DDT - Deambulações DeMentes Teóricas 35

The Serial Killer - Part XXVI
akfçla

Alfred Packer served in the Union Army in the American Civil War, in 1862. However, he was discharged for epilepsy eight months later. He then decided to try his luck at prospecting for precious metals.

In November 1873, Packer was in a party of 21 men who left Provo, Utah, heading for the Colorado gold country. On January 21, 1874 he met Chief Ouray, known as the White Man's Friend. Chief Ouray recommended they postpone their expedition until spring, as they were likely to encounter dangerous winter weather in the mountains. Ignoring Ouray's advice, Packer and five others left for Gunnison, Colorado, on February 9. The party became hopelessly lost and ran out of provisions. They were snowbound in the Rocky Mountains. Packer made three confessions which differed considerably about what occurred. In the last, Packer claimed he went scouting and came back to find one of his companions, Shannon Bell roasting human flesh. Bell rushed him with a hatchet, so Packer shot and killed him in self defense. Packer insisted Bell had gone mad and murdered all the others.

On April 16, 1874, Packer arrived alone at Los Pinos Indian Agency near Gunnison. He spent some time in a saloon, meeting several of his previous party. He claimed self-defence, but his story was not believed. During the trial, the presiding judge, M.B. Gerry, said:

Close your ears to the blandishments of hope. Listen not to its fluttering promises of life. But prepare to meet the spirits of thy murdered victims. Prepare for the dread certainty of death.

Packer signed a confession on August 5, 1874. He was jailed in Saguache, but he escaped soon after.

On March 11, 1883, Packer was discovered in Cheyenne, Wyoming, living under the alias of "John Schwartze." On March 16, he signed another confession. On April 6, a trial began in Lake City, Colorado. On April 13, he was found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to death. In October 1885, the sentence was reversed by the Colorado Supreme Court as being based on an ex post facto law. On June 8, 1886, Packer was sentenced to 40 years at another trial in Gunnison. On June 19, 1899, Packer's sentence was upheld by the Colorado Supreme Court. However, he was paroled on February 8, 1901, and went to work as a guard at the Denver Post. He died reputedly of senility at the age of 65. Packer is widely rumored to have become a vegetarian before his death.

On July 17, 1989, 115 years after Packer allegedly consumed his companions, an exhumation of the five bodies was undertaken by James E. Starrs, then a professor of law specializing in forensic science at George Washington University. Starrs and his colleague Walter H. Birkby concluded, "I don't think there will ever be any way to scientifically demonstrate cannibalism. Cannibalism per se is the ingestion of human flesh. So you'd have to have a picture of the guy actually eating."

In 1994, David P. Bailey, Curator of History at the Museum of Western Colorado, undertook an investigation to turn up more conclusive results than Starrs'. In the Audrey Thrailkill collection of firearms owned by the museum was a Colt revolver that had reportedly been found at the site of Packer's alleged crime. Exhaustive investigation into the pistol's background turned up documents from the time of the trial: "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. Upon careful study of Bell, he noticed a severe bullet wound to the pelvic area and that Bell's wallet had a bullet hole through it." This seems to corroborate Packer's claim that Bell had killed the other victims and that Packer shot Bell in self-defense.

By 2000, Bailey had not yet proven a link between the antique pistol and Alferd Packer, but he discovered that forensic samples from the 1989 exhumation had been archived, and analysis in 2001 with an electron microscope by Dr. Richard Dujay at Mesa State College turned up microscopic lead fragments in the soil taken from under Shannon Bell's remains that were matched by spectrograph with the bullets remaining in what was indeed Packer's pistol. While it appears certain that Bell was killed by a gunshot, the question of murder itself remains.

What matters to me here is not so much as who shot who but who ate who. Apparentely Packer was not so fond of flesh as everyone thought him to be. On the other hand, his turn to vegetarianism might indicate a somewhat loss of apetite for a long enjoyed treat ...