Alfred Packer
Photo © Neal Ulevich. All rights reserved.
A jury convicted Alfred Packer of murdering and eating hapless miners he had agreed to guide through the snowy wilderness of the Colorado Rockies in 1883. The case was a sensation, and Packer, evading justice once by escape, was later recaptured, tried and sentenced to death. In a comment no doubt apocryphal, the judge is quoted as telling the miscreant: "They was seven Dimmycrats in Hinsdale county and you et five of 'em." That death verdict was overturned, and Packer went to jail instead of the gallows. He was released in 1901 and died in 1907. He is buried under a simple military-style marker at Littleton, CO.