The Colorado Cannibal: Gunnison National Forest

In April of 1874, Alfred Packer stumbled out of the Colorado wilderness after months spent missing. Initially claiming his five companions had died in harsh winter conditions, investigators later found evidence that the men had been killed and cannibalized, leading to Packer's arrest for murder. What followed has since become one of the most famous and debated survival stories in American history. COME SEE US ON TOUR! For a full list of our sources, visit npadpodcast.com/episodes For the latest NPAD updates, group travel details, merch and more, follow us on npadpodcast.com and our socials: Instagram: @‌nationalparkafterdarkTikTok: @‌nationalparkafterdark Support the show by becoming an Outsider and receive ad free listening, bonus content and more on Patreon or Apple Podcasts. Want to see our faces? Catch full episodes on our YouTube Page! Thank you to this week’s partners! IM8: Use code npad at http://im8health.com/npad and use code npad for a Free Welcome Kit, five free travel sachets, plus ten percent off your order. Whatnot: Download Whatnot today and get $20 Off and free shipping on your first purchase. Search Whatnot, W H A T N O T, in the app store, sign up, and start finding the best deals on the products you love with $20 Off and free shipping on your first purchase. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:31Speaker 01

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• 1:02Danielle LaRock?

  April of 1874 in the high mountains of Colorado was greeted with open arms, for it marked the start of an eagerly anticipated spring season, bringing with it the promise of thaw and warmer weather to come. The previous winter had been particularly brutal. Long stretches of extreme, sub-zero temperatures and devastating blizzards plagued the San Juan wilderness, stirring hesitation in even the most hardened outdoorsmen, causing them to think twice about venturing into the forest. So when a tall, lanky, blue-eyed man stumbled out of the trees claiming to have survived alone for weeks in the woods, people were shocked.

• 1:42Danielle LaRock?

  The man identified himself as Alfred Packer, and he began to tell his story. As his version of events began to take shape, shock turned to confusion, and then into suspicion. Something wasn't quite adding up about his story. When pressed by officials, those versions of events began to change again, this time into confessions that shocked a nation. He had done some horrible things in the mountains of Colorado, but his guilt or innocence proved to be ambiguous. What was clear, however, was the reason he made it out of the unforgiving Wilter Wilderness in the first place. Alfred Packer was a cannibal.

• 2:24Danielle LaRock?

  Welcome to National Park After Dark.

• 2:45Cassandra Yahnian?

  Hello, everybody. I'm Cassie.

• 2:47Danielle LaRock?

  I'm Danielle.

• 2:48Cassandra Yahnian?

  What an intro.

• 2:50Danielle LaRock?

  Thank you so much.

• 2:50Cassandra Yahnian?

  You can't end an intro on he was a cannibal and not have me intrigued.

• 2:55Danielle LaRock?

  Well,

• 2:55Cassandra Yahnian?

  That is for sure.

• 2:56Danielle LaRock?

  I'm glad you're intrigued because surprise, surprise, we have done this story before. It is a first in National Park After Dark history, but there is a method to our madness. And there's a reason that we're doing it again. So for the, I don't know, 200 ish or so of you that are thinking, I've heard Danielle speak this story before. You're correct. I did this story at a live show in Denver. I had to look it up. It was December of 2023.

• 3:28Cassandra Yahnian?

  Oh, my God, that was so long ago.

• 3:30Danielle LaRock?

  I know. So when we did this, when I was reviewing, I was like, thank God I still have these notes. I definitely had to spruce them up, refresh my memory, do another round of research. But I'm back. It's all come together again, and I'm here to tell this story again, because number one, it's insane.

• 3:48Cassandra Yahnian?

  It's the only thing I remember of the story is that he's a cannibal.

• 3:51Danielle LaRock?

  Perfect. Great. Because there's so much more.

• 3:55Cassandra Yahnian?

  And that it's in Colorado.

• 3:56Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah. It is a pretty well-known story for people in Colorado. So if you are amped about hearing your local lore, I'm excited for you and everyone else buckle in because there's so many twists and turns. But the reason we're doing this is because we chose to do this story when we did the live show in Denver because we wanted to pick a local story, something that people from the Denver area would be really excited about. And We have a surprise.

• 4:27Cassandra Yahnian?

  We do have a surprise.

• 4:29Danielle LaRock?

  We're going on tour.

• 4:30Cassandra Yahnian?

  We are, finally. I mean, we've done little shows here and there throughout the years, but we are officially going on an actual tour where we are jumping around to seven different cities around the United States this fall.

• 4:44Danielle LaRock?

  This fall, October and November of 2026, I have them listed here. All of the information will be in links in the episode description, our website, our socials, all of that stuff. But October 6th will be in Minneapolis, October 7th, Milwaukee, October 9th, Chicago, October 28th, New York City, November 1st.

• 5:07Cassandra Yahnian?

  Our hometown of Boston, Massachusetts.

• 5:10Danielle LaRock?

  November 11th, Seattle, and November 12th, San Francisco. And we have titled this tour, Your Neck of the Woods, because we want to come to you. And each show will have its own little different twist, because we're not going to do the same thing everywhere, because everywhere has its own special sauce. So we want to make sure to do local stuff for you. And we're really excited.

• 5:33Cassandra Yahnian?

  So if you're as excited as we are, and you want to come see us in one of these cities, our pre-sale goes live on the 29th. So if you are a Patreon member, or if you are a part of our newsletter, you're going to get the pre-sale information sent to you. But for everyone else, our official sale is July 31st. You can get your tickets to all of our shows. Come see us everywhere. Sorry, we're not hitting the Colorado Southwest this time. That'll be for our next tour, but.

• 6:03Danielle LaRock?

  Or southeast.

• 6:05Cassandra Yahnian?

  Or southeast, yeah.

• 6:06Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah. Well, the beautiful thing about the Your Neck of the Woods tour, it could be extended if and only if this leg is successful. We're not going to just keep going.

• 6:16Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah.

• 6:17Danielle LaRock?

  If people are like, who cares?

• 6:19Cassandra Yahnian?

  If you show up for us now, we'll show up for you in more cities, we promise.

• 6:24Danielle LaRock?

  And that's on that. So, perfect. Well, I'm excited to tell you the story. It's quite long, I think, or maybe it just felt long going through it all again. So I hope you have your snacks. Amber is settled, you're settled.

• 6:39Cassandra Yahnian?

  She's ready to hear a story. She already fell asleep, so I don't know how much she'll be listening, but she's really excited.

• 6:48Danielle LaRock?

  All right. Well, before we begin, if there's one thing we all need to know and kind of keep in mind throughout the rest of this story is that we can't trust Alfred Packer. Okay, do not trust him.

• 7:01Cassandra Yahnian?

  He's a fugly slut.

• 7:03Danielle LaRock?

  Much of what we know of his story, especially his early life, came from his own recounting. And as we will learn, he was known for not being entirely truthful all the time. And even if he was, he changed his version of events of so many different things, so many different times, it was really hard to keep track of. So researching the story was a bit difficult as many aspects had several different versions, but my primary resource was amazing. And if you need a new book recommendation, I feel like we always are in search of them. And you're into this whole, like, was it a survival situation? Was it true crime? Mystery sort of thing. Please look into the book Man Eater, The Life and Legend of

• 7:48Danielle LaRock?

  an American Cannibal by Harold Schechter, who is a true crime author. He has so many other titles that I was looking into and adding to my TBR as well. He specializes in serial killers and true crime stuff. And when I was first reading this book for research, I was on a trip to Vermont with my family. And I remember my mom coming up to me because I was reading and taking notes. She's like, oh, little vacation read. What, what is that? And she sees like, American cannibal. She's like, okay, nevermind.

• 8:20Cassandra Yahnian?

  She's like, all right, enjoy your read.

• 8:24Danielle LaRock?

  All right. So now that we have that squared away, let's get to know Alfred. Alfred was born November 12th, 1842, one of seven children of Esther and James Packer. As a young child, his family moved from their home in Pennsylvania to Indiana in hopes of a more stable life and in order for his father to pursue a career in cabinet making. His childhood was marked by a pretty tumultuous relationship with his parents. So by the time he hit his teenage years, Alfred had struck out on his own, bouncing from place to place, finding odd jobs. By the age of 18, he had landed in Minnesota and had become a pretty skilled shoemaker. At the same time, he had enlisted in the Union Army and as one does, when they hit 18 years

• 9:09Danielle LaRock?

  old, he got a tattoo. It was on his arm and it was of his name and his rank in the military, but it's important to note that his name was spelled A-L-F-E-R-D, so Alfred, not Alfred. And this is reflected in so many different places when you're researching this guy. It goes back and forth, the spelling, and they're thinking it was probably something to do with illiteracy on his part, not the tattoo artist's issue. But I only-

• 9:42Cassandra Yahnian?

  Imagine having your own name spelt wrong on your body.

• 9:48Danielle LaRock?

  Whoops. I mean, it's close. At least it's not grossly.

• 9:52Cassandra Yahnian?

  Okay. My husband's name is Alfred and if he had Alfred on his body, I would be like, what is wrong with you?

• 10:00Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah, get that covered up. Well, again, I mention this because Alfred and Alfred is reflected both ways in documents, but Alfred is reflected in all official documents and contemporary newspapers, but he repeatedly signed his name as Alfred. So I don't know. Maybe it, he had it right. It really was Alfred and then everybody else got it wrong.

• 10:26Cassandra Yahnian?

  I mean, he probably would know best what his name is.

• 10:29Danielle LaRock?

  Who knows? Yeah. Anyway, that's really not even that big of a deal. I just wanted to make note of that.

• 10:35Cassandra Yahnian?

  Someone's like, hi Alfred. And he's like, it's Alfred.

• 10:38Danielle LaRock?

  Let's just cut it down to Al.

• 10:40Cassandra Yahnian?

  That's what I do.

• 10:41Danielle LaRock?

  Do you ever call him by his full name when you're mad?

• 10:43Cassandra Yahnian?

  No, not when I'm mad, just when I'm, he'll say, like, sometimes when he's talking to me, he'll be like, Cassie, and I'll be like, Alfred. Like, if he says my name, I'll say Alfred, even though my full name's Cassandra, but Alfred just has two syllables, so it's a little more fun to say than Al.

• 11:01Danielle LaRock?

  Gotcha. Well, Alfred enlisted for several years in the military, but eight months into his service, he received a disability charge due to epilepsy. Since he was a child, he experienced seizures at least once every two days, sometimes occurring as frequently as multiple times every day. They impeded his work throughout his entire life and was likely the cause of him bouncing from job to job because they affected his ability to perform. And especially in the military, they couldn't, they couldn't have that. So he was discharged, but he was determined to get back into the army. So he moved to Iowa and enlisted again, claiming he had been a scout for General Custer to make himself

• 11:44Danielle LaRock?

  look better. And they accepted him. I don't know if, what else he had to do, but he got back in. However, his epilepsy never went away and it served as another reason for another discharge. So he gave up on that army dream and moved further west, bopping around from place to place, working in various roles, including trapper, wilderness guide, and harness maker. It's unclear if he moved so frequently because he wanted to or out of necessity, but he was a bit of a tumbleweed and moved all around finding work. Co-workers described him as difficult to work with. He complained, he was argumentative, and his seizures resulted in prolonged recovery times, which prohibited him from pulling his own

• 12:29Danielle LaRock?

  weight, which is a little unfair. He has a medical condition, but if he's also a dick, then that doesn't help. In the early 1870s, it was ultimately mining that drew Alfred, like, so, I just said Alfred.

• 12:44Cassandra Yahnian?

  You did say Alfred.

• 12:45Danielle LaRock?

  See? It's happening. Who knows? Al. Who really does know?

• 12:50Cassandra Yahnian?

  I'm gonna get off of this and I'm gonna start calling my Al Alfred.

• 12:54Danielle LaRock?

  What? Well, Alfred, like so many others of his time, moved to Colorado for mining. While working in a mine near Georgetown, he lost parts of his left pinky and index finger in an accident, but despite the dangers that the profession entailed, he was determined to stick with it. As was his norm, he moved around from mine to mine and job to job. He found himself toiling away in the Bingham Copper Mine, south of Salt Lake City, Utah, when he heard chatter amongst his coworkers of something very exciting. Silver had been found in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado. Located in southwest Colorado, the San Juan Wilderness is some of the most beautiful and rugged terrain in the country.

• 13:39Danielle LaRock?

  It contains thirteen of the state's fifty-eight fourteeners, sheer rock walls, deep canyons and gorges, and thousands upon thousands of acres of aspen, cedar, and pine. Home to cougar, bighorn sheep, moose, lynx, and this area also served as the last holdout for the last grizzly bear in the state of Colorado. Shout out Tooth and Claw, I suggested that episode when I was in Colorado and learned all about that and they covered it. So, that's a really interesting story. But anyway, the San Juans are known for their abundance of wildlife, but also their vicious winters. One of the most brutal on record was the winter of eighteen seventy-three to eighteen

• 14:21Danielle LaRock?

  seventy-four, the very same season that Alfred Packer decided to send it to the San Juans. It was November of eighteen seventy-three, and the discovery of silver in the San Juan Mountains was big news. Just as the frenzy for gold in the state became known as the Pike's Peak Gold Rush, this became known as the San Juan Excitement. Many men from Bingham Canyon had plans to ditch Utah for Colorado, two of which were friends, Bob McGrew and George Tracy. The pair decided to join a band of men who were starting to make their own plans on making this journey to southwestern Colorado when Alfred approached them. He had overheard their plans, and while he offered nothing to pay for his passage,

• 15:07Danielle LaRock?

  he didn't have any money, he didn't have any goods to barter or anything to pay his way, but he did offer a service. While it is unclear if he had any legitimate experience in this particular area, he told them he had extensive knowledge of the Colorado Wilderness and would act as their guide. The pair agreed and after a quick stop in Salt Lake to acquire provisions, the group, which was 21 men in all, began their journey to the silvery San Juans with hopes to complete their journey of 400 miles in 29 days. At first, the group followed the old Spanish Trail, which is now a National Parks Service Historic Trail. Just have to say that.

• 15:49Cassandra Yahnian?

  Like, this counts as a NPAD episode.

• 15:52Danielle LaRock?

  It does. And while travel was a bit slow, it initially felt promising. But as time went on, it became clear that Alfred did not know the area as he initially advertised. The group constantly strayed off trail, became lost, and began resorting to paying members of the Tabawash Ute, the local indigenous people of the area that they encountered along their way for help getting back on track and just little bits and pieces of guiding advice. Tensions rose between the men, but there was a particular disdain aimed towards Alfred. Not only were they frustrated with him as their so-called guide, his attitude was poor and his character was called into question.

• 16:36Danielle LaRock?

  He told habitual lies, was accused of petty theft, hogged food and water rations, was argumentative, and according to one of the group members, quote, "His high pitched voice was annoying."

• 16:50Cassandra Yahnian?

  And he had a high pitched voice.

• 16:52Danielle LaRock?

  And he was pissing me off. It's like, when somebody does something that annoys you, suddenly everything about them annoys you. It feels like it's giving that energy.

• 17:02Cassandra Yahnian?

  Once you get the ick, you can't un-get the ick.

• 17:04Danielle LaRock?

  That's right. On top of this, the snow came, covering what little trail there was in feet of powder, forcing the men to trudge through waist-deep drifts. And then there was the supplies. They were running out of them. On January 25th, nearing the three-month mark of their journey, the group found themselves utterly lost and on the brink of starvation. They had run out of food, thanks to tipping their raft while crossing the Green River and dumping nearly all of their provisions, and had resorted to eating their horses' feed. Despite Alfred somehow managing to lead them to the foot of the San Juans, their situation was becoming dire. And while in negotiations to begin killing their horses for food, the men became aware

• 17:49Danielle LaRock?

  that they were not alone. While in conversations, they had been quietly surrounded by 50 Ute warriors. They hadn't known it, but the men had traveled into Ute territory near present-day Delta, Colorado, just northwest of Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. At this time in history, given the strained relationship between white settlers and indigenous peoples at the time and in the area, this situation could have gone poorly. But luckily for Alfred and his companions, among the group of warriors was the leader of the Tabawatch Ute, Chief Yure. Remembered as a friend of the white man, Chief Yure has a very interesting life story and remains a heavily debated and complex figure.

• 18:32Danielle LaRock?

  Born and raised in northern New Mexico, Yure grew to speak five languages and often served as an interpreter during treaty negotiations with the US government. When gold and silver were discovered and prospectors came into Ute territory, he and his people had many different encounters with trappers and miners on their land, many of which they tolerated with little issue. Faced with impossible decisions, Yure spent most of his life advocating for the peaceful existence of his people, ultimately resulting in him seeding large areas of Ute land. While he was celebrated by the US government as a peaceful diplomat, many of his own people and some modern historians criticized him for signing treaties that seeded millions

• 19:16Danielle LaRock?

  of acres of Ute territory and ultimately led to the forced relocation of the Utes to Utah. The choices he made with the well-being and safety of his people at heart wound up gaining him a reputation as a traitor and a sellout amongst some of his people. But the details of his story should be reserved for their own episode. What is important to note here is that his characteristic hospitality saved Alfred's group. Taking notice of their poor condition and dire situation, he took them in. He brought the group to his own camp, supplied them with shelter, food, and water, and extended a very generous offer to stay the remainder of the winter until the weather gave way to spring and made for easier and safer travel. Which is-

• 20:01Danielle LaRock?

  A such a olive branch extension of peace and you know, like he's, this is January, end of January timeframe, and he's basically saying, we will feed and house and clothe you for months because you are all in trouble.

• 20:18Cassandra Yahnian?

  Because you're not going to make it out of here.

• 20:20Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah, you're not going to make it out of here. Um, so the group was very grateful for this offer and they hunkered down for one week, one whole week. The allure of striking it rich and possibly missing out on getting while the getting was good was too much for some of the men in Alfred's party. They spoke to Chief-

• 20:40Cassandra Yahnian?

  What? You can just get rich in a couple of months.

• 20:43Danielle LaRock?

  They were like, well, every, everyone knows about this silver and you know, they're just FOMO, fear of missing out. They need to get there. They want to be the first ones to mine this so-called silver that's there. And they were anxious. They didn't want to stay put.

• 21:01Cassandra Yahnian?

  They were greedy.

• 21:02Danielle LaRock?

  They spoke to Chief Yure about their options, but he remained firm in his advice. Stay until spring. The surrounding trails were buried by at least four feet of snow. And even with intimate knowledge of the terrain, none of his men, the Ute men, were willing to risk the trek to accompany Alfred's group as guides. They're like, no, you stupid idiots. It's not worth it.

• 21:27Cassandra Yahnian?

  They're not going to get paid this silver either.

• 21:29Danielle LaRock?

  No, it's, there's nothing in it for them.

• 21:31Cassandra Yahnian?

  Why would they go? Yeah.

• 21:33Danielle LaRock?

  As the story usually and frustratingly goes, native knowledge was not heated. Murmurs broke out amongst the group and beginning to sense some of the men would leave despite his warnings, Chief Yure bent down into the snow and drew a rudimentary map of the area, pointing out the closest settlements. The Los Pinos Indian Agency about 80 miles away and a cow camp where the government maintained a herd of livestock only slightly closer. He advised them of the best route, advising them to take the longer yet safer route following the Gunnison River versus the more direct, dangerous route through the mountains. Shortly after, a man that went by the name of Lot and four others gathered their supplies and started off.

• 22:17Danielle LaRock?

  Alfred attempted to join them, but was threatened at gunpoint to stay away. So when I say he has become disliked, I mean it.

• 22:28Cassandra Yahnian?

  Like get your high pitched voice out of here.

• 22:31Danielle LaRock?

  We can't take another second of this. Likely upset but undeterred, Alfred decided to gather a group of his own. He declared that the route along the river was a waste of time and advocated for the more direct route through the mountains. Despite the group's previous doubt of his skills and Chief Yurey's clear advice against it, five men decided to join Alfred. Israel Swan, the oldest in the entire party of the original 21, was in his 60s and George Noon, the youngest, was only 16. Also joining Alfred were Frank Miller, Shannon Bell, and James Humphrey. Estimating a two-week journey, 75-ish miles to Breckenridge, the group decided to send it.

• 23:14Danielle LaRock?

  Equipped with food, rifles, a pistol, a pair of knives and a hatchet, but no heavy winter clothing, flint, or snowshoes, and with Chief Yurey and his men likely shaking their heads in dismay, on February 9, 1874, they set off into the snowy mountains. And fast forward to April 16. Over two months after Alfred and his party left Chief Yurey's encampment, a young man named Alonso Hartman had left his bunkhouse at the Los Pinos Indian Agency to gather firewood when he looked up to see a stranger. A man was walking across the frozen ice of a nearby creek in his direction, looking a bit shaggy.

• 23:56Danielle LaRock?

  He was carrying a rifle, knife, tin coffee pot, and small satchel. Alonso rushed to his aid and quickly brought the man into the mess hall for food, rest, and questioning. Accounts vary here. Some say this man didn't look bad for emerging from the forest, declining the offer of food, opting only for a drink of whiskey, while others say that his thin body was draped in rags and he eagerly wolfed down a full, warm meal. What is certain, though, was his recounting of his name and his initial account of how he came to Los Pinos. His name was Alfred Packer and he had left Chief Yure's camp with five other men two months earlier. He suffered from snow blindness, his feet became wet and frozen, which slowed him down significantly.

• 24:42Danielle LaRock?

  And as he couldn't keep up with the group, they gave him a rifle and left him behind in search of the nearest settlement with a promise of returning with help, but they never came back for him. Eventually Alfred says, he made his way through the wilderness on his own, living off of tree roots and rose bushes. An incredible story to be sure, but at face value, not impossible. In those first few hours, his story wasn't questioned by anybody and he probably would have been home free, but by a strange coincidence, the same exact day that Alfred arrived, so too did a group of three men who stayed with the Utes all winter long.

• 25:23Danielle LaRock?

  Among them was a man named Preston Nutter, who was immediately suspicious of Alfred's story. He couldn't wrap his mind around the men, some of which were his friends, abandoning Alfred in that way. He also questioned how Alfred came into possession of the particular knife he was carrying, as Preston immediately recognized it as belonging to his friend Frank Miller. Alfred explained Frank had stuck it in a tree and left it behind when they abandoned him. Suspicion in Preston grew and he pressed Alfred for more information, but Alfred maintained he had no idea where the group went or where they could possibly be in that moment.

• 26:04Cassandra Yahnian?

  The knife stuck in a tree feels like when you're caught in a lie and then you have to keep lying about other things. He's like, "Oh yeah, he just stuck it in a tree and I grabbed it." It's like, "What? Why would he stick a knife in a tree and just leave it there?"

• 26:16Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah, like one of his only weapons.

• 26:18Cassandra Yahnian?

  Like what?

• 26:19Danielle LaRock?

  Also, or tools, you know? Makes no sense. Likely sensing some heat coming his way, Alfred abruptly announced he had grown tired of Colorado and wished to travel back to his home in Pennsylvania. Claiming to have no money, he sold the rifle for $10 and accompanied by three men from his original party headed to the town of Sawatch to resupply for his journey back to the East Coast. If he had raised suspicion before, he really raised eyebrows during his two-week stay in Sawatch. He was blowing hundreds of dollars, equivalent to thousands of dollars today, on lodging, booze, gambling, and a horse and bridle,

• 27:01Danielle LaRock?

  new shoes, new clothing. And $10 in the 1870s equates to about 300 bucks today. So there ain't no way he's paying for all of what he is spending his money on. Like, one rifle, selling one rifle is not going to get you that far.

• 27:19Cassandra Yahnian?

  So how did you get all this money?

• 27:21Danielle LaRock?

  Well, when asked where that money came from, he claimed to have received a loan from a generous local in the town of Sawatch. Even more odd, he was pulling money out of various different wallets, which he was later seen throwing into a nearby river. Get better at lying, is all I have to say.

• 27:38Cassandra Yahnian?

  I know. And also, why are you not keeping a low profile here?

• 27:42Danielle LaRock?

  I know.

• 27:42Cassandra Yahnian?

  People are already questioning you, and now you're just kind of throwing your money around, or someone else's money around, and living this lavish lifestyle when you should just go back to Pennsylvania when no one knows what you've been up to.

• 27:57Danielle LaRock?

  Keep your head down and just go away. But he didn't.

• 28:00Cassandra Yahnian?

  And that would be us as criminals. Our criminal advice.

• 28:04Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah.

• 28:05Cassandra Yahnian?

  Our professional criminal advice is to keep your head down after you commit a crime.

• 28:08Danielle LaRock?

  And we'll probably have more of it, because there's more to come here. Rumors started to swirl that Alfred was not being honest about what had happened in the mountains. Government agent Charles Adams of the Los Pinos Agency became involved and started seriously questioning Alfred. Not only because his story felt sus and he was acting sketch, but because by this point, every single member of his original group that he had left Utah with had arrived either at the Los Pinos Agency or in town in Sawatch, all except for Israel Swan, George Noon, Frank Miller, Shannon Bell, and James Humphrey. If Alfred had survived alone and injured and found his way back, why not the others too?

• 28:53Danielle LaRock?

  When pressed on the details, Alfred was insistent that the money had come from a loan from a local blacksmith in Sawatch. But after that was determined to be a lie, because that's so easy to check out this

• 29:04Cassandra Yahnian?

  Why would you say someone in the same town gave you the money?

• 29:08Danielle LaRock?

  Stupid idiot. But yeah, so they're like, hey, so you said it came from this blacksmith here? I'm going to go talk to him. Okay, he said he didn't do that. What is going on? It's such an easy debunk to make, but anyway. So after that was determined to be a lie, coupled with the mounting anger of his group members, because now everyone is back and have a lot of questions for him, not just this general who is starting this investigation. Alfred buckled. On May 4th, through streams of tears, he said he would tell them the whole story.

• 29:46Danielle LaRock?

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• 31:15Danielle LaRock?

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• 32:00Danielle LaRock?

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• 32:15Danielle LaRock?

  So, enter the first version of Alfred's version of events. Ten days into their journey, they were long out of food and had resorted to eating the buckskin of their shoes when Israel Swan died. The men, starving and out of options, consumed some of his body before moving on. A few days later, James Humphrey perished and was too butchered and consumed. The men trudged on. Days later, Alfred was away from the group collecting firewood for camp when he returned to a horrifying scene. Wilson Bell and George Noon had murdered Frank Miller and had begun dissecting his body, roasting slices of flesh over an open fire.

• 32:59Danielle LaRock?

  The meat lasted the trio several days until food grew scarce once again. Panicked, Wilson Bell shot and killed George Noon for food. Alfred, now thoroughly frightened of what Bell was capable of, claimed to be afraid for his own life, so they had a conversation and essentially made a pact. He and Bell would not kill one another. Despite their agreement, Bell attacked Alfred soon after. Bell swung his rifle at Alfred, but it struck a tree and broke apart. Having no other choice, Alfred drew his own weapon and shot Bell in self-defense. He stayed in the camp for several days, feasting off the bodies of his companions.

• 33:44Danielle LaRock?

  Packing strips of meat into his satchel, Alfred left in search of the agency. The human flesh lasted him approximately two weeks, and he ran out just prior to arriving at Los Pinos.

• 33:56Cassandra Yahnian?

  Sorry, you're feasting on human flesh, the way you said that, just, ugh.

• 34:02Danielle LaRock?

  Sorry.

• 34:03Cassandra Yahnian?

  Ugh.

• 34:04Danielle LaRock?

  I did kind of just get right into the cannibalism thing.

• 34:08Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah, you just kind of... It sounds like you could be talking about a ham sandwich or like a pizza, but we're talking about people.

• 34:18Danielle LaRock?

  It's called dissociation, and I'm really good at it. This story, as horrifying as it was, persuaded some, but not Preston Nutter and others of the original party. After much debate, a decision was ultimately made that there was one way to prove the legitimacy of this story, and that was to have Alfred lead everyone to the camp to prove that what happened actually did unfold, because if this scuffle between him and Bell really did happen, there should be a broken rifle in pieces next to this tree that allegedly he like swung at, it broke apart, and then he had no choice, but...

• 35:00Cassandra Yahnian?

  There should be evidence of the story around.

• 35:02Danielle LaRock?

  And he would be validated, and everyone could just be like, oh, God, that's awful, but, I mean, you're being honest.

• 35:09Cassandra Yahnian?

  You made it. Yeah.

• 35:10Danielle LaRock?

  A group set out with Alfred to his campsite until suddenly this skilled wilderness guide couldn't remember where it was and had no sense of where he was going. And he just straight up refused to go any further. This guy who had come from Utah led this group from Utah to the San Juans. Now suddenly has no idea where he is and can't go back to the camp that he just came from.

• 35:37Cassandra Yahnian?

  Like, right, we believe you.

• 35:39Danielle LaRock?

  Alfred was immediately placed into custody, brought back to Sawatch and held in jail while an investigation was launched. Several groups were sent out in search of Alfred's campsite and in an attempt to find any sign of the other men because they think they know what happened to him. I mean, at this point, they're like, everybody is dead, for sure. We just don't know what exactly happened, but they're just trying to locate them. But they didn't find anything. The story was leaked to the press and by July, an article in the Rocky Mountain News titled "Man-eaters in Colorado: Detailed Alfred's Story/Confession", and of course, included a couple of different embellishments.

• 36:21Danielle LaRock?

  Among them claiming that Alfred stated, quote, "The breast of men was the sweetest he ever tasted."

• 36:28Cassandra Yahnian?

  Did he really say that?

• 36:29Danielle LaRock?

  No, no.

• 36:30Cassandra Yahnian?

  Okay.

• 36:32Danielle LaRock?

  No, embellishment. It wasn't until-

• 36:36Cassandra Yahnian?

  Just to be that writer who was like, honest little typewriter probably at this time and was like, "The breast of men."

• 36:46Danielle LaRock?

  It's like, oh, you know what's real good? You know what's super sick? This.

• 36:51Cassandra Yahnian?

  Like, ew.

• 36:52Danielle LaRock?

  It wasn't until mid-August that the remains of Alfred's companions were located. The details surrounding this discovery vary, but most historians credit the find to John Randolph, an artist for the Harper's Weekly newspaper. He was out hiking in present-day Gunnison National Forest, two miles north of San Cristobal Lake, when he stumbled upon a gruesome sight. He had found the location of the five men at the foot of a steep bluff near the Gunnison River. He quickly alerted miners camped in the area nearby and word spread like wildfire. The men at the scene would later remember it as utterly gruesome.

• 37:33Danielle LaRock?

  One witness later described the scene, quote, "I seen five men lying there as though they had been killed by some sharp instrument. Looked like it might have been a hatchet struck to the head. Four of them were lying close together, covered with a blanket, but where a corner was turned up, the thigh looked as if a piece of meat was cut out. The fifth lay quite a ways away from the others and the head was gone." Most people who arrived on the scene could barely look at it, repelled by the sight, the smell, and the horror of it all. However, Rudolph, the illustrator for the newspaper, was quick to sketch what lay before him.

• 38:13Danielle LaRock?

  And I will post the sketches of what he saw, but there is, and we'll get into this a little bit later, but there is a lot of photographs of the victims.

• 38:26Cassandra Yahnian?

  Like actual photographs?

• 38:28Danielle LaRock?

  Yes.

• 38:28Cassandra Yahnian?

  Not just the sketch?

• 38:29Danielle LaRock?

  Yes. And it's so, kind of calling back to when I originally told this story. If you recall, we had some technical difficulties that evening.

• 38:40Cassandra Yahnian?

  We do.

• 38:41Danielle LaRock?

  And I have so many photos for this story, like especially towards the end when we're going to get into the debate of like forensics and what really happened, what do the bodies have to tell about what unfolded? I had so many accompanying pictures. And I mean, there's tons of photos of Alfred and all this stuff and the landscape and different things and people, places and things and... I was so excited to show them all. I had my like little PowerPoint presentation ready. We get to the venue, we're doing like sound check and stuff and they're like, oh yeah, our projector's broken.

• 39:16Cassandra Yahnian?

  Were you gonna, on a giant screen, put the pictures of them up there?

• 39:22Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah. Their skele- they're like, they're ske- not of the scene and butchered up and stuff, but like after just their skeleton showing different wounds and things like that, that point to different evidence of

• 39:36Cassandra Yahnian?

  Scary.

• 39:37Danielle LaRock?

  Things. It was pretty spooky. Maybe it was just in

• 39:40Cassandra Yahnian?

  Maybe that was

• 39:41Danielle LaRock?

  God's plan.

• 39:42Cassandra Yahnian?

  God's plan was do not show this to an audience right now.

• 39:47Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah, maybe I would have been sued. Who knows?

• 39:49Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah.

• 39:49Danielle LaRock?

  Anyway.

• 39:50Cassandra Yahnian?

  But we're still here.

• 39:51Danielle LaRock?

  We're still here. We're still thriving. If you want to see them, they exist online. Anywho, so Preston Nutter shows up to this scene because you know, he's on this. He's been clocking Alfred from the very beginning. The group he was with at this point were his friends and he was super suspicious of

• 40:08Cassandra Yahnian?

  Get your friend to like this Nutter guy.

• 40:11Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah. He's gonna check out everything.

• 40:13Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah. He's like, not on my watch.

• 40:16Danielle LaRock?

  Well, he was quick to get there and examine the bodies for himself. Despite their state of decomposition and hunks of missing flesh, based on what remained of their features, their clothing, and through deduction of their personal effects, he identified each one of his friends. The coroner was called and after examination, the bodies were moved from the location dubbed Dead Man's Gulch to a bluff overlooking where they had been found. They were laid side by side and buried in a shallow grave in a location to this day that is still known as Cannibal Plateau. Upon this discovery, the media went nuts, both local and countrywide.

• 40:58Danielle LaRock?

  Despite a lack of a conviction, let alone a trial, papers like the New York Times printed sensational stories calling Alfred a murderer and a cannibal who was a fiend for flesh, a lunatic that killed his companion for money and lived off of their corpses. By September, most of the country was aware of the Colorado Cannibal, likely terrified of this so-called madman, yet completely unaware that he was no longer behind bars.

• 41:26Danielle LaRock?

  Because it turns out he was freed from jail before word got back to Sawatch that the bodies had been discovered. So the decision was made basically because he had spent months behind bars. There was no concrete evidence that his companions were actually dead or that Alfred had anything to do with it. Plus, it was costing the town money to keep them incarcerated.

• 41:49Cassandra Yahnian?

  We have no reason to keep you. You can go. Surprise, surprise.

• 41:54Danielle LaRock?

  As the discovery has. Yeah. So they even gave him some provisions for his journey to go back east because his plan was to go back to Pennsylvania.

• 42:03Cassandra Yahnian?

  And he was like, oh, sorry about that. Great. Yeah, you should be sorry. Bye. See you.

• 42:10Danielle LaRock?

  I'll accept your apology. I will take some food and money to get away from here. But yeah, just bad timing. When the news of the discovery of the bodies made its way back into town, Alfred was officially charged with the murder of all five men and a warrant was put out for his return, dead or alive. The relatives of Israel Swan, George Noon, Frank Miller, Shannon Bell, and James Humphrey pooled together money for a reward. And that combined with a previous bounty from El Paso County, where he allegedly was responsible for a triple murder that happened years earlier, which is a whole other story in and of itself.

• 42:50Cassandra Yahnian?

  Oh, this isn't his first time being connected to a murder.

• 42:54Danielle LaRock?

  Right. Which I just had to mention it, but we're not even going to get into it. But anywho, what I'm trying to say is the total reward money amounted to around $5,000, which is about 135 grand today.

• 43:10Cassandra Yahnian?

  That's a big reward.

• 43:12Danielle LaRock?

  Suddenly, everyone was a bounty hunter. And for weeks, the entire region from Sawatch to Breckenridge and beyond was scoured for any sign of where Alfred was. A human skull was found by a prospector a mile from Dead Man's Gulch with significant trauma consistent with hatchet blows. It was assumed it belonged to Frank Miller, whose severed head was never recovered. But that find was the only thing relating to Alfred Packer to come for nine years.

• 43:43Cassandra Yahnian?

  So he's just free for nine years?

• 43:46Danielle LaRock?

  Yep. And ultimately, Alfred was caught by sheer chance. It was March of 1883, and he was living and prospecting in southern Wyoming, going by the name of John Swartz. He was staying in a roadhouse when a peddler passing through approached him. The peddler, Jean Cabazone, a retired prospector, had long since given up the dream of striking it rich. After an ill-fated trek from Utah to the San Juan's nine years earlier, Jean had heard John speaking from another room in the roadhouse and immediately recognized his voice.

• 44:22Cassandra Yahnian?

  That high pitched voice.

• 44:23Danielle LaRock?

  Yep. He's like, hold on a minute.

• 44:26Cassandra Yahnian?

  I know that annoying voice.

• 44:28Danielle LaRock?

  Jean struck up a conversation with John, and if his familiar face and distinguishing voice wasn't enough, one glance at his left hand and the missing fingertips confirmed his suspicions. Jean played it cool in the conversation, as Alfred clearly didn't recognize who Jean was, didn't make the connection, and Jean didn't want to tip him off. So he kind of just quietly made his exit. And as soon as he was away from Alfred, he made a report to the authorities. Alfred was apprehended and arrested a week later. General Adams met Alfred on the train transport from Cheyenne to Denver and was brought up to speed with Alfred's last nine years.

• 45:13Danielle LaRock?

  According to Alfred, again, this is all coming from him. So we're not really sure. But according to him, he had traveled throughout Arizona, Wyoming, Montana, and Colorado, working odd jobs under false names. As the train approached Denver's Union Station, Alfred appeared visibly shaken. He told Adams that he was finally ready to tell the whole truth and was willing to take back his first statement as long as Adams promised to protect him from the gathering mob outside of the train that he was expecting to rip him away as soon as he stepped foot in Denver. And he was right to worry. There had been many cases of lynchings and vigilante justice throughout the West during this time, many of which were aided

• 45:58Danielle LaRock?

  or ignored by law enforcement. Over a thousand people awaited his arrival at Union Station, but with his promised protection, hands and feet shackled, Alfred was led to jail where he gave his second confession. And for people who love Denver and live in Denver, I lived 12 minutes from Union Station, and I love it there. And to know that he like pulled up and there and was fearing for his life is crazy. It's like, there's really good restaurants there now and

• 46:31Cassandra Yahnian?

  We went there, right?

• 46:32Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah.

• 46:34Cassandra Yahnian?

  I think we did. I think we ate there and went to like a bookstore.

• 46:38Danielle LaRock?

  Yes, we did.

• 46:39Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah.

• 46:40Danielle LaRock?

  You're right. Yeah. Cool bookstore in there, too. Anywho, so according to, all right, so now we are in version two of his version of events. So according to this version of the story, after the men left Chief Urey's encampment, Alfred and the five men encountered harsh weather conditions and tough terrain. They ran out of food by day 10 and resorted to eating rosebuds and pine gum. The group was starting to unravel, crying, praying, and mentally and physically deteriorating. At some point, Alfred had went off to gather rosebuds to eat when he came back to camp.

• 47:24Danielle LaRock?

  And it was then that he witnessed Shannon Bell sitting near the fire roasting a piece of meat he had cut from the leg of Frank Miller, whose body was laying in the nearby snow. Miller's skull had been crushed with a hatchet, along with the three other men, whose dead bodies were lying close by as well. When Shannon Bell noticed Alfred approaching, he charged. In self-defense, Alfred shot him with his rifle, and as Bell collapsed, his hatchet fell into the snow. Alfred grabbed it and struck him with it. And now alone, Alfred covered the bodies of all the men with a blanket and remained in that spot in camp, surviving off of their flesh for almost two months.

• 48:07Danielle LaRock?

  He claimed to have attempted to find help several times, like kind of going off and trying to seek help and get away, but he was just pushed back by the weather each and every time. But then, nearing 60 days after the incident with Bell, Alfred took all of the money that the men had been carrying, packed strips of meat into his bag, and left one last time, ultimately arriving at Los Pinos and being discovered, and so it goes. When asked why his stories differed, Alfred claimed to have been crazed, not himself, and not responsible for what he had previously said. So basically, he said, "I was in distress. I was confused. I just went through this huge ordeal. I can't be trusted for what I said before."

• 48:51Danielle LaRock?

  He was transferred to Lake City, Colorado for trial, not far from where the corpses had been found, and all the while, once again, the media went wild with headlines like, "The man who lived on meat cut from his murdered victims." I mean, somebody's doing something.

• 49:06Cassandra Yahnian?

  That's quite a headline.

• 49:07Danielle LaRock?

  I would read it.

• 49:08Cassandra Yahnian?

  I would also read it. It's very clickbaity.

• 49:11Danielle LaRock?

  He was adamant, for the time being at least, that he was responsible for the death of only one person, and that was Shannon Bell. And he only did it because it was an act of self-defense. On April 5th-

• 49:24Cassandra Yahnian?

  But why wouldn't you say that at the beginning?

• 49:25Danielle LaRock?

  I know.

• 49:26Cassandra Yahnian?

  Like, he had this whole elaborate story that it was like this ongoing thing, but then everyone's found in the same spot.

• 49:32Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah. And then you run away for nine years and change your name. And yeah.

• 49:40Cassandra Yahnian?

  And it feels like at first it would be like, well, maybe the cannibalism thing. He'd like, that's something you don't want to be known for or whatever, but it seems like people don't really care that much about the cannibalism part. They're just wondering why these people were murdered.

• 49:55Danielle LaRock?

  Right. I mean, I think people definitely cared, but there's also this whole other thing. I actually cut it out of my, it's so funny because I can't, I honestly can't believe I told this story in a live show. It's way too long for a live show. Just so if you're coming to our live show, uh, our tour. We are doing things differently. So if you've been to any of our shows before, they were more like podcast tapings where we would do just a live. We would each pick a topic and do a live episode kind of style. It's gonna be a little different this time around. But I'm just saying, this was way too long. I actually cut out a whole portion about kind of what you're saying of like, there was no law against cannibalism.

• 50:37Danielle LaRock?

  And there still isn't. And there's this whole, I got into like the legal precedent for cannibalism and survival situations after the shipwreck. And like all this stuff, I'm like,

• 50:46Cassandra Yahnian?

  Like really dove into it.

• 50:48Danielle LaRock?

  I really was being thorough. But yeah, you're right. It's like, yeah, people were disturbed by it, but they were most concerned with whether he murdered people or not.

• 50:59Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah.

• 51:00Danielle LaRock?

  Interestingly, on April 5th, 1883, Alfred was tried for the murder of Israel Swan, even though he said he claimed he only killed Bell. And the thinking behind this was that it would somehow be an easier victory to achieve if they were to prosecute him for the slaying of an elderly man. It seemed like the prosecution felt it would have been easier to convince the jury and gain sympathy for like this older man who was killed on the trail type of thing.

• 51:32Cassandra Yahnian?

  Gotcha.

• 51:33Danielle LaRock?

  Despite his attorney's motions to dismiss the indictment on various grounds, the trial went forward. The prosecution's theory of motive was that Alfred killed Israel for his money, not out of necessity. Because oh, another thing was Israel was rumored to have had thousands of dollars on him. Like he was carrying almost all the money he had.

• 51:55Cassandra Yahnian?

  Oh, and now he was spending it everywhere. So it's like, You murdered him and then stole all his money.

• 52:03Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah. They argued that Alfred was a cold and calculated murderer and liar, not a traumatized victim of horrific circumstances, that he was motivated by greed, not by need. The defense called Alfred to the stand on the third day of the trial to explain to the court himself what had happened. He depicted in detail, day by day, the struggles that the men faced, arguments they got into amongst each other, and the dire situation they found themselves in. After their food rations were depleted, they turned to boiling and eating their own moccasins. He went on to describe in great detail what he outlined in his second confession, saying that although he did wind up living

• 52:43Danielle LaRock?

  off of human flesh, it at first made him violently sick and he wished he didn't have to do it. He continued on describing the entire ordeal up until he arrived at the agency and his days later in Sylatch. His testimony and cross-examination were full of contradictions, differed in significant details compared to other witness testimony, and at times he was quick to anger and his temper flared. However, Alfred was confident he had persuaded the jurors of his innocence. So much so, he remarked that he should marry one of the Lake City women he saw in the crowd of his trial as one of the first things he would do when he was set free.

• 53:24Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah.

• 53:24Danielle LaRock?

  Okay.

• 53:26Cassandra Yahnian?

  This guy's delusional.

• 53:28Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah, he's, has audacity and a lot of balls, for sure.

• 53:37Cassandra Yahnian?

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• 54:38Speaker 04

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• 55:10Danielle LaRock?

  On Friday, April 13th, the jury delivered their verdict, guilty of premeditated murder. Turns out, he never ended up getting that girl, and he was sentenced to hang on May 19th of that year. In regards to his fate, the state was divided. Papers from Pueblo, Denver, Colorado Springs, and Breckenridge published various opinion pieces on the trial and the verdict, ranging from basically like, "He got what he deserved", to "It was unfair, he never stood a chance" type of thing. While waiting for execution, Alfred maintained his innocence, yet seemed to accept his fate. But fate had another thing in mind. After the sentence was handed down, Alfred's lawyer had traveled to Denver to appeal the

• 55:55Danielle LaRock?

  verdict to the Colorado Supreme Court, and it worked. Alfred was granted a stay of execution, and after three years, his conviction was nullified. But it wasn't over for Al. The state again went after him in August of 1886, this time charging him with manslaughter in the deaths of all five men. The trial went much the same. Alfred again took the stand, but this time was more visibly agitated, giving a nearly two-hour statement, followed by angry outbursts during the cross-examination.

• 56:29Danielle LaRock?

  This time, the trial went quickly, only taking three days, and the jury took less than three hours to deliver their unanimous decision. It was their belief that Alfred, with robbery as the motive, intentionally misled his group to a secluded spot where he murdered them in their sleep with a hatchet. All with the exception of Shannon Bell, who was hit but managed to get up and scramble away, at which point Alfred shot him before finishing the job with a hatchet. Alfred was sentenced to forty years, which at the time was the longest term ever imposed by an American judge. So people were sick of his, they were like, okay, you keep slipping away, like a little slippery eel.

• 57:11Danielle LaRock?

  We're getting you, we got you, you're going to prison for forty years. Alfred again accepted his sentence, saying although he didn't believe he received a fair trial, that he couldn't blame the jury for their decision, or the prosecution for doing their jobs. He went on to thank his counsel for doing their best, and the people of Gunnison and Lake City. He was transferred to the state penitentiary in Canyon City for his incarceration. And because of his epilepsy, because remember, he has, he's having epileptic seizures this entire time, he was unable to perform hard labor while he was in prison, so instead, he worked in the gardens. At the time, prisoners were allowed unlimited visitations, and due to his popularity, thanks

• 57:56Danielle LaRock?

  to the many years of constant media attention that he received, he had many visitors, some of which wound up being his biggest champions. There was Dwayne Hatch, a young man that Alfred met in Wyoming when he was known as John Schwartz, who viewed him as a father figure. There was Frederick Bonfils and Harry Taman, who owned the Denver Evening Post. And there was Polly Pry, a controversial writer and reporter for the Post, who by chance, met Alfred during a visit to Canyon City while she was doing research on an article on the prison system, and was writing on the institution. Together, they all went to bat for Alfred for years.

• 58:38Danielle LaRock?

  Repeatedly printing stories of his innocence, petitioning the parole board, hitting the streets of downtown Denver, collecting signatures in support of their plea for a pardon, sending various interviewers to jail to take statements from Alfred directly, and commissioning physicians in hopes to get Alfred transferred to the state insane asylum in Pueblo. Literally, doing anything they could that would get him out of Canyon City.

• 59:05Danielle LaRock?

  Alfred really had Polly to thank for most of the efforts. She was his ride or die and relentlessly advocated for him. It was her belief that Alfred was innocent and that he was, quote, "unjustly and terribly punished for a frightful misfortune", and repeatedly pointed to the extreme survival circumstances he found himself in. An all-out back-and-forth war was raging in the media with publications almost weekly from both sides of the argument. Year after year, pardons were granted for child murderers, rapists, robbers, and embezzlers, but nothing for Alfred. That is, until January 7th of 1901. As his last official act as governor, Charles Thomas granted Alfred Packer parole

• 59:49Danielle LaRock?

  based on advanced aged and health issues. After the last 19 years behind bars, Alfred was elated to be free. He settled in Deer Creek Canyon about 20 miles west of Littleton, and spent the following years dabbling and prospecting, working as a guard for the Denver Post, and building a small homestead, complete with a cabin, vegetable garden, and chickens. He spent the remainder of his life in close contact with all of his champions, and always showed his immense gratitude towards them all. Times and opinion had changed while he was in prison. Once thought of as the, quote, "human hyena", he was now a model citizen. His neighbors viewed him as kind, gentle, and quiet.

• 1:00:33Danielle LaRock?

  He was also rumored to be a vegetarian, which... I would understand. You know, we all switch.

• 1:00:43Cassandra Yahnian?

  Some point, I guess.

• 1:00:45Danielle LaRock?

  It reminds me of my favorite book Alive about the rugby team crash in the Andes. And I read the book and then obviously watched a documentary on the survivors and they were like, yeah, we are all vegetarians now. Cause they had to.

• 1:01:01Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah, I mean, I get it. In a totally different, a totally different level. Uh, I also, I kind of get it in a totally different way, but when I was sick and I was on dialysis, I used to have to eat meat for every single meal because when you're on dialysis, the treatment actually takes protein out of your blood. So they would be like, eat a steak for breakfast, eat a steak for lunch, eat a steak for dinner, have like protein shakes. And literally by the time I was done, cause I was doing it for five, six months. By the time I was done, I was like, I never want to see a piece of meat again in my entire life. And I literally have not eaten anything, um, except for fish since then. So.

• 1:01:44Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah, that's tough. When it's, I, I kind of get it a little bit in a different capacity, but I, I get it. But when it's required of you and it's being forced, it's.

• 1:01:55Cassandra Yahnian?

  When you, it's just like, it grosses you out eventually.

• 1:01:58Danielle LaRock?

  I think we all, anybody who has eaten meat, I think has gotten to, they've had moments where they're like eating and they gross themselves out thinking about what they're actually eating. Yeah.

• 1:02:10Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:10Danielle LaRock?

  Sorry to anyone actively eating right now.

• 1:02:14Danielle LaRock?

  Which is questionable. This episode of them all, just wait, you know?

• 1:02:19Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:19Danielle LaRock?

  Anywho, okay. So allegedly he's a vegetarian now. Children would flock to him as he handed out penny candy and he would entertain them with stories of all of his previous adventures in the wild west. Every single one.

• 1:02:34Cassandra Yahnian?

  Like he's sitting around, there's a bunch of children in front of him. He's like, let him tell you. It's like a story about how I had to eat human flesh and all the kids are like, well, I died like, oh my God.

• 1:02:45Danielle LaRock?

  Do you want to hear something really messed up? They're like, yeah. And that is how curiosity is born. I would be so curious for the rest of my life.

• 1:02:56Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah. Okay. That's how parents are like, you're not allowed at Alfred's house anymore.

• 1:03:04Danielle LaRock?

  Well, in 1906, so he was released in 1901. Five years later, he was found unconscious in the grass in his front yard. He was cared for by neighbors for days as he drifted in and out of consciousness and experienced violent, frequent seizures, as many as 15 a day. He survived this ordeal, but never fully recovered. He passed away on April 23rd, 1907, surrounded by friends, maintaining his innocence until the very end. As he was a veteran, the military paid for his funeral and standard veteran headstone. Alfred was buried in the Littleton Cemetery, where he remains to this day. Alfred and his story were well-known throughout the state and the country while he was alive,

• 1:03:48Danielle LaRock?

  so it's no surprise that it didn't take long for him to make his way into local legend and lore shortly after his death. For years, aside from the families of the victims, no one really seemed to care much about the five men buried in the San Juans. Since their burial, only a small wooden fence marked their location. But that changed in 1926, when a group of women from Lake City decided they deserved better. The Lake City's Ladies Union Aid Society raised funds for a memorial plaque for the five men, and the bronze Pioneer Memorial Tablet was unveiled at the site during a dedication ceremony in August of 1928.

• 1:04:28Danielle LaRock?

  Decades later, in 1989, hoping to use science to settle this long-debated question of Alfred's guilt or innocence, forensic anthropologist James Starr led the Alfred G. Packer Victims' Exhumation Project. He had become absolutely enthralled with the case, he studied it for years, and he ultimately gained access and permission to dig up the memorial site in hopes to find the remains and study them. It was his hope that by doing so, he and his team's findings would finally put to rest what truly happened in the winter of 1873 to 1874. The project gained nationwide attention with newspapers publishing eye-catching headlines

• 1:05:12Danielle LaRock?

  and even earning it a feature on Unsolved Mysteries. The project began in July of that year and the bodies were quickly located under the memorial marker less than a foot below the surface of the soil. All five men were found laying side by side in a shallow mass grave. Over the next six days, the archaeological team worked to excavate the site and spent nearly a month analyzing the remains. The bodies showed clear signs of nicks and scrapes consistent with butchering, and the skulls showed clear evidence of blunt force trauma. But this information wasn't news, like this wasn't anything revelatory,

• 1:05:54Danielle LaRock?

  because based on Alfred's testimony, everyone knew he had cannibalized the men and that they were murdered, because even though he's claiming he didn't murder them, he's placing the blame on Shannon Bell. But murders did occur, so that blunt force trauma and the evidence of them being butchered is not new.

• 1:06:15Cassandra Yahnian?

  It's kind of like, yeah, this is what the story, this, this follows what he said.

• 1:06:19Danielle LaRock?

  The question of who was responsible wasn't answered. And Starr said, quote, "We found nothing to corroborate or refute anything Packer said. We'll never know who did it based on any solid physical evidence. We're never going to know." But wait, there's just a little more.

• 1:06:38Cassandra Yahnian?

  Oh.

• 1:06:39Danielle LaRock?

  In 1994, David Bailey, the curator of the Museum of Western Colorado, was reviewing inventory of a collection of old Western weapons, including some used by Kit Carson and Butch Cassidy, when he came across a revolver and its small description card. And it read, "This gun was found at the site where Alfred Packer killed and ate five of his traveling companions." Imagine, I want to work at a museum so bad. I'd be like, what? And it's in the, just like you're reviewing inventory, it's not even out and about on display and like no one's paying attention to it.

• 1:07:18Cassandra Yahnian?

  You just have it and it's this crazy artifact.

• 1:07:21Danielle LaRock?

  Of one of the biggest unsolved mysteries in the state's history. It had been given to the museum after a historian unearthed it at the site in 1950. For the next five years, Bailey pored over Alfred's case and ultimately came to the conclusion that he actually believed him.

• 1:07:41Cassandra Yahnian?

  Really?

• 1:07:42Danielle LaRock?

  So one of Alfred's confessions, given in an interview to the Denver Post, read in part, quote, "Bell came after me. I could see that he was mad. I ran back. I had a revolver. He ran after me. When I got to the snowdrift, I wheeled around as fast as I could, and he was right on top of me with a hatchet. I shot and killed him." Because remember, he's saying, "He attacked and killed everybody else, and then he turned on me, and I had to kill him in self-defense." So that is what he, he said in that second version of events. And initially, the problem with that, other than him changing his story a million times, and being on the run for nine years, and all the other crap, was that in his previous confession, Alfred stated he had shot Bell with a rifle,

• 1:08:26Danielle LaRock?

  not a revolver, which only added to the confusion and suspicion of his stories, and just people didn't trust him. But in 2000, Bailey discovered evidence recovered from the Alfred G. Packer Victims Exhumation Project of 1989, which were donated to the local historical society, including soil samples. Bailey had the samples analyzed, and to their surprise, they found presence of man-made lead fragments that matched a sample taken from one of the three bullets still remaining in the Colt revolver. And what's more is there was gunshot residue on a piece of wool clothing, assumed to be Shannon Bell's. So, things are starting to match up a little bit.

• 1:09:09Cassandra Yahnian?

  Wait, so Shannon Bell had the revolver?

• 1:09:12Danielle LaRock?

  No. So Alfred is basically saying, "He shot Shannon Bell with a revolver." And now, there's

• 1:09:21Cassandra Yahnian?

  The revolver residue of that bullet?

• 1:09:24Danielle LaRock?

  In the soil, that says, okay, it was discharged. There is gunshot residue on clothing that they couldn't say with 100% certainty, because things started to get lost in translation and all that. But there was gunshot residue on one of the men's clothing.

• 1:09:42Cassandra Yahnian?

  Did you say his sleeve? Or did I make that up in my brain?

• 1:09:46Danielle LaRock?

  You made that up in your brain. It was just on his, it was on

• 1:09:49Cassandra Yahnian?

  I pictured his sleeve, and I was like, so he was holding the revolver?

• 1:09:52Danielle LaRock?

  No.

• 1:09:52Cassandra Yahnian?

  I'm off track here.

• 1:09:54Danielle LaRock?

  No. So things are starting to be like, huh, okay, I'm intrigued. And there's also the question over a pelvic bone puncture hole. So again, this is kind of where during this exhumation project of 1989, this is where the photos that I was gonna show came from. They're like from a project. They're not.

• 1:10:14Cassandra Yahnian?

  The scene of the crime?

• 1:10:15Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:16Cassandra Yahnian?

  Okay.

• 1:10:17Danielle LaRock?

  Okay.

• 1:10:17Cassandra Yahnian?

  That makes more sense. Still horrific.

• 1:10:20Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah, sorry.

• 1:10:22Danielle LaRock?

  A photo of the pelvic bone with said puncture hole was taken by Starr's exhumation team. And Bailey believes this is further support for his theory that Alfred was truly telling the truth, that this is the bullet wound that resulted from Alfred shooting Bell in self-defense. However, this assumed gunshot trauma was believed by others to be nothing more than damage from carnivore activity consistent with bear scavenging. So some people are like, this isn't a clear gunshot wound. It's hard to tell. And especially it's been decades. They've been in the gra- you know, it's hard to tell.

• 1:10:59Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:00Danielle LaRock?

  But, and I agree because I've looked at the picture, it is hard to tell. I wouldn't immediately look at that and say, oh, that's clearly looks like a gunshot wound. However, the whole like animal activity, bear scavenging thing does not track with me. And that's because there was no other teeth marks noted on any of the remains. There was nicks and scrapes consistent with the knife that was used to butcher their flesh for consumption. So there's no teeth marks on any of the remains, or there wasn't any noted. And also, the remains weren't disturbed in the way that's consistent with animal scavenging. They were all laid, found side by side with one of them, you know, kind of off in the

• 1:11:44Danielle LaRock?

  distance a little bit, but it's not like there were pieces of them scattered around because they had been scavenged on by animals. So I don't know if I'm like believing that.

• 1:11:53Cassandra Yahnian?

  It like doesn't really. Why would there be one mark?

• 1:11:57Danielle LaRock?

  Why would there be one puncture hole from a bear that like came by, grabbed it and was like, ew, never mind, and walked away? Like, I just don't believe that. Um, so anyway, if you're interested in seeing some of the things for yourself, like I said, there is Google. But if you're in Colorado or traveling through there anytime soon, uh, some of the artifacts collected during this exhumation project, such as the skull fragment from Frank Miller and Alfred Packer's compass and sidearms, are displayed at the Museum of Western Colorado in Grand Junction.

• 1:12:29Cassandra Yahnian?

  Oh, they have a skull fragment there?

• 1:12:32Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah, I double checked because I originally wrote this in 2023 and just making sure it wasn't a temporary display. As far as I can tell, it's a permanent exhibit and it's still active, so.

• 1:12:43Cassandra Yahnian?

  Cool.

• 1:12:44Danielle LaRock?

  Uh, someone go take a picture for me and send it to me. And if you're a sicko like me and are curious about the memorial site itself, because the remains were exhumed, but they were reinterred. They weren't moved away. I'm here to tell you some bad news or good news, depending on how you feel about this type of thing. But the location of the mass grave, a few miles north of Lake City, on Cannibal Mesa, along the banks of Dead Man's Gulch, was previously visitable, marked with signs and even informational boards, like a big kiosk and different things explaining this whole situation. But it has since been permanently closed. It's on private property with locked gates and surveillance cameras.

• 1:13:26Danielle LaRock?

  So don't go looking for it. Uh, it's a big no-no. And there has been some like rumblings about maybe opening it for private tours led by, um, somebody not just free and open to the public, but as of right now, it's off limits. So. It was like on Atlas Obscura and people would go there and yeah, visit, but no longer. During his sentencing, Alfred addressed the court and spectators and gave a lengthy statement. In part, he said, "I had one hope, and that was that sometime I would be able to hold up before the people of Colorado that I am not guilty of the murder of the four men.

• 1:14:07Danielle LaRock?

  I killed Bell, I admit it, and I have done so all along, but he is the only man I killed. The old mystery will be cleared in the course of time, then you will all see that Packer was innocent." Innocent or not, Colorado, at least for now, seems to love this guy. In 1968, UC Boulder renamed its cafeteria the Alfred Packer Restaurant and Grill with the slogan, "Have a friend for lunch," and at one point even had raw meat eating competitions.

• 1:14:39Cassandra Yahnian?

  That's messed up, Colorado.

• 1:14:42Danielle LaRock?

  UC Boulder.

• 1:14:43Cassandra Yahnian?

  Have a friend for lunch.

• 1:14:47Danielle LaRock?

  Raw.

• 1:14:47Cassandra Yahnian?

  It's clever.

• 1:14:48Danielle LaRock?

  Rib. Or meat eating contest, what the hell?

• 1:14:51Cassandra Yahnian?

  That's disgusting also and sounds a little dangerous.

• 1:14:55Danielle LaRock?

  It's like a health code violation.

• 1:14:56Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:59Cassandra Yahnian?

  You know, in college, you just chase it down with a shot of Zanka and you're good.

• 1:15:04Danielle LaRock?

  Yep, man up, you know?

• 1:15:06Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yep.

• 1:15:06Danielle LaRock?

  He has been the inspiration for several songs, albums, cookbooks, and plays, most notably Cannibal the Musical, written and directed by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, two UC Boulder grads who went on to create the show South Park.

• 1:15:23Cassandra Yahnian?

  Very cool.

• 1:15:24Danielle LaRock?

  In the 1980s, Lake City, who once ostracized Alfred, began celebrating him, or at least his story. Packer Days, a festival that occurred for years before going on a brief hiatus, celebrates survivalism, backcountry skills, and the pioneer spirit with events such as the Run For Your Life Survival 5K, a team race that includes starting a fire, splinting and evacuated an injured member, and building a shelter no matter the weather. There are also events like the Mystery Meat Cookoff, backcountry survival classes. There's always meat involved.

• 1:15:59Cassandra Yahnian?

  Mystery meat. Let's not make it a mystery when we're celebrating a cannibal.

• 1:16:05Danielle LaRock?

  There's also scavenger hunts and lectures on Packer given by a local historian. And then there's the annual Alfred Packer Festival in Sawatch, which has featured the 5K Cannibal Crawl, a rib cookoff, and beard and mustache competitions, because he had like a Alfred Packer had um, kind of like a goatee looking thing. So.

• 1:16:31Cassandra Yahnian?

  Wow, they really go all out.

• 1:16:34Danielle LaRock?

  That's what I'm saying. It's like for someone who's so hated and was maybe a mass murderer.

• 1:16:42Cassandra Yahnian?

  Like, let's make festivals after him and mystery meat competitions for eating.

• 1:16:49Danielle LaRock?

  It just goes to show, time really does heal all. People forget. Um, anyhow, okay. The book I referred to earlier concluded with some possibilities to ponder in regards to why Alfred had so many versions of his story with similar threads but differing details. First, that he underwent a self-protective forgetting called dissociative amnesia, which is defined as the inability to remember one or more episodes of a traumatic or stressful event. Or maybe that he was in some sort of trance resulting from the combined effects of his epileptic condition, long-term effects from multiple lead poisoning events earlier in his life,

• 1:17:30Danielle LaRock?

  and the near starvation and delirious conditions he was living in immediately prior to being found and having to tell his story. Perhaps he lied for so long, he wound up actually believing his own made-up version of events. Or of course, there is always the possibility that Alfred Packer was just full of shit. And that's the story of the Colorado Cannibal, Alfred Packer. What do you think happened?

• 1:17:58Cassandra Yahnian?

  God, that's hard. Um, because I do think he's full of shit in a lot of ways. But I also think that maybe he's, maybe he's kind of a bad guy that was out with a rough crowd. And he took advantage of that. Like, I think it's certainly possible that he was with another guy that was bad and killed those people, but I still. We never heard like a motivation of why Bell would have wanted to kill the other guys. So I don't really get that or why he would do that, but say he did. I feel like Alfred Packer was not a great person and I don't think that it would be unlikely that instead of reporting that this horrible thing happened,

• 1:18:42Cassandra Yahnian?

  that he just stole all their money and fled. I feel like he could have been a bad person with other bad people and a bad scenario kind of happened. And he just took advantage of it for to make it benefit him. I also think there's a world where he definitely could have been the person who killed all of them.

• 1:19:02Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:03Cassandra Yahnian?

  I just don't see the motivation of why Bell, and maybe there is one and we just don't know it, but I don't. And maybe Bell was trying to steal their money. I don't know. It's just like, there's no motivation behind it. So.

• 1:19:14Danielle LaRock?

  I think the motivation would have been just for out of, I think he, if we're going down this route, it appears to me based on, you know, the situation and everything I read. It feels like maybe he just kind of snapped. I mean, they were getting delirious. They were on their, on the brink of starvation. They were lost. They were in brutal weather conditions and he was like, I need to eat. I'm, and he lost it. And he just killed everyone, started eating them and then turned on Alfred as well. And so I don't know. I have no idea. I think the forensics aspect of it is insanely intriguing because it does tell a different story. I mean, obviously Alfred is a bit of an unreliable narrator.

• 1:19:58Danielle LaRock?

  We don't know. We can't really take his word for it. But I think there is truth to what he was saying, especially if the forensics are lining up with it. And yeah, I don't think it's completely out of this world that he eventually did tell the truth. It just took him a long ways, a long time to get there and.

• 1:20:20Cassandra Yahnian?

  And no, I believed him by the time he did.

• 1:20:21Danielle LaRock?

  He didn't act accordingly. I mean.

• 1:20:25Danielle LaRock?

  To come back, even after that did happen, you just witnessed someone murder four people, eat them and then turn on you and you had to kill them. And then you just like got to town. You're like, well, I took their money. I'm spending it and I'm out of here.

• 1:20:37Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah, it's just like, you're not going to inform their families or where to find these people. You know, I think, and that's where I was coming from, where I could see a world where he's just kind of a bad guy anyway. And he just used a bad situation to his advantage and was like, well, I'm making out with a ton of money. I'm not going to say where they are because I just robbed them. This $1,000 that this one guy is carrying would probably go to his family. He's like, I'm not gonna say that. So I'm gonna get out of here and party with the stuff that I made out with. Yeah. So I could see a world where both scenarios, he could or could not have done it. But I do think that there was at least impartial truths in his story.

• 1:21:19Cassandra Yahnian?

  Well, thank you so much for telling the story again. At the beginning, when I said that I only remembered that he was a cannibal is pretty true. I feel like throughout this entire story, I'm like, what happened? Tell me next. You know, like I just, it's been years and I, it's a fever dream that Colorado show. It was one of the first ones we ever did. So it's cool to hear the story again. And I will remember more details this time because it is truly very interesting.

• 1:21:45Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah. Well, we would love to hear from you guys, what you think of the story. What do you think he is a mass murderer or just kind of like a victim of circumstance? And he was just like Cassie said, a bad guy. I think I'm in your line of thinking that it was a bad situation. Shit went down and he didn't handle it appropriately because he didn't have the best of intentions anyway. So, yeah, that's just kind of my feeling. But I hope you guys all enjoyed that. And if you are wanting to hear, like for Colorado people, that's so exciting because especially, you know, there are so many places involved in the story that are so close to where a lot of people recreate and live in Colorado. So

• 1:22:29Danielle LaRock?

  it's exciting when it comes from your neck of the woods. So if you want to hear stories from your neck of the woods in those seven cities that we talked about earlier, please come to our shows. Please grab tickets. They go on sale in a couple of days. Mark your calendar, set a reminder, tell a friend, and we hope to see you there.

• 1:22:48Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah. In the meantime, enjoy the view, but watch your back. Bye, guys.

• 1:22:54Danielle LaRock?

  Bye.

• 1:22:57Cassandra Yahnian?

  Thanks for joining us for another episode. We hope you learned something new and have another location to put on your list. If you want more NPAD content, make sure to follow along with our adventures on all socials at National Park After Dark. For more stories just like this one, with the added bonus of exclusive content, you can join us on Patreon or Apple subscriptions. If you prefer to watch our episodes, head over to our YouTube channel. And if you're enjoying the show, please take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe on your favorite listening platform.

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