THE GRUSEOME TASTE OF COLORADO: Alfred Packer the Colorado Cannibal

The grisly tale of Alfred G. “Alferd” Packer and his ghoulish dining habits are well known to most Colorado locals and even immortalized in some communities.

The city of Littleton hosts their annual Alferd Packer Bacon Party, a fundraiser for nonprofit organizations with live music, rivers of beer, and mountains of sizzling
bacon. (Just be sure to inspect the meat carefully before consuming.)

The campus eatery at the University of Colorado Boulder is famously called the Alferd Packer Restaurant and Grill, complete with menu items such as El Canibal
Mexican Specialties and the tasty Egg McAlferd.

Packer’s tombstone (in Littleton Cemetery) was stolen so often and placed in front of the homes of Littleton residents as a prank that the city had to cement the tombstone to Packer’s gravesite.

The infamy began in February of 1874 when Packer and five other men attempted to cross the rugged and unforgiving San Juan Mountains in the middle of an unrelenting winter. Packer emerged from the wilderness 66 days later — alone and well fed.

As for Packer’s five companions, their bodies were later found at a campsite near present-day Lake City, Colorado. One of the bodies had been beheaded, others had crushed skulls with chunks of flesh stripped from their bones.

Packer later confessed to cannibalism (the first of several conflicting testimonies) and was later sentenced to death. Larry Dolan, a saloon keeper at one of Packer’s trials, reportedly quipped, “You man-eating son of a bitch. There was seven Democrats in Hinsdale County and you ate five of them!”

But not only did Packer avoid execution by hanging, he lived out his remaining years comfortably in Littleton until his death in 1907. According to the Littleton Independent, Packer’s last words were, “I’m not guilty of the charge.”

“There’s a photo of him [Packer] as an old man sitting outside a door in a chair,” says Sonya Ellingboe of Historic Littleton, Inc., a nonprofit working to preserve Littleton’s heritage. “An old man with a pot belly and suspenders and a beard. He used to tell stories to local kids, and he was well liked at that point.”

So how did a man once nicknamed the Hungry Hyena pass away in his home entertaining children with his mountain adventures? And was Packer truly innocent of the charge?
Born in Pennsylvania in 1842, Packer enlisted in the military when he was 19 during the American Civil War, joining the 16th US Infantry of Minnesota. But before Packer saw combat, he was medically discharged due to epilepsy.

Packer later worked as a mountain guide, and in November of 1873, he led a 21-man group from Bingham Canyon, UT to an area near Breckenridge — a 400-mile trek.

But Packer proved to be a poor guide. After three months in the wilderness, the group was lost, their provisions reduced to chopped barley. The men accidently came across the Ute camp of Chief Ouray, who provided food and shelter for the weary travelers.

Packer and five other men decided to push forward toward Breckenridge at the remonstration of Chief Ouray, who emphasized the trails were covered in several feet of snow and impassable.

When Packer emerged from the mountains two months later, he claimed he had been separated from the group, surviving on rabbits and rose buds. But when confronted about carrying the possessions of his companions, Packer alleged that the men died along the trail, admitting that he and the survivors resorted to cannibalism until he was the only one left.

Packer was jailed and the bodies were found later that summer. However, the corpses were discovered together at a campsite, not separated as Packer had claimed. The bodies had been mutilated, a large portion of flesh missing from the thigh of one body.

But before Packer could be tried, he escaped. For nine years, Packer avoided capture until he was recognized by a member of the original 21-man group at a saloon in Fort Fetterman, WY.

Packer was arrested again and taken to Denver where he made his second confession, this time claiming the group got lost, ran out of food, and bivouacked near present-day Lake City. Packer added that he left the camp to scout ahead.

“When I came back to camp after being gone nearly all day, I found the redheaded man [Shannon Bell], who acted crazy in the morning, sitting near the fire roasting a piece of meat which he had cut out of the leg of the German butcher, Miller. The latter’s body was lying the furthest off from the fire down the stream, his skull was crushed in with the hatchet.”

“The other three men were lying near the fire. They were cut in the forehead with the hatchet,” Packer continued, adding that Bell charged at him with the hatchet before he shot him twice in self-defense.

But despite his testimony, Packer was convicted of murder in May of 1883. The judge of Hinsdale County declared that Packer “be hung by the neck until dead, dead, dead.”
Packer’s sentence was overturned three years later due to a legal technicality. He was tried again and convicted with five counts of manslaughter, and sentenced to 40 years at the Canyon City State Prison.

Polly Pry, a reporter with the Denver Post, believed in Packer’s innocence and used her position and connections with Colorado Governor Charles Thomas to parole Packer in 1901. He then worked as a security guard at the Denver Post before he died in 1907, his burial and tombstone paid for by the US military.

“Historic Littleton Inc. put on an Alfred Packer trial a while back,” says Ellingboe. “I always felt that probably he [Packer] shot Bell in self-defense and did not kill all those other people.”

The mock trial took place at Littleton’s Town Hall in September, 2002. Actors played the parts of Packer and the judge with the audience serving as the jury.

David P. Bailey, Curator of History at the Museum of Western Colorado, presented new evidence to the crowd, such as a Colt revolver found in 1950 at the campsite. Two rounds had been fired from the gun’s chamber, corroborating Packer’s claim that he shot Bell twice in self-defense.

The final verdict? Alfred Packer was not guilty of the charge.