There has always been much debate over the spelling of Packer's given name. He was known to use different spellings during his lifetime and it is spelled as "Alferd" on his gravestone.
Alfred Packer was born in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania in 1842 and moved west in 1862. In the winter of 1873 he was hired as a guide in Salt Lake City by 20 men for a prospecting trip into the San Juan mountains of Colorado. He boasted to them that he had experience driving an ore wagon in the area and that he could lead them to valuable ore sites. The truth was that he knew very little about the area.

Sometime in January of 1874 the group stayed at the camp of Chief Ouray where they were warned not to try crossing the mountains until spring. Packer and five of the group decided to press on anyway.

When Alfred Parker appeared again in April, he mentioned nothing to his new hosts. It wasn't until he was located by the search parties sent by the prospectors who stayed behind, that he spoke of what had happened.

He first said that the others had left him behind after injuring his leg, but that story apparently changed several times.

An Indian guide who was part of the search party looking for the five missing men found strips of human flesh on the trail that Packer had travelled down and Packer was questioned. In August of 1894 the camp of the five missing men was found near Slumgullion Pass, 2 miles from Lake City, Colorado.

The Colorado Historical Archives maintains all original documents from the case. The following is Alfred Packer's confession, verbatim, dated May 8th, 1874.

Hinsdale County Courthouse
"Old man Swan died first and was eaten by the other five persons, about ten days out from camp; four or five days afterwards Humphrey died and was also eaten; he had about one hundred and thirty three dollars. I found the pocket-book and took the money. Some time afterwards while I was carrying wood, the Butcher was killed as the other two told me accidentally and he was eaten. Bell shot "California" with Swan's gun, and I killed Bell; shot him - covered up the remains, and took a large piece along. Then traveled fourteen days into the "Agency." Bell wanted to kill me, struck at me with his rifle, struck a tree and broke his gun.
I A.G. Packer do solemnly swear that the above statement is true and nothing but the truth So help me God.

A. G. Packer
Sworn to and subscribed before me this 8th day of May A.D. 1874. James P. Downer J.P.

On August 8th of that year, the five victims were discovered. By then, Alfred Packer had already escaped from the Saguache jail, assuming a new identity in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

The verdict was guilty, with death by hanging.
Later the sentence was reduced to manslaughter and he was given 40 years to be served at the prison in Canon City.
For 9 years Packer lived under an assumed name in Wyoming, he was discovered and returned to Lake City in 1883 to stand trial.

On March 16th of that year, a second confession was recorded. His story on this occasion was quite different from the one he gave nine years before:

Excerpts:

"When I came back to camp after being gone nearly all day I found the redheaded man [Bell] who acted crazy in the morning sitting near the fire roasting a piece of meat which he had cut out of the leg of the german butcher [Miller] the latters body was lying the furthest off from the fire down the stream, his skull was crushed in with the hatchet. The other three men were lying near the fire, they were cut in the forehead with the hatchet some had two some three cuts - I came within a rod of the fire, when the man saw me, he got up with his hatchet towards me when I shot him sideways through the belly, he fell on his face, the hatchet fell forwards.........I went back to the fire covered the men up and fetched to the camp the piece of meat that was near the fire. I made a new fire near my camp and cooked the piece of meat and ate it. I tried to get away every day but could not so I lived off the flesh of these men, the bigger part of the 60 days I was out......... I cooked some of the flesh and carried it with me for food......... At the last camp just before I reached the Agency I ate my last pieces of meat. This meat I cooked at the camp before I started out and put it into a bag and carried the bag with me, I could not eat but a little at a time..... When I was at the Sheriff in Saguache I was passed a key made out of a pen knife blade with which I could unlock the irons......."

In August of 1897, Alfred Packer wrote a letter to newspaper reporter D. C. Hatch of the Denver Rocky Mountain News with still more changes and embellishments to his story:

".......Three or four days after our provisions were all consumed we took our moccasins, which were made of raw hide, and cooked them, and, of course, ate them. Our suffering at this time was most intense, such, in fact, that the inexperienced cannot imagine........As I neared the camp on my return I was confronted by a terrible sight. As I came near I saw no one but Bell. I spoke to him, and then, with the look of a terrible maniac, his eyes glaring and burning fearfully, he grabbed a hatchet and started for me, whereupon I raised my Winchester and shot him. The report from rifle did not arouse the camp, so I hastened to the campfire and found my comrades dead. Can you imagine my situation - my companions dead and I left alone, surrounded by the midnight horrors of starvation as well as those of utter isolation? My body weak, my mind acted upon in such an awful manner that the greatest wonder is that I ever returned to a rational condition. In looking about I saw a piece of flesh on the fire, which Bell had cut from Miller's leg. I took this flesh from the fire and lay it to one side, after which I covered the bodies of my dead comrades.......... But the weather began to moderate and I wandered around seeking rose buds for food, when all of a sudden I was confronted by the Los Pinos agency.

By Phil Ochs

In the state of Colorado
In the year of seventy-four
They crossed the San Juan Mountains
Growing hungry to the core.
Their guide was Alferd Packer
And they trusted him too long:
For his character was weak
And his appetite was strong.

They called him a murderer, a cannibal, a thief;
It just doesn't pay to eat anything but Government-inspected beef.

Along the Gunnison River
An Indian camp they spied.
An Indian chief approached them,
To stop them he did try.
He warned them of the danger
In the snow that lay around,
But the danger was in Packer,
For his hunger knew now bound.

They called him a murderer, a cannibal, a thief;
It just doesn't pay to eat anything but Government-inspected beef.

Two cold months went slowly by;
Packer came back alone.
"My comrades they all froze to death,
I'm starving," he did moan.
The Indian chief knew how he lied,
He spat upon the ground,
For Packer's belly hung out all over his belt:
He'd gained some thirty pounds.

They called him a murderer, a cannibal, a thief;
It just doesn't pay to eat anything but Government-inspected beef.

Well for nine long years he ran away
But finally he was tried.
He claimed he didn't kill them,
He only ate their hide.
That County had six dem-o-crats
Until that man arrived.
Well only one lives on today:
He ate the other five.

They called him a murderer, a cannibal, a thief;
It just doesn't pay to eat anything but Government-inspected beef.

Eighteen years he stayed in jail,
It was a dreadful fate,
For he suffered indigestion
Every time he ate.
Still, it's hard to blame this hungry guy
Who went searchin' for the mines,
For when he ate his friends
He'd never heard of Duncan Hines.

Alfred Packer was buried in Littleton Cemetery. His simple headstone still attracts thousands of tourists each summer. The cemetery is located at 6155 South Prince Street, Littleton, CO.

On July 17, 1989, the five bodies of the victims were exhumed under the supervision of James E. Starrs, then a Professor of Law specializing in forensic science at George Washington University. No evidence was found to be conclusively indicitive of cannibalism.

In 1994 a more in-depth study was conducted by the Museum of Western Colorado. Period documents from the trail were discovered which, in part, included the statement "A Civil War veteran that visited the crime scene stated that Shannon Bell had been shot twice and the other victims were killed with a hatchet. Later testing at the site found microscopic lead fragments in the soil taken from under Shannon Bell's remains. The only "fact" of Packer's story which seems to be beyond a doubt is that Mr. Bell died of a gunshot wound. The rest may have to remain one of history's more colorfully macabre mysteries.