Jan. 12, 2026
Terrifying & True | Alfred Packer: The Colorado Cannibal’s 1874 Murder Trial
A blizzard. A vanished trail. The San Juan Mountains in the winter of 1874. Six men leave safety behind—and only one walks back into town. This is the infamous Alfred (Alferd) Packer story: the “Colorado Cannibal” case that refuses to stay settled, because the evidence is brutal… and the survivor’s account keeps shifting.
In this episode of Terrifying & True, we follow the doomed decision to cross the high country after Chief Ouray’s warning, the slow collapse into starvation, and the moment the frontier stops being romantic and becomes a cold, clinical math problem: move or die. Then comes the part that turned suspicion into fury—Packer returning alive, armed, spending money, and carrying other men’s belongings, offering explanations that mutate under pressure.
And when the thaw gives up what the snow hid—five bodies, skulls split by a hatchet, butchered remains on a slope near Lake City—the story transforms from survival horror into a courtroom nightmare: confessions, escape, a retrial, a legal technicality, and a sentence that changes… even as the legend hardens.
Inside this episode:
- The last “clean moment”: Chief Ouray’s warning—and why it didn’t stop them
- The six who left: the men, the reputations, and the stakes that followed them into the snow
- Starvation’s escalation: boots, leather, and the point where “survival” becomes something else
- Dead Man’s Gulch: the gap between what we can prove and what one man claims
- The changing story: why Packer’s versions keep reshaping themselves
- The discovery in the thaw: what the scene says when words can’t be trusted
- Trial, technicality, and legend: how the case becomes folklore without ever becoming clear
Because in the end, the wilderness doesn’t need ghosts to be haunted. Sometimes it only needs snow thick enough to erase tracks… and one man left alive to explain what happened. We’re telling that story tonight.
🎧 LISTEN NOW and subscribe for spine-tingling horror stories every week!
🎉 Unlock exclusive bonus episodes and support the show on Patreon!
👉 WeeklySpooky.com/Join
📬 Contact Us / Submit Your Horror Story!
- Twitter: @WeeklySpooky
- Facebook: facebook.com/WeeklySpooky
- Email: WeeklySpooky@gmail.com
🎵 Music by Ray Mattis 👉 Check out Ray’s incredible work here !
👨💼 Executive Producers: Rob Fields, Bobbletopia.com
🎥 Produced by: Daniel Wilder
🌐 Explore more terrifying tales at: WeeklySpooky.com
WEBVTT
1
00:00:02.160 --> 00:00:07.879
Six men march into Colorado's winter mountains, and only one
2
00:00:08.080 --> 00:00:12.919
comes back, healthy enough to walk, rich enough to spend,
3
00:00:13.599 --> 00:00:18.559
and carrying what doesn't belong to him. His story shifts
4
00:00:19.079 --> 00:00:23.920
with every question, and when the snow finally melts, the
5
00:00:24.000 --> 00:00:33.200
truth left behind in dead man's gulch is written in bone.
6
00:00:33.479 --> 00:00:39.079
What you were about to beat is burieved to be
7
00:00:39.320 --> 00:00:47.000
based on witness accounts, testimonies, and public record. This is
8
00:00:48.840 --> 00:01:01.640
terrifying and treat In February of eighteen seventy four, a
9
00:01:01.679 --> 00:01:06.159
small party of prospectors ignored a warning that should have
10
00:01:06.400 --> 00:01:10.799
ended their plans. Do not cross the high mountains in winter.
11
00:01:11.760 --> 00:01:16.040
The trail would vanish, the storms would close in, and
12
00:01:16.120 --> 00:01:24.799
the cold would take them quietly, efficiently, without mercy. They
13
00:01:24.879 --> 00:01:31.560
went anyway, driven by gold and certainty, and disappeared in
14
00:01:31.640 --> 00:01:37.319
the San Juan wilderness. Months later, one man walked back
15
00:01:37.439 --> 00:01:45.599
into civilization, the now notorious Alfred Packer. His explanation of
16
00:01:45.640 --> 00:01:50.959
what happened failed to hold water. Soon the mountains surrendered
17
00:01:51.000 --> 00:01:57.280
a scene that no one could explain away as simple misfortune.
18
00:01:57.560 --> 00:02:04.840
Five bodies butchered, skulls split by a hatchet. What happened
19
00:02:04.879 --> 00:02:12.759
out there? A desperate act or something far darker. Get comfortable,
20
00:02:13.479 --> 00:02:17.879
make sure you've hit subscribe, because this is not a
21
00:02:18.039 --> 00:02:23.800
cozy winter story. This is a frigid and true tale
22
00:02:23.960 --> 00:02:39.080
that has no shortage of teeth. If you want a
23
00:02:39.199 --> 00:02:44.599
story that proves the wilderness doesn't need ghosts to be haunted,
24
00:02:45.319 --> 00:02:48.919
start in the San Juan Mountains. In the winter of
25
00:02:49.000 --> 00:02:54.599
eighteen seventy four, six men walked into that white country
26
00:02:55.159 --> 00:02:59.639
with the guide who promised he knew the way. Only
27
00:02:59.680 --> 00:03:04.599
one man walked out, and when he came back he
28
00:03:04.840 --> 00:03:10.719
wasn't just alive. He was carrying a rifle, carrying other
29
00:03:10.879 --> 00:03:17.479
men's property, and carrying a story that kept changing its
30
00:03:17.560 --> 00:03:23.800
shape every time someone pressed on it. His name was Alfred,
31
00:03:24.479 --> 00:03:30.319
often written Alfred Packer, and Colorado has been arguing about
32
00:03:30.360 --> 00:03:38.280
what he did ever since January eighteen seventy four. A
33
00:03:38.400 --> 00:03:43.960
large party of prospectors, more than twenty men, straggled into
34
00:03:44.000 --> 00:03:50.360
the ute camp of Chief Alrey, starving and battered. Their
35
00:03:50.400 --> 00:03:55.319
faces were cracked from wind and cold, their hands were stiff.
36
00:03:55.680 --> 00:04:00.960
Their eyes had the dull panic to look people get
37
00:04:01.199 --> 00:04:06.120
when they've started doing the math in their heads. How
38
00:04:06.120 --> 00:04:11.759
many days of food do we have left? The Utes
39
00:04:12.280 --> 00:04:16.879
fed them anyway, and then Chief a Ray gave them
40
00:04:16.920 --> 00:04:22.639
something even more valuable than food. He warned them that
41
00:04:22.839 --> 00:04:27.720
crossing the high mountains in winter was to risk certain death,
42
00:04:28.839 --> 00:04:36.480
not maybe certain. The trails vanish under snow, the storms
43
00:04:36.560 --> 00:04:40.879
come fast, the cold traps you in place, and it
44
00:04:41.000 --> 00:04:46.279
drains you while you're still breathing. A Ray told them
45
00:04:46.759 --> 00:04:52.199
no ute would attempt that passage before spring. It's the
46
00:04:52.319 --> 00:04:56.920
kind of warning you'd think would end the conversation, but
47
00:04:57.920 --> 00:05:04.160
gold changes the way people here words. It turns certainty
48
00:05:04.920 --> 00:05:11.839
into probably and probably into we'll be fine. This is
49
00:05:11.920 --> 00:05:16.399
the last clean moment in the story, the moment before
50
00:05:16.560 --> 00:05:23.279
hunger starts making decisions for them. Several miners refuse to wait,
51
00:05:23.959 --> 00:05:29.040
and that's how a desperate, doomed little party formed, six
52
00:05:29.160 --> 00:05:34.560
men leaving the safety of Airey's camp on February ninth,
53
00:05:35.199 --> 00:05:41.160
eighteen seventy four. It's easy to say five victims, but
54
00:05:41.360 --> 00:05:46.319
these were not faceless characters. They were men with quirks
55
00:05:46.360 --> 00:05:51.279
and reputations and private reasons for gambling their lives on
56
00:05:51.879 --> 00:05:57.959
snowbound mountains. Israel Swan was the elder, in his sixties
57
00:05:58.399 --> 00:06:01.879
and rumored to be carrying a small fortune in cash,
58
00:06:02.680 --> 00:06:08.639
people remembered that detail because it matters later, because money
59
00:06:09.319 --> 00:06:16.160
makes motives heavier. George California Noon was a teenager barely
60
00:06:16.240 --> 00:06:20.120
old enough to grow a decent beard, chasing the frontier
61
00:06:20.279 --> 00:06:25.879
dream like it was an adventure novel. Frank Miller was
62
00:06:25.959 --> 00:06:29.959
a German butcher. Even if you don't know anything else
63
00:06:30.000 --> 00:06:34.879
about him, you know this. He owned knives and he
64
00:06:35.000 --> 00:06:40.800
knew what a blade could do. That also matters later.
65
00:06:42.399 --> 00:06:45.759
There was James Humphrey, part of the party as well,
66
00:06:46.120 --> 00:06:50.839
less vivid in the surviving accounts. Sometimes the quiet ones
67
00:06:51.439 --> 00:06:56.360
vanish first in history, even if they didn't vanish first
68
00:06:57.000 --> 00:07:01.560
in the snow chen and Wilson Bell was described as
69
00:07:01.600 --> 00:07:05.680
a gambler, red faced, with the kind of confidence that
70
00:07:05.839 --> 00:07:11.399
reads as charm until it becomes aggression. And then there
71
00:07:11.480 --> 00:07:17.199
was Alfred Packer, the Guide, a drifter with a rough past,
72
00:07:17.800 --> 00:07:21.920
a man who talked like he belonged in the mountains.
73
00:07:22.959 --> 00:07:28.199
He would be the only one who returned. The san
74
00:07:28.279 --> 00:07:34.639
Juans in winter aren't just cold, they're obliterating. Snow doesn't
75
00:07:34.680 --> 00:07:40.800
fall politely. It comes down hard, sideways in curtains. It
76
00:07:40.920 --> 00:07:45.240
fills footprints, it rounds off landmarks, It takes a trail
77
00:07:45.360 --> 00:07:48.759
you can follow at noon and turns it into nothing
78
00:07:49.360 --> 00:07:54.480
by dusk. Within days, a fierce blizzard trapped them among
79
00:07:54.519 --> 00:07:58.959
the peaks. Rations ran out. They weren't traveling with the
80
00:07:59.079 --> 00:08:02.079
kind of food you need for a long winter march.
81
00:08:03.000 --> 00:08:09.160
They were traveling with optimism, which isn't edible. By the
82
00:08:09.279 --> 00:08:13.800
ninth day, they'd eaten their last morsel of flour mixed
83
00:08:13.800 --> 00:08:17.680
with snow to make a thin dough. That's not a
84
00:08:17.759 --> 00:08:22.360
meal so much as a ritual, something you swallow to
85
00:08:22.439 --> 00:08:28.240
pretend you still have control. Old man Swan volunteered to
86
00:08:28.319 --> 00:08:32.559
carry a pot of burning coals in his knapsack so
87
00:08:32.600 --> 00:08:37.440
the others could warm their frozen feet at stops. Imagine
88
00:08:37.480 --> 00:08:42.320
that for a second. Your survival plan is carrying fire
89
00:08:42.559 --> 00:08:47.519
like it's an infant you can't afford to drop. The
90
00:08:47.600 --> 00:08:53.399
matches were gone, fingers were clumsy, and the wind was relentless,
91
00:08:54.399 --> 00:08:58.759
so they marched with glowing coals inside of a coffee pot.
92
00:09:00.080 --> 00:09:04.679
They chewed pine gum, They ate rosebuds, and when even
93
00:09:04.799 --> 00:09:09.639
that wasn't enough, the body would start stripping itself for parts.
94
00:09:10.840 --> 00:09:15.080
That's when they did something like a tall tail. Until
95
00:09:15.120 --> 00:09:21.840
you remember what starvation does to a man. They ate leather,
96
00:09:22.720 --> 00:09:27.480
They pulled hair from their goat skin moccasins, roasted the hides,
97
00:09:28.039 --> 00:09:32.919
and gnawed on their own boots. Not because they were insane,
98
00:09:33.000 --> 00:09:37.879
at least not in the traditional sense, because hunger is
99
00:09:37.919 --> 00:09:42.360
a blunt instrument and it doesn't care what you think
100
00:09:42.759 --> 00:09:50.320
is normal. By day twenty, Israel Swan collapsed, not dramatically,
101
00:09:51.159 --> 00:09:56.080
not with last words. He just ran out of gas.
102
00:09:57.480 --> 00:09:59.960
The others dragged him to the banks of a fron
103
00:10:00.440 --> 00:10:04.639
lake and punched holes in the ice, hunting for fish.
104
00:10:06.480 --> 00:10:12.759
They found nothing, no movement below, no miracle under the ice,
105
00:10:13.840 --> 00:10:19.399
and at that point their options narrowed to the cruelest
106
00:10:19.559 --> 00:10:26.559
kind of choice. Stay and die where you are, or
107
00:10:27.440 --> 00:10:33.399
move and die somewhere else. So they limped down the
108
00:10:33.440 --> 00:10:39.080
frozen Gunnison River toward a pine shaded gulch near a plateau,
109
00:10:40.279 --> 00:10:46.639
to places later known as dead Man's Gulch and Cannibal Plateau.
110
00:10:47.720 --> 00:10:52.519
Names like that don't come from nowhere. They're not given
111
00:10:53.480 --> 00:10:58.639
so much as earned. We don't have a perfect minute
112
00:10:58.639 --> 00:11:03.240
by minute account of what happened next, because the story's
113
00:11:03.320 --> 00:11:09.679
only narrator is the one man everyone suspects. But we
114
00:11:09.799 --> 00:11:13.759
do know the shape of the end, because the mountains
115
00:11:13.799 --> 00:11:19.879
gave up evidence. When the thaw finally came, somewhere in
116
00:11:20.000 --> 00:11:27.679
that gulch, starvation became something worse. Somewhere in those trees,
117
00:11:28.440 --> 00:11:35.759
the line between survival and murder got crossed, and when
118
00:11:35.799 --> 00:11:47.960
it was done, five men were dead. On April sixteenth,
119
00:11:48.080 --> 00:11:53.600
eighteen seventy four, more than two months after leaving Aure's camp,
120
00:11:54.320 --> 00:11:59.279
Alfred Packer stumbled into the Ute Agency near Los Pinos
121
00:12:00.200 --> 00:12:06.919
modern Sacawachee. The ute agent, Charles Adams, later reported that
122
00:12:07.039 --> 00:12:13.559
Packer arrived quote evidently in good health and condition. Despite
123
00:12:13.679 --> 00:12:19.200
the other's disappearance. People expected a skeleton of a man.
124
00:12:19.879 --> 00:12:29.440
They expected frostbite, delirium, half mad desperation. Instead, Packer looked functional.
125
00:12:30.320 --> 00:12:34.759
He had a rifle, he had some missing belongings, but
126
00:12:34.919 --> 00:12:39.039
most of all, he had a story ready to go
127
00:12:40.360 --> 00:12:45.600
from here on out. This is not just a survival tale.
128
00:12:45.639 --> 00:12:50.519
It's a case with a witness who keeps changing his words.
129
00:12:51.279 --> 00:12:55.879
He claimed Swan had frozen or collapsed early, and that
130
00:12:55.960 --> 00:13:01.120
the others left him behind, promising to send help. He
131
00:13:01.240 --> 00:13:07.919
implied he'd been abandoned, and somehow, by grit, luck or willpower,
132
00:13:08.679 --> 00:13:14.120
he crawled his way back to civilization. But then Packer
133
00:13:14.159 --> 00:13:18.440
went in to Sagawache and did something that makes suspicion
134
00:13:19.080 --> 00:13:26.559
spread like wildfire. He started spending money, horse money, drink money,
135
00:13:27.159 --> 00:13:29.919
and he carried a rifle. No one could find a
136
00:13:29.960 --> 00:13:34.799
purchase record for the other prospectors who'd listened to Ray,
137
00:13:35.320 --> 00:13:40.519
who'd waited out winter and reached the agency safely, were shocked.
138
00:13:41.399 --> 00:13:46.759
They'd survived by being cautious. How had Packer survived by
139
00:13:46.879 --> 00:13:52.919
rushing into a blizzard and then came out richer town
140
00:13:53.159 --> 00:14:00.360
talk turned sharp, and talk becomes pressure. Under that pressure,
141
00:14:00.879 --> 00:14:07.039
Packer confessed sort of. On May eighth, eighteen seventy four,
142
00:14:07.600 --> 00:14:12.039
he signed a notarized statement in Airey's camp. In it,
143
00:14:12.480 --> 00:14:16.039
he described a grim sequence that tried to paint the
144
00:14:16.120 --> 00:14:21.000
situation as a series of disasters where he was always
145
00:14:21.159 --> 00:14:26.039
the last man left holding the moral line. He said,
146
00:14:26.240 --> 00:14:32.159
Israel Swan died of hunger. The men cut meat from
147
00:14:32.240 --> 00:14:37.840
Swan's body and ate it. A few days later, James
148
00:14:37.919 --> 00:14:44.399
Humphrey also died and was eaten. Packer said he left
149
00:14:44.440 --> 00:14:48.600
the camp to gather firewood and returned to find Frank
150
00:14:48.679 --> 00:14:54.399
Miller killed by the remaining men. Then, according to Packer.
151
00:14:55.039 --> 00:15:01.480
Shannon Bell shot and killed George Noon and fined. Bell
152
00:15:02.240 --> 00:15:08.360
tried to murder Packer. Packer claimed he fought back, shooting
153
00:15:08.440 --> 00:15:14.919
Bell twice in self defense. After that, with everyone else dead,
154
00:15:15.559 --> 00:15:21.679
he admitted taking meat from Bell's body for food because
155
00:15:21.720 --> 00:15:26.519
he had to live long enough to walk out. It is,
156
00:15:26.799 --> 00:15:33.200
on the surface a survival confession, but it's also a
157
00:15:33.240 --> 00:15:39.360
story that does something very convenient. It makes everyone else
158
00:15:39.519 --> 00:15:46.759
either die naturally or become the monster, while Packer becomes
159
00:15:46.879 --> 00:15:52.759
the last reluctant survivor. That's a hard story to swallow
160
00:15:53.360 --> 00:15:56.840
when the teller is also holding on to the dead
161
00:15:56.879 --> 00:16:04.080
men's property. Authorities were now fully convinced. Charles Adams organized
162
00:16:04.120 --> 00:16:09.000
a search party to verify Packer's account, with Packer guiding.
163
00:16:09.840 --> 00:16:12.960
Adams even persuaded him to lead them to the missing
164
00:16:13.039 --> 00:16:18.399
men's camp, and Packer's story hit a problem you can't
165
00:16:18.440 --> 00:16:24.000
explain away with just winter. After days in the snow,
166
00:16:24.799 --> 00:16:28.519
Packer claimed he couldn't find the route they had taken.
167
00:16:29.200 --> 00:16:35.639
Couldn't or wouldn't. One frontiersman shouted at him, quote, you
168
00:16:35.840 --> 00:16:38.000
killed these men. You ought to be hung for it.
169
00:16:39.200 --> 00:16:42.360
And here's a detail that should make your skin crawl
170
00:16:43.159 --> 00:16:47.960
before anything could be proven. In early August of eighteen
171
00:16:48.120 --> 00:16:55.840
seventy four, a jailer inexplicably slipped Packer a penknife. Packer
172
00:16:56.000 --> 00:17:01.720
used it to escape. He disappeared into the night. If
173
00:17:01.759 --> 00:17:06.319
you're innocent, you don't usually run like a guilty man.
174
00:17:07.519 --> 00:17:14.400
But Packer ran. Just days after his escape, evidence of
175
00:17:14.440 --> 00:17:19.079
the crime could not be ignored. A prosecutor stumbled upon
176
00:17:19.200 --> 00:17:26.960
a grisly tableau high near Lake City. Five bodies, partially
177
00:17:27.000 --> 00:17:32.039
buried by snow on a grassy slope. This is where
178
00:17:32.119 --> 00:17:38.799
the maybe dies. Each skull had been split by a
179
00:17:38.839 --> 00:17:45.000
heavy hatchet. One corpse was missing its head entirely. Limbs
180
00:17:45.039 --> 00:17:49.319
were mangled and sliced. Blankets draped over the dead were
181
00:17:49.440 --> 00:17:54.759
stained and torn. A witness later recalled they were a nasty,
182
00:17:55.480 --> 00:18:01.559
bad smelling mess to handle. A Harper's Weekly correspondent sketched
183
00:18:01.599 --> 00:18:06.160
the scene five butchered men amid pine needles and blood,
184
00:18:06.799 --> 00:18:12.680
turning the mountain horror into a national image. Whatever happened
185
00:18:12.720 --> 00:18:17.279
in that gulch, it certainly wasn't gentle, and it didn't
186
00:18:17.319 --> 00:18:21.799
look like a neat series of one dies, then another dies,
187
00:18:21.960 --> 00:18:27.839
then a third. It looked like violence. It looked like
188
00:18:27.920 --> 00:18:33.359
a slaughterhouse in the snow. Nine years passed, but the
189
00:18:33.480 --> 00:18:40.200
story didn't fade. It fermented. For the next nine years,
190
00:18:40.400 --> 00:18:47.440
Packer evaded capture. He drifted among Arizona, Montana, and Colorado
191
00:18:47.680 --> 00:18:52.839
under various aliases. At one point he would even work
192
00:18:52.880 --> 00:18:57.559
as a saloon keeper. Imagine the conversations in that bar
193
00:18:58.200 --> 00:19:03.519
if anyone knew who was pouring the drinks. But in
194
00:19:03.599 --> 00:19:09.000
eighteen eighty three, his past caught up with him. One
195
00:19:09.039 --> 00:19:11.599
of the men from the larger party who had stayed
196
00:19:11.640 --> 00:19:16.839
in Airey's camp, a French peddler named Jean Frenchi Cabazon,
197
00:19:17.599 --> 00:19:24.279
recognized Packer's distinctive laugh in a Wyoming saloon. Think about
198
00:19:24.279 --> 00:19:28.480
that for a second. Not a face, not a scar,
199
00:19:29.400 --> 00:19:36.720
not a confession, a laugh. Packer was arrested in Fort Fetterman, Wyoming,
200
00:19:37.400 --> 00:19:43.000
and his identity was confirmed by Charles Adams. In March
201
00:19:43.119 --> 00:19:49.160
eighteen eighty three, the notorious Colorado cannibal was brought back
202
00:19:49.359 --> 00:19:55.319
under guard to Hinsdale County, Colorado. What comes next is
203
00:19:55.400 --> 00:20:02.480
not one trial, but years of retellings, courtroom versions of
204
00:20:02.519 --> 00:20:15.440
the same nightmare. Packer's trial began in Lake City on
205
00:20:15.559 --> 00:20:21.319
April ninth, eighteen eighty three. The courthouse was packed. The
206
00:20:21.440 --> 00:20:25.680
story had transfixed the west. The air in that room
207
00:20:25.720 --> 00:20:30.279
would have felt like a storm cloud, heavy with certainty,
208
00:20:31.000 --> 00:20:36.759
hungry for a villain. The prosecution called dozens of witnesses.
209
00:20:37.440 --> 00:20:43.440
Travel companions testified Packer had boasted about eating human flesh
210
00:20:44.160 --> 00:20:49.720
and had been seen skulking through camp counting dollars. One
211
00:20:49.799 --> 00:20:54.079
frontiersman said Packer lunged at him when asked for a knife,
212
00:20:54.720 --> 00:21:01.279
with quote murder in his eyes, and then Packer took
213
00:21:01.319 --> 00:21:07.799
the stand. He gave a six hour rambling testimony, altering
214
00:21:07.839 --> 00:21:13.160
his earlier narrative again. Now he insisted the others all
215
00:21:13.240 --> 00:21:18.759
lived until Bell, out of his mind, hacked them to death.
216
00:21:20.079 --> 00:21:24.039
In this version, Packer returned to camp and found Bell
217
00:21:24.200 --> 00:21:29.759
alone wielding a hatchet over a campfire. Packer claimed he
218
00:21:29.920 --> 00:21:37.480
shot Bell in the stomach. Bell attacked anyway and fell. Bell,
219
00:21:38.039 --> 00:21:42.640
Packer said, had killed the other four with the hatchet.
220
00:21:43.839 --> 00:21:49.680
Packer fled, Then he returned to gather a pot of
221
00:21:49.799 --> 00:21:56.440
butchered meat for food. It was dramatic, it was cinematic,
222
00:21:57.400 --> 00:22:02.799
and it was hard to believe because the bodies had
223
00:22:02.839 --> 00:22:08.519
been found together, not scattered in some long, chaotic chase,
224
00:22:09.160 --> 00:22:13.279
and because Packer's story kept evolving like it was trying
225
00:22:13.319 --> 00:22:17.519
to fit the shape of whatever people had already discovered,
226
00:22:18.839 --> 00:22:23.480
the jury convicted him of first degree murder for the
227
00:22:23.559 --> 00:22:29.079
death of Israel Swan. On April nineteenth, eighteen eighty three,
228
00:22:29.839 --> 00:22:36.079
Judge Melville Gary sentenced him to hang, language so severe
229
00:22:36.799 --> 00:22:44.759
it became famous. He was to quote Die Die Die.
230
00:22:45.000 --> 00:22:51.200
But the law, as always had its own appetite. Before
231
00:22:51.359 --> 00:22:57.720
Packer could be executed, the Colorado Supreme Court intervened. His
232
00:22:57.839 --> 00:23:02.920
lawyers argued correctly that the killings occurred on Ute reservation
233
00:23:03.200 --> 00:23:09.720
land before Colorado's statehood in eighteen seventy six, when Colorado
234
00:23:09.920 --> 00:23:15.400
law had no death penalty. In late eighteen eighty five,
235
00:23:16.000 --> 00:23:20.480
the court annulled the death sentence on that very technicality.
236
00:23:21.480 --> 00:23:26.640
A retrial followed, moved to Gunnison to find impartial jurors.
237
00:23:27.319 --> 00:23:32.359
Because locals were furious, some even threatened to lynch him
238
00:23:32.440 --> 00:23:38.039
themselves if the case wasn't moved. In eighteen eighty six,
1
00:00:02.160 --> 00:00:07.879
2
00:00:08.080 --> 00:00:12.919
3
00:00:13.599 --> 00:00:18.559
4
00:00:19.079 --> 00:00:23.920
5
00:00:24.000 --> 00:00:33.200
6
00:00:33.479 --> 00:00:39.079
7
00:00:39.320 --> 00:00:47.000
8
00:00:48.840 --> 00:01:01.640
9
00:01:01.679 --> 00:01:06.159
10
00:01:06.400 --> 00:01:10.799
11
00:01:11.760 --> 00:01:16.040
12
00:01:16.120 --> 00:01:24.799
13
00:01:24.879 --> 00:01:31.560
14
00:01:31.640 --> 00:01:37.319
15
00:01:37.439 --> 00:01:45.599
16
00:01:45.640 --> 00:01:50.959
17
00:01:51.000 --> 00:01:57.280
18
00:01:57.560 --> 00:02:04.840
19
00:02:04.879 --> 00:02:12.759
20
00:02:13.479 --> 00:02:17.879
21
00:02:18.039 --> 00:02:23.800
22
00:02:23.960 --> 00:02:39.080
23
00:02:39.199 --> 00:02:44.599
24
00:02:45.319 --> 00:02:48.919
25
00:02:49.000 --> 00:02:54.599
26
00:02:55.159 --> 00:02:59.639
27
00:02:59.680 --> 00:03:04.599
28
00:03:04.840 --> 00:03:10.719
29
00:03:10.879 --> 00:03:17.479
30
00:03:17.560 --> 00:03:23.800
31
00:03:24.479 --> 00:03:30.319
32
00:03:30.360 --> 00:03:38.280
33
00:03:38.400 --> 00:03:43.960
34
00:03:44.000 --> 00:03:50.360
35
00:03:50.400 --> 00:03:55.319
36
00:03:55.680 --> 00:04:00.960
37
00:04:01.199 --> 00:04:06.120
38
00:04:06.120 --> 00:04:11.759
39
00:04:12.280 --> 00:04:16.879
40
00:04:16.920 --> 00:04:22.639
41
00:04:22.839 --> 00:04:27.720
42
00:04:28.839 --> 00:04:36.480
43
00:04:36.560 --> 00:04:40.879
44
00:04:41.000 --> 00:04:46.279
45
00:04:46.759 --> 00:04:52.199
46
00:04:52.319 --> 00:04:56.920
47
00:04:57.920 --> 00:05:04.160
48
00:05:04.920 --> 00:05:11.839
49
00:05:11.920 --> 00:05:16.399
50
00:05:16.560 --> 00:05:23.279
51
00:05:23.959 --> 00:05:29.040
52
00:05:29.160 --> 00:05:34.560
53
00:05:35.199 --> 00:05:41.160
54
00:05:41.360 --> 00:05:46.319
55
00:05:46.360 --> 00:05:51.279
56
00:05:51.879 --> 00:05:57.959
57
00:05:58.399 --> 00:06:01.879
58
00:06:02.680 --> 00:06:08.639
59
00:06:09.319 --> 00:06:16.160
60
00:06:16.240 --> 00:06:20.120
61
00:06:20.279 --> 00:06:25.879
62
00:06:25.959 --> 00:06:29.959
63
00:06:30.000 --> 00:06:34.879
64
00:06:35.000 --> 00:06:40.800
65
00:06:42.399 --> 00:06:45.759
66
00:06:46.120 --> 00:06:50.839
67
00:06:51.439 --> 00:06:56.360
68
00:06:57.000 --> 00:07:01.560
69
00:07:01.600 --> 00:07:05.680
70
00:07:05.839 --> 00:07:11.399
71
00:07:11.480 --> 00:07:17.199
72
00:07:17.800 --> 00:07:21.920
73
00:07:22.959 --> 00:07:28.199
74
00:07:28.279 --> 00:07:34.639
75
00:07:34.680 --> 00:07:40.800
76
00:07:40.920 --> 00:07:45.240
77
00:07:45.360 --> 00:07:48.759
78
00:07:49.360 --> 00:07:54.480
79
00:07:54.519 --> 00:07:58.959
80
00:07:59.079 --> 00:08:02.079
81
00:08:03.000 --> 00:08:09.160
82
00:08:09.279 --> 00:08:13.800
83
00:08:13.800 --> 00:08:17.680
84
00:08:17.759 --> 00:08:22.360
85
00:08:22.439 --> 00:08:28.240
86
00:08:28.319 --> 00:08:32.559
87
00:08:32.600 --> 00:08:37.440
88
00:08:37.480 --> 00:08:42.320
89
00:08:42.559 --> 00:08:47.519
90
00:08:47.600 --> 00:08:53.399
91
00:08:54.399 --> 00:08:58.759
92
00:09:00.080 --> 00:09:04.679
93
00:09:04.799 --> 00:09:09.639
94
00:09:10.840 --> 00:09:15.080
95
00:09:15.120 --> 00:09:21.840
96
00:09:22.720 --> 00:09:27.480
97
00:09:28.039 --> 00:09:32.919
98
00:09:33.000 --> 00:09:37.879
99
00:09:37.919 --> 00:09:42.360
100
00:09:42.759 --> 00:09:50.320
101
00:09:51.159 --> 00:09:56.080
102
00:09:57.480 --> 00:09:59.960
103
00:10:00.440 --> 00:10:04.639
104
00:10:06.480 --> 00:10:12.759
105
00:10:13.840 --> 00:10:19.399
106
00:10:19.559 --> 00:10:26.559
107
00:10:27.440 --> 00:10:33.399
108
00:10:33.440 --> 00:10:39.080
109
00:10:40.279 --> 00:10:46.639
110
00:10:47.720 --> 00:10:52.519
111
00:10:53.480 --> 00:10:58.639
112
00:10:58.639 --> 00:11:03.240
113
00:11:03.320 --> 00:11:09.679
114
00:11:09.799 --> 00:11:13.759
115
00:11:13.799 --> 00:11:19.879
116
00:11:20.000 --> 00:11:27.679
117
00:11:28.440 --> 00:11:35.759
118
00:11:35.799 --> 00:11:47.960
119
00:11:48.080 --> 00:11:53.600
120
00:11:54.320 --> 00:11:59.279
121
00:12:00.200 --> 00:12:06.919
122
00:12:07.039 --> 00:12:13.559
123
00:12:13.679 --> 00:12:19.200
124
00:12:19.879 --> 00:12:29.440
125
00:12:30.320 --> 00:12:34.759
126
00:12:34.919 --> 00:12:39.039
127
00:12:40.360 --> 00:12:45.600
128
00:12:45.639 --> 00:12:50.519
129
00:12:51.279 --> 00:12:55.879
130
00:12:55.960 --> 00:13:01.120
131
00:13:01.240 --> 00:13:07.919
132
00:13:08.679 --> 00:13:14.120
133
00:13:14.159 --> 00:13:18.440
134
00:13:19.080 --> 00:13:26.559
135
00:13:27.159 --> 00:13:29.919
136
00:13:29.960 --> 00:13:34.799
137
00:13:35.320 --> 00:13:40.519
138
00:13:41.399 --> 00:13:46.759
139
00:13:46.879 --> 00:13:52.919
140
00:13:53.159 --> 00:14:00.360
141
00:14:00.879 --> 00:14:07.039
142
00:14:07.600 --> 00:14:12.039
143
00:14:12.480 --> 00:14:16.039
144
00:14:16.120 --> 00:14:21.000
145
00:14:21.159 --> 00:14:26.039
146
00:14:26.240 --> 00:14:32.159
147
00:14:32.240 --> 00:14:37.840
148
00:14:37.919 --> 00:14:44.399
149
00:14:44.440 --> 00:14:48.600
150
00:14:48.679 --> 00:14:54.399
151
00:14:55.039 --> 00:15:01.480
152
00:15:02.240 --> 00:15:08.360
153
00:15:08.440 --> 00:15:14.919
154
00:15:15.559 --> 00:15:21.679
155
00:15:21.720 --> 00:15:26.519
156
00:15:26.799 --> 00:15:33.200
157
00:15:33.240 --> 00:15:39.360
158
00:15:39.519 --> 00:15:46.759
159
00:15:46.879 --> 00:15:52.759
160
00:15:53.360 --> 00:15:56.840
161
00:15:56.879 --> 00:16:04.080
162
00:16:04.120 --> 00:16:09.000
163
00:16:09.840 --> 00:16:12.960
164
00:16:13.039 --> 00:16:18.399
165
00:16:18.440 --> 00:16:24.000
166
00:16:24.799 --> 00:16:28.519
167
00:16:29.200 --> 00:16:35.639
168
00:16:35.840 --> 00:16:38.000
169
00:16:39.200 --> 00:16:42.360
170
00:16:43.159 --> 00:16:47.960
171
00:16:48.120 --> 00:16:55.840
172
00:16:56.000 --> 00:17:01.720
173
00:17:01.759 --> 00:17:06.319
174
00:17:07.519 --> 00:17:14.400
175
00:17:14.440 --> 00:17:19.079
176
00:17:19.200 --> 00:17:26.960
177
00:17:27.000 --> 00:17:32.039
178
00:17:32.119 --> 00:17:38.799
179
00:17:38.839 --> 00:17:45.000
180
00:17:45.039 --> 00:17:49.319
181
00:17:49.440 --> 00:17:54.759
182
00:17:55.480 --> 00:18:01.559
183
00:18:01.599 --> 00:18:06.160
184
00:18:06.799 --> 00:18:12.680
185
00:18:12.720 --> 00:18:17.279
186
00:18:17.319 --> 00:18:21.799
187
00:18:21.960 --> 00:18:27.839
188
00:18:27.920 --> 00:18:33.359
189
00:18:33.480 --> 00:18:40.200
190
00:18:40.400 --> 00:18:47.440
191
00:18:47.680 --> 00:18:52.839
192
00:18:52.880 --> 00:18:57.559
193
00:18:58.200 --> 00:19:03.519
194
00:19:03.599 --> 00:19:09.000
195
00:19:09.039 --> 00:19:11.599
196
00:19:11.640 --> 00:19:16.839
197
00:19:17.599 --> 00:19:24.279
198
00:19:24.279 --> 00:19:28.480
199
00:19:29.400 --> 00:19:36.720
200
00:19:37.400 --> 00:19:43.000
201
00:19:43.119 --> 00:19:49.160
202
00:19:49.359 --> 00:19:55.319
203
00:19:55.400 --> 00:20:02.480
204
00:20:02.519 --> 00:20:15.440
205
00:20:15.559 --> 00:20:21.319
206
00:20:21.440 --> 00:20:25.680
207
00:20:25.720 --> 00:20:30.279
208
00:20:31.000 --> 00:20:36.759
209
00:20:37.440 --> 00:20:43.440
210
00:20:44.160 --> 00:20:49.720
211
00:20:49.799 --> 00:20:54.079
212
00:20:54.720 --> 00:21:01.279
213
00:21:01.319 --> 00:21:07.799
214
00:21:07.839 --> 00:21:13.160
215
00:21:13.240 --> 00:21:18.759
216
00:21:20.079 --> 00:21:24.039
217
00:21:24.200 --> 00:21:29.759
218
00:21:29.920 --> 00:21:37.480
219
00:21:38.039 --> 00:21:42.640
220
00:21:43.839 --> 00:21:49.680
221
00:21:49.799 --> 00:21:56.440
222
00:21:57.400 --> 00:22:02.799
223
00:22:02.839 --> 00:22:08.519
224
00:22:09.160 --> 00:22:13.279
225
00:22:13.319 --> 00:22:17.519
226
00:22:18.839 --> 00:22:23.480
227
00:22:23.559 --> 00:22:29.079
228
00:22:29.839 --> 00:22:36.079
229
00:22:36.799 --> 00:22:44.759
230
00:22:45.000 --> 00:22:51.200
231
00:22:51.359 --> 00:22:57.720
232
00:22:57.839 --> 00:23:02.920
233
00:23:03.200 --> 00:23:09.720
234
00:23:09.920 --> 00:23:15.400
235
00:23:16.000 --> 00:23:20.480
236
00:23:21.480 --> 00:23:26.640
237
00:23:27.319 --> 00:23:32.359
238
00:23:32.440 --> 00:23:38.039