Winters in the Colorado mountains can be brutally cold, and in 1874, Alfred Packer along with five companions attempted to cross from Montrose to the Los Pinos Indian Agency, a government camp. Packer had come to Colorado in 1873 as part of a 21 man prospecting team. Inadequately supplied, the team encountered Chief Ouray in January of 1874, who generously offered to let them over-winter with his tribe. Restless after just a week, a small group of the men decided to press on to the government camp, and a week later, Alfred Packer and five others followed. In April of 1874, Alfred finally arrived at the Indian Agency, without his companions. In Packer’s first confession, he claimed that two of the group, Israel Swan and James Humphrey, had died and were eaten by the others. Packer also said that upon returning from gathering wood, Shannon Bell and George Noon told him they had accidentally killed Frank Miller. He said that Bell then killed Noon, and when Bell attacked him, Packer shot Bell.
Packer submitted a second confession in 1883, in which he said that he had left the group to scout ahead, and when he returned, Bell was “acting crazy” and he saw that the other four men were dead from hatchet wounds. He said Bell was eating part of the roasted leg of Miller, and when Bell saw Packer, he came towards him with the hatchet. Packer admits to shooting Bell in self defense, and cannibalizing the bodies to survive.
In Packer’s third confession in 1897, he again reports that the party was starving and out of supplies. He says that he climbed up a nearby mountain to determine if there was any sign of civilization on the other side. The snow was deep, and the trip took all day. Returning, he says that Bell attacked him with a hatchet, so he shot Bell. Concerned that the others had not responded to the sound of the gunshot, Packer “hastened to the campfire and found my comrades dead.” Packer again admits to cannibalizing the remains.
Packer was jailed for murder in 1874 but managed to escape. He then disappeared until he was located in Wyoming in 1883, living under an assumed name. He was sentenced to death by hanging for murder, but his sentence was reversed by the Colorado Supreme Court. He was retried, and in 1886 he was sentenced to 40 years in prison – 8 years for each of the dead men in his party.
In 1901 he was paroled by the governor for poor health, and reportedly lived in Littleton Colorado until his death in 1907. He was given a military burial for his service in the Civil War. He had served just a few months before being discharged for health reasons – Packer had epilepsy.
In 2009, a team from the Museum of Western Colorado confirmed that a Colt gun in their collection could be matched to a gunshot in Bell’s wallet, found on Packer, lending credence to Packer’s claim that he shot Bell.
In 1989, a professor at George Washington University exhumed the five bodies and found that they were not shot, but that they had put up a fight before they died.
In 1981, Colorado Governor Richard Lamm denied a request to pardon Alfred Packer.
Lake City erected a monument to the victims at the place where the bodies were found, and Packer himself is buried in Littleton Colorado. However, Packer’s head is on permanent display at the Ripley’s Believe It or Not Museum in New Orleans.
Lake City held Alfred Packer Days each summer, though beginning in 2014 the Alfred Packer Festival is celebrated in Saguache, Colorado.
Only Alfred Packer knows what happened in 1874 on that perilous trip through Colorado’s mountains, and inconsistencies in his stories have kept the mystery alive after 140 years. Reportedly, Packer’s last words were “I am not guilty of the charge.”
