“Yah voracious man-eatin’ sonofabitch when yah came to Hinsdale County, there was siven dimmycrats, but you, yah et five of ’em, goddam yah.” So quoted a Lake City newspaper of Judge M.B. Gerry in 1883, upon the conclusion of the trial of Alferd Packer for the murders—and cannibalism—of Shannon Wilson Bell, James Humphrey, Frank “Butcher” Miller, George “California” Noon, and Israel Swan. Nine years earlier, Packer had convinced the men, part of a larger party, that he was a mountain guide who could lead them over the San Juan mountains to…
