Alferd Packer

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Alferd Packer is one of the few people in the US ever to be jailed for cannibalism, having allegedly killed and eaten five of his travelling companions while trapped in the Rocky Mountains during fierce winter weather.
Alferd Packer is one of the few people in the US ever to be jailed for cannibalism, having allegedly killed and eaten five of his travelling companions while trapped in the Rocky Mountains during fierce winter weather.

Alfred G. "Alferd" Packer (January 21, 1842 – April 23, 1907) [1] is popularly known as one of only two Americans ever imprisoned for cannibalism, alongside Albert Fish. First tried for murder, Packer was eventually sentenced to 40 years in prison after being convicted of manslaughter.[2]

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[edit] Packer's life

Packer was born (as Alfred G. Packer) in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. He served in the American Civil War, on the Union side presumably in an Iowa regiment, but was mustered out due to epilepsy.

In November, 1873, Packer was with a party of 21 who left Provo, Utah, bound for the Colorado gold country in Breckenridge. On January 21, 1874 he met with Chief Ouray (known as the White Man's Friend) near Montrose, Colorado. Chief Ouray recommended they postpone their expedition until spring, as they were likely to encounter dangerous winter weather in the mountains.

In spite of Ouray's advice, a party of six that included Packer left for Gunnison, Colorado on February 9. The other five men were Shannon Wilson Bell, James Humphrey, Frank "Reddy" Miller, George "California" Noon and Israel Swan.

At an unknown date, the party got hopelessly lost, ran out of provisions, and became snowbound in the Rocky Mountains. Packer allegedly went scouting and came back to discover Bell roasting human meat. According to Packer, Bell rushed him with a hatchet; Packer shot and killed him.

On April 16, 1874, Packer arrived alone at Los Pinos Indian Agency near Gunnison. He spent some time in a Saguache, Colorado bar, meeting several of his previous party. He initially claimed self-defense, but his story did not pass in court. During the trial, the judge supposedly said:

"Damn you, Alferd Packer! There were seven Dimmycrats in Hinsdale County and you ate five of them!"

An alternate version of the judge's outburst is

"Packer, you depraved Republican son of a bitch! There were only five Democrats in Hinsdale County and you ate them all!"

The actual sentencing statement, of course, was a little more in character for an educated state judge:

"Close your ears to the blandishments of hope. Listen not to the flattering promises of life, but prepare for the dread certainty of death."[3]

Packer signed a confession on August 5, 1874. He was jailed in Saguache, but escaped soon after, vanishing for several years.

On March 11, 1883, Packer was discovered in Cheyenne, Wyoming living under the alias of "John Schwartze." On March 16, he signed another confession. On April 6, a trial began in Lake City, Colorado. On April 13, he was found guilty and sentenced to death. Packer managed to temporarily avoid punishment again: in October 1885, the sentence was reversed by the Colorado Supreme Court as being based on an ex post facto law. However, on June 8, 1886, Packer was sentenced to 40 years at a trial in Gunnison.

On June 19, 1899, Packer's sentence was upheld by the Colorado Supreme Court. However, he was paroled on February 8, 1901 and moved to Deer Creek, in Jefferson County, Colorado. He is widely rumored to have become a vegetarian before his death, reputedly of "Senility - trouble & worry" at the age of 65. He was buried in Littleton, Colorado and was formally pardoned of his crimes on March 5, 1981.

[edit] Not guilty?

Recent evidence suggests that Packer was a cannibal, but not a murderer. On July 17, 1989, 115 years after Packer consumed his companions, an exhumation of the five bodies was undertaken by James E. Starrs, then Professor of Law specializing in forensic science at George Washington University. Following an exhaustive search for the precise location of the remains at Cannibal Plateau in Lake City, Colorado, Starrs and his colleague Walter H. Birkby concluded "I don't think there will ever be any way to scientifically demonstrate cannibalism. Cannibalism per se is the ingestion of human flesh. So you'd have to have a picture of the guy actually eating."[4]

In 1994, David P. Bailey, Curator of History at the Museum of Western Colorado, undertook an investigation to turn up more conclusive results than Starrs's. In the Audrey Thrailkill collection of firearms owned by the museum was a Colt pistol that had reportedly been found at the site of Packer's alleged crime. Exhaustive investigation into the pistol's background turned up illuminating documents from the time of the trial: "A Civil War veteran that visited the crime scene stated that Shannon Bell had been shot twice and the other victims were killed with a hatchet. Upon careful study of Bell, he noticed a severe bullet wound to the pelvic area and that Bell's wallet had a bullet hole through it." This may corroborate Packer's statement that Bell killed the other victims and Packer shot Bell in self-defense.

By 2000, Bailey had not yet proven a link between the antique pistol and Alferd Packer, but he discovered that forensic samples from the 1989 exhumation had been archived, and analysis in 2001 with an electron microscope by Dr. Richard Dujay at Mesa State College turned up microscopic lead fragments in the soil taken from under Shannon Bell's remains that were matched by spectrograph with the bullets remaining in what was indeed Packer's pistol.[5] While it appears certain that Bell was killed by gunshot, the question of murder itself remains.

Through some unexplained process, Packer's head, dissected and carefully preserved, has come to be in the possession of Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum in the French Quarter of New Orleans, where it is on permanent display.

[edit] Popular culture

Packer is a legend in popular culture. He has been quoted as having said, in jest, "the breasts of man...are the sweetest meat I ever tasted." In 1968, students at the University of Colorado at Boulder named their new cafeteria grill the Alferd G. Packer Memorial Grill with the slogan "Have a friend for lunch!" Even today students can enjoy the meat-filled "El Canibal" underneath a giant wall map outlining his travels through Colorado. In 1982 the university dedicated a statue to Packer. Also in 1982, Jim Roberson made The Legend of Alfred Packer, a film that took many liberties with the story, including having Bell fall on a knife, exonerating Packer of any potential wrongdoing. The film also included an incident involving the reporter Polly Pry derived from Gantt that the film left completely unexplained and was only tangentially connected to Packer. Packer was played by Patrick Dray.

An urban legend has it that the Department of Agriculture's cafeteria was officially named for Packer. While untrue, the legend has a factual basis. Prankster employees of the Department, characterizing themselves as members of the Alferd Packer Society, surreptitiously placed a plaque on the cafeteria wall honoring Packer in ironic terms. It was displayed there until its discovery in 1977 by a low-level bureaucrat in another agency, who complained to Secretary of Agriculture Bob Bergland. Wishing to avoid trouble, he asked the pranksters to take it down. Members of the National Press Club, ever happy to preserve memorabilia of national significance, today display it with pride on the wall of The Reliable Source, a members-only bar. It doubles as a memorial to the late Stanley Weston, an extraordinary and gentle soul who left his home in Colorado to work at the USDA.

In 1993, University of Colorado Boulder graduate Trey Parker, co-creator of South Park, made a film Alferd Packer: The Musical, based loosely on Packer's life, with himself, billed as "Juan Schwartz" (a variation of Packer's "John Schwartze") as Packer, released commercially in 1996 by Troma Entertainment as Cannibal! The Musical and subsequently produced by various companies as a stage play.

Folksinger Phil Ochs composed a song about Packer's life, included on "The Broadside Tapes 1". Singer C.W. McCall wrote (with Chip Davis) and sang a song about Packer called "Comin' Back for More." It was included on his 1999 release The Real McCall: An American Storyteller.

Death metal band Cannibal Corpse's 1990 debut, Eaten Back To Life is dedicated to Packer with the inscription "This Album is dedicated to the memory of Alfred Packer, The First American Cannibal (R.I.P.)"

A 1999 movie, Ravenous, was loosely based on aspects of the Alferd Packer story, which screenwriter Ted Griffin says he first encountered when reading The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett, wherein the entire story is printed as it appears in Thomas Duke's "Celebrated Criminal Cases."

Devoured: The Legend of Alferd Packer is a 2005 film by Kevin Rapp that is also produced by Troma. This film depicts Packer as an unkillable monster fifty years after the original incdent.

A 2001 novel, "Lone Survivor", written by Ken Hodgson, recounts the story of how, in 1873, that Alferd Packer had led a party of twenty-one men from Utah to Colorado to pan for gold, but three months later returned to Utah alone, after an adventure in which the others died amidst harsh conditions and he survived against the odds at a heavy price.

[edit] Notes and references

  1. ^ The spelling of Alferd/Alfred Packer's name has been the source of much confusion over the years. Official documents give his name as Alfred Packer, although he may (according to one story) have adopted the name Alferd after it was wrongly tattooed on to one of his arms. Packer sometimes signed his name as "Alferd", sometimes as "Alfred", and is referred to by both names. In many documents, he is referred to simply as A. Packer or Al Packer.
  2. ^ Nash, Robert Jay (1994). Alferd Packer. In Encyclopedia of Western Lawmen & Outlaws. Da Capo Press. pp. 250-251. ISBN 0-306-80591-X. Google Print. Retrieved 2005-04-13.
  3. ^ Ramsland, Katherine (2005). "ALFRED PACKER: THE MANEATER OF COLORADO". http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/history/alfred_packer/index.html
  4. ^ Grove, Lloyd (1989). Just How Many Democrats Did Al Packer Eat? GWU Professor Digs Into the Legend. The Washington Post.
  5. ^ Bailey, David (2003). "Alferd Packer, Colorado Cannibal". http://www.wcmuseum.org/packer.htm

[edit] Resources

  • Mazzulla, Fred and Jo (1968). Al Packer: A Colorado Cannibal. Denver.
  • Gantt, Paul H (1952). The Case of Alfred Packer, The Man-Eater. Denver: University of Denver Press.
  • Kushner, Ervan F (1980). Alferd G. Packer, Cannibal! Victim? Frederick, Co.: Platte 'N Press.
  • Botkin, Benjamin A. (1957). A Treasury of American Anecdotes page 174 Man-Eating Packer Galahad Press

[edit] External links

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