Alferd Packer
The factual story of Alfred Packer has never been completely separated from the
exaggerated legend, but historians have agreed on a basic outline of the story.
During the winter of 1874 Packard was hired to guide five prospectors over the
mountains from Ouray. Packard, already having served some jail time in Salt Lake
City for counterfeiting, really knew nothing about the rugged San Juan area, but the
unsuspecting prospectors hired him readily. It was a very severe winter. They were
soon lost amongst the giant snowdrifts in below zero temperatures. Game was
nowhere to be found and the supplies soon ran out. By the time the men had reached
the foot of Slumgullion Pass, they had already boiled and eaten their moccasins.
Six weeks later, Packer, traveling solo, showed up at the Los Pinos Indian Agency, 76
miles from Lake City. He said that he had lost the other travelers during a very heavy
snowstorm. He had no idea what had happened to them. Strangely, Packer didn’t
look mal-nourished, and didn’t even ask for any food. His first concern was whiskey.
He had lots of money to spend at the saloon, and several wallets in his pockets.
When the Indians found strips of human flesh along Packer’s trail, they formed a
search party. At the foot of Slumgullion Pass, the bodies of the men were found.
They appeared to have been killed in their sleep, and all showed very strong evidence
of having been cannibalized.
Packer took off and disappeared for nine years, but he was eventually found and tried
for the murders. He said that he had come back to camp after hunting to find one of
the prospectors had gone crazy and had killed the other four, and Packer had to kill
him in self-defense.
But the evidence strongly suggested that Packer had taken an ax to the men while
they slept. He was convicted and sentenced to hang. Packer maintained his
innocence, sticking to his story, and won a new trial through a legal loophole. In 1886
he was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to spend forty years in hard labor
camp at Canon City. He was paroled in 1906 and died of natural causes a year later.
The site where the bodies were found is now known as Cannibal Plateau. Lake City
remembers Packer by hosting an annual Alferd Packer Jeep Tour and Barbecue, and
the cafeteria in the student union at the University of Colorado, Boulder, is called the
Alferd Packer Memorial Grill.
http://ghostdepot.com/
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Bits of suspected finger bones found at Packer massacre site
Denver Post article from Monday, September 06, 2004
By Nancy Lofholm
Denver Post Staff Writer
Lake City - A stiff and cold wind pushed menacing clouds over Slumgullion Pass as a
team of historians and scientists made the latest gruesome find in a 130-year-old case
of cannibalism.
Finger bones.
At least that's what the researchers who combed over the Alfred Packer massacre site
last week believe the little dumbbell-shaped nuggets are. They found them buried in
soft dirt down a hillside from where the five victims of the bizarre crime are buried.
The bones were likely left in the slope, they surmise, when the butchered bodies were
dragged up to higher ground from the place they were killed along the Lake Fork of the
Gunnison River.
The bone bits are just another gory detail in a case that still grips imaginations and
generates research a dozen decades after a judge here sent the man-eating Packer to
prison.
"People can't get enough of Alferd Packer," part-time Lake City Municipal Judge Al Lutz
said as he gathered in the Hinsdale County Courthouse with dozens of other Lake City
residents who make a habit of re- enacting Packer's trial.
Most in Lake City refer to "Alferd" Packer, which he had tattooed on his arm, when
referring to the notorious cannibal. However, Civil War documents, court documents
and other contemporary records show "Alfred." Yet another mystery.
Packer and his fellow prospectors had been traveling from Salt Lake City to an Indian
agency south of Gunnison when they became lost and stranded in a fierce winter storm
early in 1874. Packer was the only one to walk out several months later, and he was
charged with killing the others when their filleted bodies were found.
Packer admitted eating their flesh but claimed he killed only one of the men in self-
defense after that man went berserk and killed the others.
There may not be anyone in Lake City so consumed with the tale as David Bailey,
curator of the Museum of Western Colorado.
Bailey organized the interdisciplinary team of researchers for the "Al Packer Lost Camp
Expedition" last week. The expedition was a last sweep of the massacre site with metal
detectors, climbers and the practiced eyes of archaeologists.
They also inspected a sheltered spot several miles away that Bailey's archive research
indicates is the camp where Packer spent two months eating meat while waiting for
spring thaw.
Bailey came with a film crew that is creating a History Channel cannibalism special,
which will follow a National Geographic special filmed here several weeks ago.
Bailey's last expedition before he publishes a book on his decade of Packer research
didn't turn up any startling new information - just the possible bones and a charcoal
nugget from the massacre camp.
The "lost camp," which was located through historic descriptions of the site, didn't yield
any physical evidence.
Folks in Lake City say they don't mind. The mystery helps to fuel the unflagging interest
in anything Packer.
This summer, tourists packed the Lake City courtroom for the weekly trial re-enactment.
They came for a Memorial Day revival of the Alferd Packer Days festival, when the town
of 700 was hopping with bone-tossing competitions, mystery meat barbecues and
buyers for memorabilia like "Packer preserves" - jars filled with doll heads.
"Some people think it's gross," said Timberline gift shop owner Kathy Kent. "But there's
still so much interest."
Staff writer Nancy Lofholm can be reached at 970-256-1957 or nlofholm@denverpost.
com .
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