In late 1873, Alfred Packer led a group of Utah prospectors into the San Jaun Mountains of soutwestern Colorado. The land had recently been taken away from the Ute Indians and was not yet available to be claimed or settled. These prospectors wanted into the new territory before everyone else, but the area was mostly unexplored and potentially dangerous. These prospectors hired Packer to be their guide. He was familiar with the area and would be their ticket to the riches of this new land. He told them had served on an expidition in the area to locate minerals, including gold and silver. They planned to use his knowledge to find the best areas to stake claims for future mining riches.
They arrived in Ute Chief Ouray's camp (near present day Montrose) in January of 1874. He cared for them and gave them food. He warned them to spend the rest of the winter down on the plains. He said the mountain passes could bury a man in snow this time of year. All but five of the men listened to the chief. Those five proceeded on with Packer. On February 9, he headed out with those men. They had a 10 day supply of food and supplies with them for what they though was a forty mile trip. In reality it was a 75 mile trip. More than two months passed with people wondering what happened to the party.
On April 16, Packer showed up at Los Pinos Indian Agency near present day Saguache. He pulled out a few wallets and rolls of money and asked for some whiskey to drink. He claimed he had hurt his leg and he thought the rest of his group should he beaten him out of mountains. People became suspicious because it seemed he had their possessions. Then an indian guide walking along the trail that Packer was on, found strips of meat. It turned out that they were human flesh. When asked about what happened, he changed his story. He said that they all ran out of food and supplies and were stranded in the montains during a harsh winter. He said the group of five starved and died one by one before they could make it out of the mountains. After the first died, he said they decided to eat the body because they could not fish the frozen lakes and game was scarce. As more died, he said they ate their bodies too. He said he was the only one to make it out alive. He said he ended up with their money and possessions because a dead man doesn't need it any longer. Oddly enough, he looked very well fed, while he said all the others were starving to death.
The weather was bad and it took a month before a search party could be sent out. Some accounts say Packer led the group out into the mountains where he believed the men had died. They found no sign of the men. Another account says that they put Packer in jail on suspicion of murder. In these accounts, he either left town or escaped from jail. It wasn't until August of 1874, that the bodies were found. They were all close together by the banks of the Gunnison River just a mile north of present day Lake San Cristobal (just south of present day Lake City). It appeared they had been killed by a hatchet. By this time, the weather and scavanging animals had ruined most of the evidence. But it seemed apparent that they were all killed at about the same time. Upon examination, it appeared that many pieces of meat were cut out of the victims thigh and chest areas.
Packer disappeared from history for nine years. He was living under the name John Swartze. It was in March of 1883 in Fort Fetterman, Wyoming, that it all started to unravel. Frenchy Cabizon, one of the original Utah prospectors happened to be drinking in a saloon. He overheard a strange laugh from one of the patrons. He immediately recognized it as Alfred Packer. He managed to have Packer arrested to stand trial.
On Friday the 13th of April, Packer was convicted of murder. The judge and jury were convinced the motive was robbery and not survival. He was sentanced to be hanged. But he soon won a new trail to be held in Gunnison. There was a loophole in the law. When he commited the crimes, Colorado was a a territory and had no state murder statute. After Colorado became a state, he was being tried under its new laws. By this reasoning he got a new trial. The charge this time was voluntary manslaughter. He was convicted again, but only sentanced to 40 years. He was paroled in 1901. He worked for a while for the Denver Post as a security guard. He was not cut out for city life and moved into the mountains west fo Denver. He became a mine manager here. He died on April 24, 1907. He is buried in the Prince Avenue Cemetary in Littleton, Colorado.
Today, it is a hot topic of controversy. Was Alfred Packer a liar and a canabal. Or was he a survivalist that did what he had to do to survive. We may never know for sure.
