 --> 0:22:45.920 second trial was almost identical to the first. The same 0:22:45.960 --> 0:22:49.679 witnesses appeared and the same evidence was presented. A verdict 0:22:49.800 --> 0:22:53.240 was quickly reached. A Packer was guilty of killing his 0:22:53.320 --> 0:22:57.480 companions and sentenced to forty years in prison, the longest 0:22:57.480 --> 0:23:01.400 custodial sentence in American history at that point. By all accounts, 0:23:01.400 --> 0:23:04.119 he was a model prisoner. It was even said that 0:23:04.160 --> 0:23:07.400 he used his pension to help the formerly incarcerated get 0:23:07.440 --> 0:23:12.080 back on their feet. After sixteen years behind bars, he 0:23:12.160 --> 0:23:15.840 petitioned for the fifth time to be paroled. His request 0:23:16.000 --> 0:23:19.200 was denied yet again, but he caught the attention of 0:23:19.240 --> 0:23:23.000 a curious reporter from the Denver Post named Polly Prye. 0:23:23.960 --> 0:23:27.000 She began a media campaign for his release, and the 0:23:27.080 --> 0:23:30.960 tide of public favor slowly began to turn towards him. 0:23:31.520 --> 0:23:34.399 It was revealed that he had largely been convicted on 0:23:34.680 --> 0:23:39.679 flimsy circumstantial evidence. In January of nineteen o one, the 0:23:39.680 --> 0:23:43.119 Governor of Colorado made it his final act before retiring, 0:23:43.320 --> 0:23:47.199 to grant Parker parole. He would spend the rest of 0:23:47.240 --> 0:23:51.520 his days in a quiet flower garden, raising chickens and rabbits. 0:23:51.920 --> 0:23:54.159 He fought until the day he died in nineteen o 0:23:54.240 --> 0:23:58.320 seven for a full pardon. According to the telling, his 0:23:58.600 --> 0:24:10.160 last words were, I'm not guilty of the charge. Alfred 0:24:10.200 --> 0:24:13.919 Packer always maintained that he may be guilty of eating 0:24:13.960 --> 0:24:16.560 the men after they died, he may be guilty of 0:24:16.600 --> 0:24:19.200 taking their money, but the only one of them he 0:24:19.280 --> 0:24:22.400 killed was Bell, which was an act of self defense. 0:24:23.520 --> 0:24:26.920 There have been multiple investigations into the matter to determine 0:24:26.920 --> 0:24:29.680 whether Packer had lied about the events in those mountains 0:24:29.760 --> 0:24:33.480 or not. But in the words of James E. Stars, 0:24:33.920 --> 0:24:38.240 George Washington University law professor and Packer expert. While there's 0:24:38.240 --> 0:24:42.160 no question that Packer was a monumental liar, it's likely 0:24:42.240 --> 0:24:46.439 that he sometimes told the truth. Investigations in recent years 0:24:46.640 --> 0:24:50.600 continue to focus on what really happened that long cold winter. 0:24:51.560 --> 0:24:55.200 Physical evidence points to murder, yes, but it doesn't point 0:24:55.240 --> 0:24:59.679 researchers in the direction of who did the killing. Today 0:25:00.119 --> 0:25:04.280 case is still being debated, but the general consensus remains 0:25:05.040 --> 0:25:09.920 we can't know what really happened. Did the pathological liar 0:25:10.200 --> 0:25:13.800 lie or did he tell the truth? Who shot first? 0:25:13.880 --> 0:25:18.399 And what were the specific circumstances around that violence. Was 0:25:18.480 --> 0:25:22.080 Packer a calculated murderer who led these men to their doom? 0:25:22.600 --> 0:25:26.240 Or was he a victim of circumstance? Or was the 0:25:26.280 --> 0:25:32.119 truth somewhere in between. Today, Packer's cannibalism can be just 0:25:32.160 --> 0:25:34.679 as much of a punchline as it is a horror. 0:25:35.640 --> 0:25:38.320 The University of Colorado at Boulder, for example, has a 0:25:38.320 --> 0:25:42.000