The Colorado Cannibal: Alfred Packer
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What is the story behind Alfred Packer and the Colorado cannibal case?
Ah, America's Wild West, filled with outlaws, rootin' tootin' cowboys, lone gunslingers, and sunset showdowns. Tumbleweeds blew, boots kicked up dust, shadows told time, and danger lurked around every saloon door. It's a bygone era that feels straight out of the movies, mostly because it is. Yes, the iconic American Wild West is by and large an invention of Hollywood. And the mythos first started with pulpy dime novels, then moved to traveling shows until it eventually made its way onto the silver screen. The truth is the real Wild West wasn't so wild, and it was much more diverse. About 25% of all cowboys were black. Not to mention Mexican cowboys or vaqueros were essential to developing the ranching industry in California and Texas.
As for all those gunfights, many frontier towns actually banned firearms entirely. You couldn't legally carry guns in public. Some towns, though, like Palisade, Nevada, reportedly used Hollywood's myths to their advantage. They staged fake shootouts, bank robberies, and battles just to boost tourism, complete with fake blood and blank cartridges. The whole town and even the local indigenous tribe were in on it. visitors failed to notice that the violence only ever broke out when trains rolled into the station, or that only locals ever got hurt. They were too busy hiding or running for the hills. Today's case takes place during this era of myth-making, at a time when gold fever struck America hard.
But unlike most stories we tell on the show, it plays out backwards. See, the official account is that a conspiracy happened. That in 1873, a wilderness guide named Alfred Packer lured a group of prospectors into the mountains to rob them, kill them, and eat their flesh. But that story might not be entirely true. Alfred definitely ate his companions, that much we know. But the harder question to untangle is, did he kill them first? Welcome to Conspiracy Theories, a Spotify podcast. I'm Carter Roy. You can find us here every Wednesday. Be sure to check us out on Instagram at The Conspiracy Pod. And we would love to hear from you. So if you're listening on the Spotify app, swipe up and give us your thoughts.
This episode contains discussions of death, murder, and cannibalism. Consider this when deciding how and when you'll listen. Stay with us. Do you want to hear something spooky?
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You know how they say tragedy plus time equals comedy? Well, it's been more than 150 years since Alfred Packer was convicted of murdering and cannibalizing five fully grown men. And at the University of Colorado Boulder, you can now eat at the Alfred Packer Grill, where the slogan is, have a friend for lunch. And if you time it right, you can even attend UC Boulder's annual Alfred Packer Day, where guests can sign up for a mystery meat-eating contest, enter a lookalike competition, race in coffins, and buy branded t-shirts that say things like, finger lickin' good. Then you can hop over to Lake City, Colorado, and spend the night at a place formerly called the Cannibal Cabins. Ah, cannibal humor.
It's dark. And you may consider it in bad taste. But the fact that all the pageantry exists proves how notorious Alfred Packer has become to a slice of America.
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