Colorado Cannibal Alferd Packer

People began to wonder what had happened to them after two months had passed. No one had seen them or heard from them. Here it gets a little confusing, some say a search party went out after them and some say that Alferd Packer emerged from the wilderness alone on April 6th 1874 and showed up at the Los Pinos Indian Agency. However, some say that he was seen in Saguache more than a week earlier.

Packer was seen with several wallets on him and would often pull out good sized wads of money. He stated that he'd only gone about a day with out food, however didn't ask for anything to eat. All he wanted was a glass of whiskey. He told everyone that he had hurt his leg and had fallen behind the rest of the party and didn't know what had happened to them.

Packer's story kept changing and people began to become suspicious. Then about a month after he came into town, he finally confessed on May 8th. He said that from the beginning of their trip things just kept going from bad to worse. Weather conditions were bad from the beginning and their supplies soon ran out, there was little game around and impossible to fish in the frozen lakes and rivers.

Packer stated that the men had died at various locations, most from starvation, and others from being killed by one of those that had literally gone crazy from hunger. However it was later determined from the evidence that was found that all of them men were apparently killed one at a time, some versions say that they drew straws to see who would die first. I don't know how true that is. As each man died or was killed the others ate the flesh from his body. When it finally came down to the last two men, Bell and Packer, Bell decided he wanted to be the one to live through this ordeal and went after Packer. Packer killed him then ate what was left of him.