"SNOWED IN WITH A CANNIBAL: ALFERD PACKER, THE BLIZZARD THAT KILLED FIVE MEN & THE TRIAL THAT MADE HIM A FOLK HERO"

0:03 Calorogus Shark Media. Good morning, I'm read Carter, Monday, January twenty sixth, twenty twenty six. If you're watching the news this morning, you know a massive winter storm has paralyzed most of the country. Courthouses from Texas to Maine are closed, trials postponed, justice delayed by mother Nature. So today, while we're all snowed in, let me take you back to another blizzard. February eighteen seventy four, Colorado Territory, San Juan Mountains. Six men trudging through snow drifts taller than their heads, temperatures well below zero, wind howling, no trail, no shelter, no food. Six men went in, one walked out. His name was Alfred Packer, thirty one years old, claimed to be a mountain guide, led five prospectors into the deadliest terrain in America during the worst winter anyone could remember.

1:01 April sixteenth, eighteen seventy four, two months after they disappeared into the mountains, Alfred Packer stumbled into the Los Pinos Indian Agency near Gunnison, ragged, tired, but suspiciously well fed for a man who'd just spent sixty days in a frozen wilderness. He walked into the agency, sat down at a table where men were eating breakfast, and ordered whiskey, lots of it. Seemed strangely uninterested in food. When asked about his five companions, Packer was evasive. Said they'd abandoned him. Said he'd survived on rabbits and rosebuds. But something wasn't right. Packer had money, a lot of money, and a rifle that didn't belong to him, and a knife that belonged to a dead man. Under interrogation, Packer finally confessed not to murder, to something that shocked even the hardened frontiersman of eighteen seventy four. It would not be the first time Packer said, through tears that people had been obliged to eat each other when they were hungry. Alfred Packer, the Colorado cannibal confessed man eater, the only American ever convicted of cannibalism related murder, sentenced to hang, escaped custody, caught nine years later, retried, imprisoned for seventeen years, paroled, died a free man. And here's the twist. Modern forensic evidence suggests he might have been telling the truth about self defense all along. I'm read Carter today while the

2:34 blizzard rages outside the trial of Alfred Packer, the man who ate five Democrats, the legend that became a cafeteria. This is celebrity trials. November eighteen seventy three, Bingham Canyon, Utah. Word had spread of gold strikes in the mountains of Colorado. Twenty one men gathered to make the trek east. Among them Alfred Packer. Packer was thirty one years old born in Pennsylvania. Served in the Union Army during the Civil War, but was discharged twice for epilepsy. Drifted west after the war, worked as a shoemaker, miner, trapper guide. Lost parts of two fingers to a sledgehammer accident in Georgetown, Colorado. He claimed to know the Rocky Mountains, claimed to be an experienced guide. The other prospectors believed him. They shouldn't have.

3:27 Preston Nutter, one of the original party members, later described Packer as sulky, obstinate, and Quarrelsome not exactly leadership material, but gold fever makes men overlook red flags. The party left Utah in late autumn, bad timing the winter of eighteen seventy three to seventy four was shaping up to be one of the worst in memory. Snow came early, game was scarce. The men were forced to eat their livestock feed just to survive. By late January eighteen seventy four, or the bedraggled party staggered into the winter camp of Jute Chief Ourey, near present day Montrose, Colorado. They were starving, freezing, barely alive. Chief Ourey was gracious, fed them, sheltered them, and gave them the most important advice they would ever receive.

4:18 Wait until spring. The San Juan Mountains in winter are a death trap. No Ute would attempt passage until the snow melted. Some of the men listened, They stayed with urey, rested, recovered smart, but six men couldn't wait, gold fever burning too hot. Alfred Packer serving as guide, Israel Swan, an elderly man rumored to be carrying thousands in cash, Shannon Wilson Bell, a red haired prospector, James Humphrey, Frank Butcher Miller, a German immigrant who worked as a butcher. And George California Noon, a teenager. February ninth, eighteen seventy four, The six men departed Urre camp. The chief warned them again, don't go. The mountains will kill you. They went anyway.

5:06 Bob McGrew, the original party leader, guided them along the river route Oure recommended, until his horses couldn't continue in the deep snow. He unloaded their provisions and turned back. Watched them disappear into the white void. That was the last anyone saw of five of those men alive. Here's where Packer's story starts falling apart. Our array had given them specific directions, follow the Gunnison River to the government cattle camp. Stay by the water fish if you can't hunt, it's the safest route. Packer ignored the directions, took them higher into the San Juan Mountains, directly into the worst terrain imaginable. The winter of eighteen seventy four was brutal, even by Colorado standards. Snow depths exceeded six feet in a single storm. Temperatures plunged, Blizzards came without warning. The men had less than fourteen days of food, no snow shoes, inadequate clothing, few matches, two rifles, a pistol, some knives, a hatchet, and limited ammunition. Six men entered those mountains.

6:10 They were never seen together again for sixty six days. Nothing, no word, no sightings. The other prospectors at Urey's camp assumed they were dead, frozen, buried in avalanches. The mountains had claimed another group of fools. Then, on April sixteenth, eighteen seventy four, a ghost walked out of the wilderness. Alfred Packer appeared at the Los Pinos Indian Agency. He'd crossed frozen lakes, hiked through mountain passes still choked with snow, traveled alone for weeks. But here's what made people suspicious. He looked too healthy. A man who'd spent two months in the frozen wilderness should be emaciated, starving near death.

6:55 Packer was tired, sure, ragged, but well fed, strong enough to a meetly start drinking whiskey and gambling. He had money in his pockets, items that belonged to his companions, swan's rifle, a knife that wasn't his. And when people asked about the other five men, Packer's answers kept changing. First story, the others had abandoned him when his feet got too frozen to keep up. He'd survived on rabbits and rosebuds. Nobody believed that there were no rabbits, no rosebuds, not in the San Juan Mountains. In February, Indian agent Charles Adams brought Packer in for questioning. Pressed him the story didn't make sense. Where were the other men? Why did Packer have their belongings? How did he survive? May eighth, eighteen seventy four, Packer broke down and confessed not to murder, to something worse. It would not be the first time that people had been obliged to eat each other when they were hungry. The Colorado Cannibal was born. Alfred Packer gave three different confessions over the years, Each one contradicted the others, each one revealed a little more horror. First confession, May eighteen seventy four, Packer claimed the group had become hopelessly lost and snowbound. Israel Swan died first from exposure.

8:22 The surviving men, including Packer, ate his flesh to stay alive. Ten days passed. James Humphrey died next, also eaten. Then Frank Miller was killed accidentally while collecting firewood. George California Noon died of starvation shortly after that left Packer and Shannon Bell. According to Packer, Bell went insane from hunger and cold, tried to kill Packer with a hatchet. Packer shot him in self defense, then he ate Bell too. Packer claimed he'd tried to leave many times but couldn't navigate the mountains, stayed at the camp for weeks, surviving on human flesh. Finally, when the snow developed a crust strong enough to walk on, he hiked out. Suspicious, absolutely, but people in eighteen seventy four understood survival cannibalism. The Donner Party was still fresh in America's memory. Twenty seven years earlier, those pioneers had resorted to eating their dead in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Nobody blamed them. Starvation does terrible things. If Packer's story was true, if the men died of natural causes, and he only ate their corpses to survive, that wasn't murder. Horrifying, but not illegal. Even today, Cannibalism itself isn't a crime in most jurisdictions, only if you kill someone to obtain the flesh. Packer was transported to Saguace and held in a jail outside town. Authorities

9:55 planned to investigate further, find the bodies, determine what really happened. August eighteen seventy four, before the investigation concluded, Packer escaped from custody, walked away disappeared into the frontier. That same day, By pure coincidence, an illustrator for Harper's Weekly named John Randolph discovered the camp site. What he found destroyed any remaining belief in Packer's story. Five bodies, all in one location, not scattered across miles of wilderness as Packer had implied, all at a single camp near present day Lake City, Colorado. The site would later be called dead Man's Gulch. The scene was gruesome. Four months of decomposition and scavenger activity had taken their toll, but the violence was unmistakable. Israel swan skull had a jagged chunk missing. Frank Miller's head was gone entirely, presumably taken by animals. George Noon and James Humphrey were little more than rotting torsos with skeletal legs, but their bearded faces remained mostly intact. They had hatchet shaped wounds to their heads, broken bones, and Shannon bell His body was the worst. Arms at his sides cut down to the bone, but hands still intact, with skin, face perfectly preserved, thick red beard and bushy hair still visible.

11:19 The top of his skull had been ripped open, brains on the ground beneath him. The lack of decay on Bell's face proved he was the last to die, which matched Packer's claim that he killed Bell in self defense. But everything else contradicted him. These men hadn't died slowly one by one over weeks. They'd been killed violently with a hatchet in what appeared to be extreme violence, all at one camp, all together. This wasn't survival cannibalism. This looked like murder. For nine years, Alfred Packer evaded justice, lived under the alias John Schwartze in Wyoming, thought he'd gotten away with it. March eighteen eighty three, a member of the original prospecting party named Jane Frenchy Cabazon spotted Packer by pure accident in Cheyenne, recognized him, contacted authorities.

12:10 Packer was arrested and returned to Colorado for trial. His second confession came shortly after capture, and this one was even more disturbing. Packer now claimed that when the party reached the campsite, they were starving and too weak to continue. He went to scout a trail forward, climbing a nearby hill, gone all day. When he returned, he found Shannon Bell crouched over the campfire roasting human flesh. Bell had gone mad, Packer said, murdered the other four men with a hatchet while they slept. When Bell saw Packer, he charged with the hatchet, raised, Packer shot him twice in the belly self defense. Packer claimed he stayed at the camp for sixty days afterward, surviving on the flesh of the dead men, before finally escaping when the snow crusted over. This story was more consistent with the crime scene evidence. Bell killed the others Packer killed Bell, but the jury didn't believe it.

13:07 Why would Bell murder four men, what possible motive? And why would Packer stay at a campsite full of dead bodies for two months instead of immediately trying to escape, the prosecution had a simpler theory. Packer killed all five men himself for their money. Israel Swan was rumored to carry thousands in cash. Packer emerged from the mountains with money, possessions and weapons belonging to dead men. This wasn't survival, this was robbery, murder. Make it make sense. We'll be right back with the trial of Alfred Packer, the famous sentence, the escape from death row, and the modern forensic evidence that might finally reveal what happened on that frozen mountain.

13:51 In eighteen seventy four April eighteen eighty three, Lake City, Colorado, Alfred Packer stood trial for the murder of Israel Swan and the manslaughter of the four other men. The trial was a sensation. Newspapers across the country covered it. The Man Eater the Colorado Cannibal, headlines that sold papers. Packer's defense was simple. Shannon Bell killed the others. Packer killed Bell in self defense. The cannibalism was desperate survival, not criminal intent. The prosecution presented evidence that undermined everything. Local hunters testified that despite the brutal winter, the area around the campsite had plenty of game, deer, antelope. Even a deer carcass was reportedly found near the camp The men didn't need to resort to cannibalism quickly. They could have hunted. Furthermore, Packer had chosen to take the party through the most dangerous terrain possible, ignoring ure's safer along the river. Why unless he wanted them vulnerable, unless he planned to kill them all along. The jury deliberated briefly guilty of premeditated murder.

15:11 April thirteenth, eighteen eighty three, sentencing day, Judge Melville Jerry addressed the defendant. According to legend and this is one of the most famous quotes in Western legal history, Judge Jerry said, stand up, you voracious man eating son of a bitch. There were only seven Democrats in Hinsdale County, and you ate five of them. I sentence you to hang by the neck until you are dead, dead dead. Now here's the thing. That quote is almost certainly apocryphal. Court records show Judge Jerry's actual sentence was boringly conventional legal language, no profanity, no partisan politics, just the standard death sentence formula. But the Democrat quote spread like wildfire, made Packer infamous, made the case legendary, and honestly, it's too good not to repeat, even if it's probably fiction.

16:03 Packer was scheduled to hang on May nineteenth, eighteen eighty three, but his lawyers found a loophole. The murders occurred in eighteen seventy four, when Colorado was still a territory. The territorial murder statutes had been repealed when Colorado achieved statehood in eighteen seventy six. A savings clause in the new laws created confusion about whether the death penalty applied to crimes committed before statehood. Packer's lawyers appealed to the Colorado Supreme Court, argued that the old territorial laws should apply, and under those laws, the death penalty was prohibited. The Supreme Court agreed, death sentence reversed, but Packer wasn't going free.

16:45 Retrial in eighteen eighty six, this time in Gunnison, fifty miles away, because Lake City residents were threatening to hang Packer themselves if he was acquitted. The second trial resulted in conviction on five counts of manslaughter, not murder, as a jury apparently had some doubt about premeditation. Sentence forty years in the Colorado State penitentiary, eight years per victim. Packer entered Cannon City Prison in eighteen eighty six. Model prisoner made horsehair bridles, built elaborate Victorian dollhouses maintained his innocence, claimed he only killed Bell in self defense, claimed he was wrongly convicted for the cannibalism, not the murder. By the late eighteen nineties, a movement to free Packer was growing.

17:29 The Denver Post published a series of articles questioning his guilt. Grassroots campaigns petitioned the governor. January eighth, nineteen oh one, after seventeen years behind bars, Governor Charles Thomas granted Packer's parole. Alfred Packer walked free. He moved to Lyttleton, Colorado, worked as a guard for the Denver Post. By all accounts, became a model citizen, well liked by neighbors. Quiet, kept to himself. April twenty third, nineteen oh seven, Alfred Packer died of natural causes, sixty five years old. Buried with military honors in Lyttleton Cemetery, his Civil War service still recognized.

18:14 Despite everything, he maintained his innocence to the end, never admitted to murder, only to survival cannibalism after Bell killed the others. For one hundred years, that's where the story ended. Alfred Packer killer or survivor, We'd never know. Then came modern forensics, July nineteen eighty nine, Lake City, Colorado, a team led by law professor James Starrs exhumed the remains of Packer's five victims. The bodies had been buried in the Lake City Cemetery since eighteen seventy four. Nobody had examined them with modern scientific techniques until now. What Stars found was disturbing. All five skulls showed signs of violence, hatchet shaped wounds, blunt force trauma. These men didn't die peacefully of starvation. They were killed. But here's where it gets interesting. Forensic analysis revealed that several skulls had fabric fibers embedded in the bone, suggesting the men's heads might have been covered, perhaps with a blanket, when they were struck.

19:22 If Shannon Bell killed the men while they slept, as Packer claimed in his second confession, that would explain the fibers. They were murdered under their blankets. Never saw it coming. The skeletal remains of three men showed defensive wounds, hacking marks across the forearm bones, the kind of injuries you sustain when shielding your face from an attack. Shannon Bell was one of those three. Wait if Bell was the murderer. Why did Bell have defensive wounds unless Bell didn't kill the others, unless someone attacked Bell. But there's another possibility. Bell killed the first victims in their sleep, The later vicctims woke up, tried to defend themselves, and Bell killed them two. Then Packer killed Bell. The forensic evidence was ambiguous, didn't definitively prove Packer's guilt or innocence. Then came the pistol.

20:15 In the nineteen fifties, a rusted Colt revolver was found at the massacre site, an eighteen sixty two Colt Police Model point three two five shot pistol, two chambers, empty, three still loaded. The gun sat in the Museums of Western Colorado collection for decades. In nineteen ninety four, curator David Bailey began investigating its connection to the case. He found documents from the original eighteen eighty three trial. A Civil War veteran who visited the crime scene had noted that Shannon Bell appeared to have been shot twice. Bell's wallet had a bullet hole through it severe wound to the pelvic area. This matched Packer's claim he shot Bell in self defense. Bailey discovered that forensic samples from the nineteen eighty nine exhumation had been archived. He arranged for analysis at Mesa State College's electron microscopy lab. Doctor Richard Dujay examined soil samples from beneath Shannon Bell's remains. Found microscopic led fragments, compared them to the bullets remaining in the old Colt pistol match. The lead fragments under Bell's body matched the bullets in Packer's pistol. Shannon Bell was shot, probably by Alfred Packer, probably with that gun. Does this prove self defense? Not definitively. Packer could have shot Bell after killing the others, but it does corroborate Packer's story.

21:39 He always said he shot Bell. The forensic evidence confirms Bell was shot. The question remains who killed the other four men, Shannon Bell, as Packer claimed, or Packer himself. David Bailey, the museum curator who spent years investigating, believes Packer told the truth. Alfred didn't deny he ate the body, Bailey said, but he killed only in self defense. It's never too late for the truth. He was wrongly convicted in nineteen eighty two. Then Governor Richard Lamb was petitioned to grant Packer a posthumous pardon. He declined, said there wasn't enough evidence to overturn the conviction. The case remains open.

22:19 One hundred fifty years later. We still don't know exactly what happened on that frozen mountain side. Five men entered those mountains with Alfred Packer. Five men died. Packer ate their flesh to survive. That much is certain. Whether he killed them or Bell killed them may never be definitively proven. Some mysteries die with their witnesses. Alfred Packer should be forgotten. A footnote in Colorado history, a grim cautionary tale about winter in the mountains. Instead, he became a folk hero, a punchline, a tourist attraction. Students at the University of Colorado and Boulder named their new cafeteria the Alfred G.

23:05 Packer Memorial Grill the slogan, have a friend for lunch, you can still order an l cannibal beefburger there today. Secretary of Agriculture Bob Bergland was fighting with the General Services Administration over a cafeteria contract. To embarrass the GSA, he named the USDA's Executive Cafeteria the Alfred Packer Memorial Grill. At a press conference covered by Barbara Walters on ABC News, said Packer's life exemplified the spirit and fare of the cafeteria and would serve all mankind. University of Colorado film students Trey Parker and Matt Stone, who would later create South Park, made a comedy musical called Cannibal. The musical based loosely on Packer's life. It's exactly as tasteless as you'd expect from the guys who gave us Cartman Lake City, Colorado embraced is the notoriety. Al Packer Days is an annual festival. The Cannibal Grill serves Packer burghers. The Hinsdale County Museum displays skull fragments and clothing buttons from the victims.

24:11 A wooden marker proclaims the Alfred Packer Massacre site. Thousands of tourists visit Packer's grave in Lyttleton every year. They leave offerings, coins, flowers, food, eating utensils, dark tourism, cannibal kitsch, the commodification of murder. Here's what gets lost in all the jokes and burgers. Five men died Israel, swan elderly rumored to carry thousands in cash, probably targeted for his money, should have lived out his golden years. Instead, his skull was smashed in and his flesh was eaten. Shannon Wilson Bell, red haired. Either a murderer who went insane from starvation or an innocent man killed by packer. Either way, dead at the camp site. James Humphrey. We know almost nothing about him, Just another prospector facing gold. Found with a rotting torso and skeletal legs, hatchet wounds to his skull.

25:06 Frank Butcher Miller, German immigrant, worked as a butcher back home irony too dark to contemplate. His head was never found. George California Noon, a teenager barely old enough to shave chaste dreams of fortune, died in the frozen wilderness, face preserved by the cold, still bearded, still recognizable when they found him months later. These weren't characters in a dark comedy. They were people, sons, brothers, friends. They had families who never saw them again, who never got closure, who only learned their loved one's fate when an illustrator stumbled upon the massacre site months later, the winter of eighteen seventy four killed them. Whether Packer pulled the trigger or Bell swung the hatchet, the blizzard set it all in motion.

25:55 Six men who should have listened to Chief Ray, who should have waited for spring, who should have stayed where it was safe, gold fever and bad weather, the deadliest combination in the American West, and one survivor who spent the rest of his life claiming innocence, while the whole country called him a cannibal. Make it make sense, Actually don't. Some things can't be made sense of. Some things are just tragedy, wrapped in legend, wrapped in dark humor. Alfred Packer is all three that celebrity trials for Monday, January twenty sixth, twenty twenty six. While courts across America are closed for the blizzard, we traveled back to another winter storm February eighteen seventy four, Colorado Territory, San Juan Mountains.

26:41 Six men, one survivor, Alfred Packer, confessed to eating his companions to survive. Claim Shannon Bell killed the others, said he shot Bell in self defense. Escaped custody, caught nine years later, sentence to hang sentence overturned, retried, convicted of manslaughter, served seventeen years, paroled, died a free man. Modern forensics confirmed Bell was shot. Confirmed the men died violently, but can't prove who killed whom. One hundred and fifty years later, the Colorado Cannibal remains a mystery, a legend, a cafeteria, Israel Swan, Shannon Wilson, Bell, James Humphrey, Frank Miller, George Noon.

27:25 Five names. Five men who followed the wrong guide into the wrong mountains at the wrong time of year. Five men whose flesh kept Alfred Packer alive long enough to tell a story nobody could verify. Someone has to say their names, even if that's someone is the man accused of eating them. Stay warm out there, stay safe. If you're snowed in, at least you have heat and food and walls between you and the cold. The men on Cannibal Plateau had none of that. I'm reed Carter. Tomorrow, assuming the court's reopen, we'll be back to current trials. This is celebrity trial. H