FIENDISH KILLERS (True Crime) Read Free Page B

this was happening, Packer managed to escape from jail, and for the next nine years went on the run, under the name of John Schwartze. Nothing is known of what he did during that time, but in March 1883, a member of the larger party who had stayed in the Indian camp, a man named Frenchy Cabizon, recognised him in a saloon and had him arrested. He was charged with the five murders and made a new confession. This time he said that the men who had left the Indian camp had not taken enough food with them, and had run into a snowstorm, so that they had begun to starve. Some of them, like Bell, began to show signs of madness, and when Packer went on a scouting trip to find food, he returned to find Bell roasting a piece of meat on the fire. It turned out that Bell had killed all four of his companions, in a fit of madness, and was busy cooking a piece of Miller’s leg. Then Bell turned on Packer, who defended himself by grabbing the hatchet Bell was using and burying it in his head. He then tried to leave the camp, but was prevented from doing so by heavy snow, so he stayed where he was and began to eat the corpses. Eventually, when the snow began to thaw, he left, taking some pieces of meat with him to eat along the way.
    Packer’s new story did not convince the jury, and on Friday, April 13, 1883, he was convicted of murder. According to popular legend, the judge called Packer a ‘man-eating son of a bitch’ and said: ‘When you came to Hinsdale County, there were seven democrats. But you ate five of them, goddamn you. I sentence you to be hanged by the neck until you are dead, dead, dead.’
     
    S TARVATION AND MADNESS
     
    There was a great deal of controversy about the sentence, and two years later, Packer managed to get a retrial. This time he was convicted to forty years’ life imprisonment on a charge of manslaughter. Once in jail, he changed his story yet again, and a local newspaper printed the final version of events. He claimed that the party had run out of food and had been reduced to cooking and eating their moccasins, which were made out of hide. They wrapped their feet in blankets (this detail was borne out by the evidence of the corpses, whose feet were indeed wrapped in this way). Bell had begun to suffer delusions as the result of starvation, and everyone travelling with him had become terrified of him. The party camped by the Gunnison River, and in the morning, Packer went off to see if he could find help. When he came back, Bell attacked him and he shot him dead, only to realise what had happened after the deed was done. When he realised that Bell had been cooking and eating human meat, he was revolted and threw it away. He tried to cover the bodies of his comrades, and at this point his mind failed. In his madness, he said, he may have eaten human flesh, but he was so disturbed that he could not really remember what happened. Eventually, he wandered into town, dazed and confused by his terrible ordeal.
    This version of events did not fit with that of witnesses in the Saguache saloon, who claimed that he had sauntered in looking quite healthy and had shown no signs of madness whatsoever. Clearly, Packer was something of a fantasist, and every time he told the story, it had changed. However, there were those who sympathised with him, arguing that it was understandable that a starving man should eat (though not kill) his companions. To this day, it is still not clear exactly what happened, but the gruesome details of the Packer story made him a notorious figure for many years after the event.
    Regarding Packer’s name, it is thought that his real name was Alfred G. Packer. However, when he first signed up to the army, he wrote it as Alferd. In addition, this was the spelling that he had tattooed on his arm. (Some believe that the tattoo artist made a mistake, and that Packer subsequently adopted it as a joke.) Also, when invitations to his hanging (which never took place) were sent out, Alferd was the