Albany County Deputy Sheriff Malcolm Campbell knew Alfred Packer as a local troublemaker who had tangled with the law once before.
He arrested Packer after Packer pulled a revolver on a waiter in the hotel at Fort Fetterman, Wyoming. The man was also known to make constant threats toward locals.
It wasn’t until Campbell got an urgent telegram in 1883 instructing him to arrest Packer that he learned Packer had been on the run from the law for nine years. Campbell also learned Packer was much more than a local rabble-rouser.
He was a cannibal, wanted for eating the people he was leading through the snowy Colorado Rockies after getting lost.
Campbell called in his brother as backup, hooked up a buggy and the pair drove out to a remote ranch to apprehend the man-eater of Colorado.
The crime had been committed in the winter of 1874 as deep snow buried the mountains of San Juan. Packer had hunched down by his fire, eating the only food he could scavenge. The meat the 24-year-old survived on was the flesh of his five dead companions.
Packer survived for six weeks before making it back to civilization. He led a posse to the campsite and told them where they would find the bodies. He was then helped to escape and had been on the run ever since.
The Capture
Campbell told the Denver Tribune his version of the events leading up to the successful capture of one of America’s most notorious criminals.
“A little French peddler named Cassibono who was with the party from Salt Lake, told me that he knew where Packer was, and gave me the directions which led to his arrest,” Campbell told the press.
Packer was known to always be armed so Campbell brought his brother Dan with him to arrest the volatile man-eater. It was 30 miles from Fort Fetterman where Campbell was stationed to the ranch near Wagon Hound, where Packer was stopping with an old ranchman, generally known as ‘Old Mose.’
They arrived upon the brow of a hill overlooking the ranch and saw a man crossing the field between them. They recognized Packer and Campbell drove faster to head him off.
“He was going along carelessly and did not see us,” Campbell said. “When I got to a place where I thought the man would cross, we got out of the buggy and commenced unhitching the horse. My pistol lay upon the buggy seat, cocked.”
The man soon caught up with them, and when he was within about 100 feet, Campbell took up his revolver and pointed it at him. He told Packer to halt and throw up his hands. He did so and Campbell told him he was now a prisoner.
Alfred Packer confessed to cannibalism for eating his five companions in the winter of 1874. He had been hired as their guide and instead got them lost in the San Juan mountains of Colorado during a blizzard. 
The site where Afred Packer ate his five companions in the winter of 1874 is memorialized just above Lake City, Colorado. Dubbed "Cannibal Plateau," it features a rock with a plaque remembering the names of those who were eaten. This photo was take in 1942. (Denver Public Library Special Collections) 
Alfred Packer confessed to cannibalism for eating his five companions in the winter of 1874. He had been hired as their guide and instead got them lost in the San Juan mountains of Colorado during a blizzard. (Colorado State Archives)
Not A Prank
“He did not seem to be alarmed and seemed to think the whole affair a huge joke,” Campbell said.
“What are you fellows fooling about, anyway?” Packer had asked, unfazed by the gun pointing at him.
He kept coming closer to the two men and Campbell commanded for him to halt and the lawman went toward him. Dan drew his gun, and Campbell told him to cover Packer with it until he searched him.
While he sheriff was searching him, Packer kept moving around until Dan shouted at him, “Halt, or I’ll put a ball right through you!”
He did not move after that.
To the sheriff’s surprise, Packer was unarmed.
Campbell had finished searching him when Packer asked, “Upon what charge am I being arrested?”
Campbell told him that he had a telegram for his arrest and that he knew nothing further about it.
“I showed him the telegram and he said, ‘All right, let’s go back there until I get my coat and some tobacco,’” Campbell said.
They went to the house and Packer showed them where he had laid his pistol, an English bulldog, on a shelf. He had forgotten it which was the first time he was ever known to go unarmed.
Packer was kept close under guard on the trip to Denver. His feet were always shackled, but his hands were free. He never made any resistance and only once indicated that he knew what he was arrested for.
“As we were coming into Denver, he told me that he knew it was for that affair ‘down south’ that he was wanted,” Campbell said. “He also said that he had eaten some of the flesh of his companions.”
The reporters who listened to this tale wrote that Campbell is well known as a shrewd, brave man, and his latest exploit added greatly to his reputation as such.
Man-Eater
After his capture, Packer made a confession to Gen. Charles Adams, who had been there nine years before when Packer had emerged from the wilderness.
Adams had been the head of the Los Pinos Indian Agency and had compelled Packer to lead a posse back into the mountains where Packer had camped with his now-dead companions. Adams was skeptical of the man-eater’s story from his previous dealings with the now 33-year-old man.
In 1874, the 23-year-old Packer had originally denied knowing what had happened to his five companions. He was supposed to be their guide, but had gotten them lost in the mountains. Packer had lied to Adams and said they had abandoned him when they realized he didn’t know his way.
After two Ute tribesmen arrived in Los Piños holding strips of dried human flesh they had found on a hill near the agency while hunting, Packer panicked.
He begged for mercy, swearing to make a full confession, saying to Adams, "It would not be the first time that people had been obliged to eat each other when they were hungry."
Alfred Packer confessed to cannibalism for eating his five companions in the winter of 1874. He had been hired as their guide and instead got them lost in the San Juan mountains of Colorado during a blizzard. The following August, the site of the incident was found by John A. Randolph, an illustrator who worked for Harper's Weekly magazine. Randolph sketched the scene as he found it, and then alerted authorities in nearby Lake City. The bodies are, top row from left: George "California" Noon; James Humphreys; middle row: Shannon Wilson Bell; lower left: Israel Swan; lower right: Frank Miller. (John A. Randolph's illustration in Harper's) 
The infamous deeds of Alfred Packer made headlines for decades, even to a pardon request on his behalf years after his death. 
Captured in Wyoming near Fort Fetterman, Alfred Packer was brought to justice and became the only person in U.S. history convicted of the crime of cannibalism.
Packer’s Stories
Over time, his story kept changing.
In this latest version in 1883, Packer said when he had returned to camp he found four of his five companions dead. The red-headed man, Shannon Bell, had gone crazy from starvation and slaughtered the other men. Bell was eating their cooked flesh when Packer said he came into camp.
Bell jumped up to attack him, Packer claimed, and he killed Bell in self-defense. He then sat by the fire, surrounded by the dead. It took Packer at least a day, he said, to decide to eat the human meat himself.
For the next 60 days, he lived off their flesh.
When the snow had finally crusted enough for him to leave the mountains, he had carried the meat with him and had finished the last of it when he was found. Rescuers noted his face was bloated and instead of food, he first asked for whisky.
In previous accounts, he had said he had tossed away the last of the meat and expected wild animals to eat it. He was shocked when it had been found instead, implicating him as a man-eater.
During his latest confession, Packer repeatedly broke down and cried. When he spoke of killing Bell, he had gotten excited and jumped up and reenacted how he defended himself.
Aftermath
While Packer insisted that he had not murdered the men in cold blood, he admitted he had eaten them for survival. Over the years, others advocated for his freedom and, even in the 1980s, groups were asking Colorado’s governor to pardon him.
Packer was paroled Feb. 8, 1901. This was thanks to a journalist, Polly Pry, who had sensationalized his story and gained public sympathy for Packer as a victim of circumstances who did what he had to do to survive.
He had served 18 years of his 40-year sentence.
On April 23, 1907, a 65-year-old Packer died from a stroke. He is rumored to have become a vegetarian before his death.
However, those who knew him well in his younger years said that Packer had a reputation as a petty thief, liar and had attempted murder on more than one occasion, so their sympathy lay with his dead companions. It is believed by his former associates that Packer had lured these five men up into the mountains to rob them, and had succeeded.
In the end, he didn’t just rob them of their money, which he wasted on a spending spree that spring, but also robbed them of their dignity.
A final note: Many accounts of Packer’s story spell his first name as “Alferd,” even displaying it that way on a large sign marking the site of where his companions were found in the mountains above Lake City, Colorado, a spot dubbed “Cannibal Plateau.” That’s a common mistake, because Packer had a tattoo with his first name misspelled, and at times would call himself that. Throughout life and on official documents, however, he was Alfred.
Contact Jackie Dorothy at jackie@cowboystatedaily.com
Jackie Dorothy can be reached at jackie@cowboystatedaily.com.
