Chasing Alferd Packer (Littleton edition)

 

Having come to Littleton, I had to find one last point of interest. 

Among its hilly terrain looking west to Colorado’s Front Range, I cam upon the sea of headstones inside  the Littleton Cemetery, the final resting place of Alferd Packer, better known as the Colorado Cannibal. 

Packer's story is a well-known chapter in Colorado history. If Packer is known elsewhere, it’s largely due to Cannibal: The Musical, the early live-action film by South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker. They play Packer’s stories for laughs and occasional horror in a Rogers and Hammerstein-style musical. The locations are all in Colorado including some tied to Packer - Parker and Stone stealthily filmed their courthouse scenes in the Hinsdale County courthouse in Lake City, the oldest continually operating in Colorado. 

I had the block number of Packer’s grave and wandered the cemetery in search. I felt a little like Eli Wallach’s Tuco hunting a grave filled with gold in The Good, the Bad & the Ugly. Of course the grave I would find in Littleton was a lot more prominent. 

While there are bigger monuments in the Littleton cemetery, Packer clearly remains the most famous resident. Cement covered the grave in the 1970s to deter would-be graverobbers. A historical marker explains Packer’s infamy - He remains the only person ever convicted of cannibalism in this country. 

A Union veteran of the Civil War, Packer went west like many men searching for easy riches. Packer led a prospecting party from Provo, Utah to Breckenridge that ended up in the San Juan Mountains of southwest Colorado. That alone made Packer a pretty poor guide through Colorado. Near present-day Montrose, his party came upon the camp of Chief Ouray, leader of the Tabeguache (Uncompahgre) band of the Ute tribe, who resupplied them but advised against crossing the San Juans in winter. 

Some of the party wintered with Ouray but Packer and five others headed off in February. Sixty-five days after heading into the San Juans, Packer alone emerged at Saguache, looking too well-fed for someone who nearly starved and claimed to have eaten his shoes. 

Packer’s story fell apart and the bodies were discovered. He was jailed, despite asserting he only killed one man in self-defense. As for the others, he had eaten their flesh, but only after they died. The locals charged him with murder. 

While awaiting trial, he escaped from jail and spent nine years on the run until a former acquaintance spotted Packer in Cheyenne, Wyoming. After two trials that ultimately spared him the gallows, Packer served 18 years of his 40-year sentence at the Colorado state penitentiary, receiving parole in 1901, but not a pardon. 

By all accounts, Packer lived a quiet life in Littleton after his release. He died in 1907 and received a veteran’s stone for his service in the Civil War. Various historical groups have improved the grave that brings traffic to the otherwise quiet cemetery. 

Despite many efforts to figure out the truth, we will probably never know what really happened in the mountains in winter 1874. I believe that harrowing situation in the San Juan Mountains probably led Packer to some desperate decisions. 

What information we have about the man does not mark him as a murderer. After his recapture and awaiting trial, the man built a dollhouse in jail. 

Packer’s influence runs across Colorado. The draw of a gold or silver claim and beautiful scenery has always populated Colorado with colorful characters. Despite the cannibalism, he fits in with the state’s assembly of eccentrics. Even as the state has grown, the spirit of strangeness still endures. 

At some point, I must travel to Creede and Lake City in the Colorado mountains. Packer was tried in Lake City and the courthouse still stands, while a nearby memorial marks the gulch where the bodies of his five compatriots were recovered months after he reappeared. The Hinsdale County Museum has the largest collection of historic items tied to Packer’s mountain party. 

The cemetery shows that Packer died free, even if his name will never shed the infamy of his unfortunate record as a guide and prospector. And of course, the cannibalism.