Alfred Packer's Gun
Historical artifact -- Pistol
Identifier:
1979.10.73Description
This rusted relic of an 1862 Colt pistol still has bullets in three of the its five chambers. The pistol had been issued as a .36 caliber cap and ball revolver in 1862, and was converted to fire .38 caliber rimfire cartridges in 1873.Many of the sources indicated that Alferd Packer might have been innocent of the murders of his companions. Packer claimed in his last interview with the Denver Post in 1907 that the real murderer was Shannon Bell, who he claimed killed all the other members of the party and began to butcher them. Packer claimed upon his return to camp that he shot Bell with a revolver in self-defense after being attacked.
The pistol was excavated in 1950 at the Alferd Packer murder site on Cannibal Mesa, not far from present-day Lake City, Colorado.
X-ray spectrography was used to analyze one of the bullets, which was compared to a sample from victim Shannon Bell. The samples were consistent, and linked the gun to the death of Shannon Bell, lending credibility to Packer's version that he shot the real killer (Shannon Bell).