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Speaker 1: Happy Saturday, everybody. We're once again pulling from a previous

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Speaker 1: October episode. This one comes from previous hosts Sarah and Deblina,

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Speaker 1: dates back to it's on Alfred Packer, also known as

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Speaker 1: the Colorado cannibal who. The end of the episode takes

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Speaker 1: a lighter tone than you might imagine because Alfred Packer

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Speaker 1: has become something of a folk hero in spite of

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Speaker 1: the immense taboos surrounding cannibalism. So as long as you

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Speaker 1: are not too squeamish, enjoyed. Welcome to Stuff you missed

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Speaker 1: in History Class. A production of I Heart Radios How

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Speaker 1: Stuff Works. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm de

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Speaker 1: Blin a Chuk reporting and I'm Faradali. And if you're

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Speaker 1: a regular listener of this podcast, you probably know that

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Speaker 1: we've covered our fair share of historical murder, serial killers,

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Speaker 1: and similar topics, especially during this time of year October

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Speaker 1: series tradition. Yes, but it's rare that we talk about

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Speaker 1: killers who have taken their crimes a step further to

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Speaker 1: include an act that some considered to be even more disturbing,

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Speaker 1: and that's cannibalism. We've actually never really explored this topic though.

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Speaker 1: Candice and Josh did back in two thousand and eight

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Speaker 1: when they talked about the infamous Donner Party, a wagon

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Speaker 1: train that got trapped by the harsh, snowy winter weather

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Speaker 1: in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in eighteen forty six. Now,

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Speaker 1: with that story, out of the eighty seven people who

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Speaker 1: set out on that trip, only forty seven lived to

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Speaker 1: tell about it, and some of those people did resort

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Speaker 1: to cannibalism in order to survive. So our story today

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Speaker 1: is somewhat similar, and in fact, it's often confused with

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Speaker 1: the Donner Party story. It involves a man named Alfred

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Speaker 1: Packer who was among a group of prospectors who went

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Speaker 1: into the San Juan Mountains in the Colorado Rockies near

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Speaker 1: the end of eighteen seventy three and also ran into

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Speaker 1: some pretty treacherous winter weather on his trip. Unlike the

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Speaker 1: Donner Party situation, though, when the thaw came the following spring,

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Speaker 1: Packer was the only guy from his party to emerge

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Speaker 1: from the mountains alive. A little more suspicious, and it

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Speaker 1: certainly adds to the mystery of the story it does

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Speaker 1: and what kind of set up this mystery was a

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Speaker 1: series of suspicions, accusations, and confessions that didn't really match

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Speaker 1: up that followed Packer emerging from the mountains. According to

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Speaker 1: Michael Mayo in his book American Murder, all of this

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Speaker 1: led to Packer becoming the American West's only convicted cannibal.

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Speaker 1: Quite a distinction exactly, But it also created one of

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Speaker 1: the great mysteries of the American West because to this

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Speaker 1: day people still debate about whether Packer was guilty as charged.

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Speaker 1: So we're going to look into that a little bit.

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Speaker 1: And in order to do that, of course, we have

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Speaker 1: to start where the story begins. So it all started

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Speaker 1: in November of eighteen seventy three when a group of

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Speaker 1: about twenty or so would be a prospector set out

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Speaker 1: from Bingham Canyon, Utah, and headed towards Breckenridge, Colorado, in

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Speaker 1: the Rocky Mountains in search of what else gold And

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Speaker 1: serving as a guide on this expedition was Alfred Packer.

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Speaker 1: And just a little note before you start writing your

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Speaker 1: email thing you were pronouncing it incorrectly. There is some

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Speaker 1: debate about Alfred Packer's name, even though he's generally known

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Speaker 1: as Alfred like with the r D E. R D

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Speaker 1: official documents list his name as the more traditional Alfred,

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Speaker 1: and it's supposed that he might have started going by

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Speaker 1: Alfred when a careless tattoo artist misspelled the name on

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Speaker 1: his arm. Even though that's just kind of a rumor,

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Speaker 1: I do like that idea. Though you know your tattoos

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Speaker 1: spelled wrong, You're just gonna go with it, Alfred. According

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Speaker 1: to information from the Alfred Packer Collection of the Colorado

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Speaker 1: State Archives, Packer was born in Pennsylvania on November twenty one,

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Speaker 1: two and during the Civil War he enlisted in both

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Speaker 1: the sixteenth U. S. Infantry of Minnesota and the eighth

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Speaker 1: Regiment Iowa Cavalry, but he was discharged from both of

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Speaker 1: these due to epilepsy. The rest of the details of

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Speaker 1: his life are a little bit sketchy. The next real

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Speaker 1: evidence that we have of his whereabouts is from when

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Speaker 1: he joined up with those miners in Utah. He wanted

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Speaker 1: to be a part of their prospecting party, but he

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Speaker 1: didn't have a lot of money for provisions to make

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Speaker 1: the trips, so, according to an article by Diana to

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Speaker 1: Stephano in the Journal of Social History, he offered up

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Speaker 1: twenty five bucks and his services as a guide to

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Speaker 1: join them in their journey and he told them that

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Speaker 1: he knew Colorado's high country well, so his offer was accepted.

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Speaker 1: They didn't know their way around, and he did, so

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Speaker 1: it seemed like a good match, he claimed he did, because,

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Speaker 1: according to De Stefana's article, it didn't take long for

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Speaker 1: Packard to really robe his traveling companions the wrong way,

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Speaker 1: and there were a few reasons for that. First of all,

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Speaker 1: there was a rumor going around that Packer had served

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Speaker 1: some hard time I'm back in Salt Lake City because

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Speaker 1: he was suspected of murdering his trapping partner. So not

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Speaker 1: the kind of guy you might want with you out

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Speaker 1: in the wilderness. Second, he was also inappropriately interested in

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Speaker 1: the amount of cash that the other men were carrying

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Speaker 1: with them. He would apparently ask them outright, how much

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Speaker 1: money do you have on you? And Then, thirdly, and

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Speaker 1: perhaps most importantly, especially considering that the group was making

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Speaker 1: this track with limited provisions and really relying on Packer's expertise,

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Speaker 1: he seemed to have exaggerated his skill as a guide.

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Speaker 1: According to the article we just mentioned, he got them

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Speaker 1: lost more than once, not something that would endear him

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Speaker 1: to his traveling companions. So they're getting lost, they're running

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Speaker 1: out of food, and the weather just keeps getting worse

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Speaker 1: and worse. By the time they make it to the

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Speaker 1: winter camp of Chief Uray along the Uncompagre River in

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Speaker 1: Colorado in mid December, they were starving pretty much. The

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Speaker 1: chief made it really clear to them that he thought

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Speaker 1: it was a really bad idea for them to continue

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Speaker 1: you on with their journey. At that point, he advised

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Speaker 1: them to just stay where they were and wait until spring,

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Speaker 1: and about ten guys out of the party followed this advice.

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Speaker 1: A small group of men led by Oliver D. Lutzenheiser

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Speaker 1: was itching to get started, though, so they set out

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Speaker 1: with directions from the Chief toward the Las Penos Indian

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Speaker 1: Agency on the other side of the mountain. According to

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Speaker 1: Di Stefana's article, Packer wanted to be a part of

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Speaker 1: this group, but Lutzenheiser didn't trust him and threatened to

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Speaker 1: shoot him if he tried to follow him. So he

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Speaker 1: really did not like Packer at all, know that maybe

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Speaker 1: that first point on the jail time and all the

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Speaker 1: lies that he'd been seeing along the trip not exactly

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Speaker 1: the kind of guy you want with you and already

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Speaker 1: rough journey. But another eager group of men also set

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Speaker 1: out in the same direction, and Packer again served as

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Speaker 1: their guide. The other men in this group where Shannon Bell,

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Speaker 1: James Humphrey, George Noon or perhaps his last name was

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Speaker 1: Moon we see it both ways is real Swan and

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Speaker 1: Frank Miller. Chief Eray gave them supplies and advised them

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Speaker 1: to stay close to the river. But it's clear from

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Speaker 1: what happened that spring that things soon went awry. April sixteenth,

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Speaker 1: eighteen seventy four, it was only one disheveled prospector who

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Speaker 1: stumbled into Las Pinos Indian Agency near Gunnison, Colorado, and

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Speaker 1: that was, of course Alfred Packer, our old friend. So

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Speaker 1: the first thing that Packer asked for when he stumbled

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Speaker 1: in from the wilderness was a drink, specifically a drink

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Speaker 1: of whiskey. And of course people wanted to know what

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Speaker 1: had happened, what his story was. He told them that

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Speaker 1: he had set out from Chief Eray's winter camp with

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Speaker 1: the five other men, but the other men had soon

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Speaker 1: abandoned him when he wasn't able to keep up due

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Speaker 1: to snow blindness, and he said that he spent the

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Speaker 1: rest of the winter after that trapped in the mountains,

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Speaker 1: living off the land. But many people, and especially those

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Speaker 1: other members of the Utah Party, the ones who had

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Speaker 1: opted to wade out the winter with the Chief who

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Speaker 1: finally did make their way to the agency. Those guys

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Speaker 1: especially were immediately suspicious of this story. And there were

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Speaker 1: a few reasons for that. One, he just seemed too

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Speaker 1: well fed for somebody who had been existing off the

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Speaker 1: land off of boiled buds and pine gum all winter.

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Speaker 1: And according to Mayo, Chief Ray astutely observed this that

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Speaker 1: he seemed a little too hefty and said, you too

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Speaker 1: damn fat. Another thing that seemed really off. Packer suddenly

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Speaker 1: had all this cash on him. So not only was

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Speaker 1: he packing a few extra pounds, he had all this

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Speaker 1: money even though he had been pretty much broke before.

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Speaker 1: Two really strange points. So, of course people are asking

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Speaker 1: more and more questions about this, and so, feeling under pressure,

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Speaker 1: Packer offers up a very different version of events. This

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Speaker 1: one includes a kind of confession. According to De Stefano's article,

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Speaker 1: Packer said that just ten days after the six men

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Speaker 1: left the chiefs camp, quote one after another, the men

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Speaker 1: quote had been killed by the remainder to be used

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Speaker 1: as food by the rest. After the men were picked

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Speaker 1: off one by one. Eventually, of course, there were only

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Speaker 1: two of them left. Packer said he shot his last

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Speaker 1: remaining companion in self defense. So, uh, disturbing story, but

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Speaker 1: one that sort of spreads the guilt around. At least

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Speaker 1: he's not seen as a murderer, not a murdering cold

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Speaker 1: blood anyway. They were all trying the cannibalism together. Later

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Speaker 1: that summer, though, a search party was set out to

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Speaker 1: look for the bodies of Packer's former companions. Packer led

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Speaker 1: the search party, interestingly enough. I guess they needed him

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Speaker 1: to try to show where he went, but they couldn't

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Speaker 1: find anything. Still though, even without any physical ence, Packer

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Speaker 1: was arrested under the suspicion of murder anyway, and the

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Speaker 1: authorities just really had a feeling about this guy. They had,

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Speaker 1: They had a suspicion that something was up. And confirmation

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Speaker 1: of those feelings, or at least what seemed to be

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Speaker 1: a confirmation, came in August of eighteen seventy four, when

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Speaker 1: an artist for Harper's magazine named John A. Randolph discovered

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Speaker 1: the bodies of the missing prospectors near Lake City, Colorado.

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Speaker 1: An article by Andrew Curry and Archaeology includes just a

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Speaker 1: little snippet from the beginning of the Harper's account of

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Speaker 1: the find, which read quote, they were lying in a gloomy,

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Speaker 1: secluded spot, densely shaded by tall trees, at the foot

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Speaker 1: of a steep hill, near the bank of the Gunnison River.

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Speaker 1: Marks of violence on each body indicated that a most

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Speaker 1: terrible crime had been committed there. The bodies lay within

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Speaker 1: a few feet of each other in their blankets and clothes.

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Speaker 1: There had been no attempt to conceal the remains, and

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Speaker 1: Curry's article also mentions that the Harper's account came quote

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Speaker 1: complete with lurid illustrations of the badly composed bodies. Lovely, yeah,

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Speaker 1: pretty graphic. According to Mayo's account, all the bodies were

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Speaker 1: missing most or at least some of their flesh. DeStefano

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Speaker 1: says that an inquest conducted after the bodies were found

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Speaker 1: determined that it looked like the men had been brutally

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Speaker 1: murdered in their sleep, and as a result of this

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Speaker 1: fine Packer was formally charged with the murder of all

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Speaker 1: five of his former companions. So facing this hefty charge,

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Speaker 1: Packer somehow managed to escape from jail and was on

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Speaker 1: the lamb for nine years. After that, he was finally

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Speaker 1: discovered by a merchant named Frenchy Carbon Zone in a

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Speaker 1: saloon in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and picked up March eleventh, eighteen

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Speaker 1: eighty three. From there, he was sent back to Colorado

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Speaker 1: to stand trial. But he had a little bit more

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Speaker 1: to say before that trial. Yeah, March sixteenth, eighteen eighty three,

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Speaker 1: he offered up his second confession, and this one was

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Speaker 1: the one that he would more or less stick to

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Speaker 1: you throughout his life, though in later confessions some of

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Speaker 1: the details did change, but they were more ancillary details.

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Speaker 1: I mean, this is I guess sort of not to

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Speaker 1: make a bad pun, but the meat of the argument

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Speaker 1: stays the same from here on out. Okay, So basically

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Speaker 1: his second story went like this. He said that he

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Speaker 1: and his party got lost in the mountains and had

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Speaker 1: to resort to boiling rosebuds and pine gum as you

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Speaker 1: referred to before, after their food ran out. After wandering

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Speaker 1: around on ridgelines for a while, the prospectors made camp

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Speaker 1: on the banks of the Gunnison River. Packer said he

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Speaker 1: took his gun and he went off by himself to

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Speaker 1: see if he could find a way out, but when

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Speaker 1: he returned, he found four of his companions lying there

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Speaker 1: around a fire, and they had all taken a hatchet

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Speaker 1: to the head. The one remaining, who was Bell, was

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Speaker 1: by the fire roasting a piece of meat which was

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Speaker 1: supposedly yes flesh from one of the men. Upon spotting him,

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Speaker 1: pack said Bell immediately came after him with a hatchet,

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Speaker 1: and Packer shot him in self defense and then hit

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Speaker 1: him over the head with his own hatchet. He had

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Speaker 1: then eaten the flesh of the men to survive the

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Speaker 1: harsh winter, So he admitted to cannibalism it was just,

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Speaker 1: and to killing Bell in self defense, but he wanted

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Speaker 1: it to be I mean, murder was the thing that

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Speaker 1: people were really up in arms about here murdering five men.

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Speaker 1: It suggested when you read these accounts that people would

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Speaker 1: have pretty much understood the cannibalism. You know, you have

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Speaker 1: you gotta do what you gotta do to survive when

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Speaker 1: you're out there and in these harsh conditions. But it

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Speaker 1: was the fact that Packer was also suspected of murdering

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Speaker 1: these guys that murdering for the for their money as well,

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Speaker 1: it seemed. So the jury apparently didn't buy this new confession, though,

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Speaker 1: because Packer was found guilty and was sentenced to hang.

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Speaker 1: When the judge, who was Judge Melville be Gary, handed

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Speaker 1: on his sentence on April three, legend has it that

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Speaker 1: he said something to the effect of, quote, there was

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Speaker 1: seven Democrats in all of Hinsdale County, and you ate

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Speaker 1: five of them. I sentence you to be hung by

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Speaker 1: the neck until you are dead, dead, dead, as a

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Speaker 1: warning against further reducing the democratic population of this county. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: this looks act worrying about the Democrats. It doesn't seem

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Speaker 1: to be in the version of sentencing that's in the

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Speaker 1: Colorado State Archives. The dead, dead, dead part is. But

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Speaker 1: according to Curry's article, during the New Deal, Colorado Republicans

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Speaker 1: did form these Alfred Packard clubs, and members of these

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Speaker 1: clubs swore to quote eliminate at least five Democrats. Oh,

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Speaker 1: I hope they didn't have like luncheon parties for their

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Speaker 1: Alfred Packard clubs. Ultimately, the Packer was not hanged due

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Speaker 1: to a technicality. Essentially, the territorial murder laws had changed,

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Speaker 1: and the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that prosecutions of murders

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Speaker 1: before May eighteen eighty one were invalid. Packer's case was retried.

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Speaker 1: He did get forty years in prison, he only ended

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Speaker 1: up serving eighteen of those. He was finally paroled in

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Speaker 1: nineteen o one. He died six years later, and according

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Speaker 1: to the Colorado State Archives, the cause of death, which

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Speaker 1: was on April nineteen oh seven, was listed as quote senility, trouble,

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Speaker 1: and worry on his death certificate. So a court decided

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Speaker 1: Packer was guilty of murder, and of course many people

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Speaker 1: still assumed that he was. After all, it does make

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Speaker 1: for a good grizzly legend. But throughout the years, what

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Speaker 1: really happened on that mountain has really remained a mystery,

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Speaker 1: and many have argued that Packer was convicted on pretty

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Speaker 1: flimsy evidence. George Washington University law professor James starrs who

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Speaker 1: he's been responsible for the exhimation of many controversial historical figures,

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Speaker 1: including Lizzie Borden's parents and Jesse James. He was curious

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Speaker 1: enough about this mystery that he organized a team to

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Speaker 1: exhume and examine the remains of Packers prospecting party in

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Speaker 1: nine and they found a lot of things there. They found,

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Speaker 1: first of all, plenty of evidence of trauma on the bones,

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Speaker 1: which suggested that almost all of the flesh had been removed. Also,

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Speaker 1: a lot of the cut marks were on the victim's back,

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Speaker 1: suggesting that the person removing the flesh didn't want to

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Speaker 1: look at the victim's faces, which is just kind of

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Speaker 1: an interesting look into the mind of psychological angle to cannibalism. Yes,

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Speaker 1: according to Curry's article, Stars concluded that Packer was the

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Speaker 1: killer because a war wound that was found on Bell's

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Speaker 1: remains would have supposedly made it too difficult for him

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Speaker 1: to inflict the wounds that they found on the other men.

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Speaker 1: But not everyone agrees with stars findings. Now, the Museum

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Speaker 1: of Western Colorado curator and historian David Bailey is one

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Speaker 1: of those people who has led the charge to prove

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Speaker 1: Packers innocence. So Bailey started digging into Packers story when

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Speaker 1: he was working to tie a thirty eight caliber cult

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Speaker 1: pistol from the museum's collection to the site where the

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Speaker 1: bodies were found. He was working in the late nineties

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Speaker 1: the early aughts, so he couldn't exhume the bodies, you know,

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Speaker 1: which had just been exhumed in nine nine, because they

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Speaker 1: were sealed off over after the last exhimation to protect

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Speaker 1: them from relic hunters. He did, however, have access to

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Speaker 1: some soil samples that were left over from the previous excavation,

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Speaker 1: and by having those tested, Bailey was able to prove

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Speaker 1: the pistol was at the site because lead found in

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Speaker 1: the soil was an exact match for the bullets remaining

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Speaker 1: in the gun. So it's starting to sound kind of

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Speaker 1: like Packer's story of having to shoot Bell lined up

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Speaker 1: a little bit. Also, the gun still had three bullets

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Speaker 1: in it. There were two empty chambers, which matched up

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Speaker 1: with some of the testimony Packer had given, So Bells

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Speaker 1: skeleton had some holes in it, possibly gunshot wounds in

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Speaker 1: the pelvic region. Also, his wallet or his pocket book

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Speaker 1: whatever he was carrying with all that cash the theme

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Speaker 1: Packer was interested in, also seemed to have been shot.

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Speaker 1: So this was enough to convince Bailey and many others

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Speaker 1: that Packer was telling the truth, that that second confession

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Speaker 1: was real. He held a mock trial for him in

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Speaker 1: two thousand two, in which Packer was found innocent. Whether

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Speaker 1: he was guilty or innocent, one thing that's for certain

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Speaker 1: is that Packer became sort of a kitchy kind of

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Speaker 1: folk hero in the twentieth century. Since the nineteen sixties,

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Speaker 1: for example, students at the University of Colorado at Boulder

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Speaker 1: have eaten at the Alfred Packer Grill, and according to

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Speaker 1: Curry's article, that l Cannibal burrito is apparently a popular

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Speaker 1: menu item there. Oh goodness. A bust of Packer was

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Speaker 1: also placed in the Colorado state capital in two So

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Speaker 1: he made it into the capital. I mean he did.

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Speaker 1: That's pretty official. There are also a lot of references

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Speaker 1: to Packer and pop culture, and one of the funniest

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Speaker 1: examples is Trey Parker, who co created the animated TV

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Speaker 1: series South Park, which we all know and love, wrote

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Speaker 1: a play about Packer when he was studying at the

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Speaker 1: University of Colorado called Alfred Packer the Musical. Later he

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Speaker 1: turned it into a film called Cannibal the Musical. And unsurprisingly,

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Speaker 1: Packer has also just made his way into folk songs too.

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Speaker 1: There have actually been several songs written about Packer, including

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Speaker 1: nineteen sixty four is the Ballad of Alfred Packer, which

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Speaker 1: was written by folk singer phil Ochs. The chorus for

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Speaker 1: that song went, they called him a murderer, a cannibal

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Speaker 1: of thief. It just doesn't pay to eat anything but

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Speaker 1: government inspected beef. There's even a cookbook out there called

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Speaker 1: Alfred Packer's High Protein Cookbook. Al Right, well, I feel

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Speaker 1: like you may be picking that up. Oh you do,

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Speaker 1: after I go try the l cannibal burrito. I don't know.

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Speaker 1: I don't know. Well, you like to cook, I mean

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Speaker 1: like you like meat, like cooking, but I usually try

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Speaker 1: to avoid any associations with cannibalism. And as to my cooking,

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Speaker 1: as a rule of thumb, I guess that's a pretty

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Speaker 1: good it's a pretty good rule of the thumbs in

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Speaker 1: your daily cuisine. There you go. Well, I feel much

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Speaker 1: more comfortable sitting in the studio with you right now.

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Speaker 1: I'm I'm glad I was able to reassure you I'm

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Speaker 1: not a cannibal. Thank you so much for joining us

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Speaker 1: on this Saturday. If you have heard an email address

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Speaker 1: or a Facebook you are l or something similar over

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Speaker 1: the course of today's episode, since it is from the

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Speaker 1: archive that might be out of date now, you can

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Speaker 1: email us at History Podcast at how stuff works dot com,

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Speaker 1: and you can find us all over social media at

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Speaker 1: missed in History, and you can subscribe to our show

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Speaker 1: on Apple podcasts, Google podcast, the I heart Radio app,

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Speaker 1: and wherever else you listen to podcasts. Stuff you Missed

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Speaker 1: in History Class is a production of I heart Radio's

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Speaker 1: How Stuff Works. For more podcasts for my heart Radio,

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