Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 December 1892 — DARES TO SEEK LIBERTY. [ARTICLE]

DARES TO SEEK LIBERTY.

The Colorado Cannibal Anxious to Breathe Free Air. Alfred Parker, the man-eater, the man who killed and devoured his companions and who took delight in telling the horrible story, has applied for a release from the penitentiary at Canyon City, Colo. Parker without doubt is the most fiendish and ghoulish man who ever escaped the hangman’s noose! His record is a gruesome one. In his time it is known that he has killed and eaten five men. In January, 1874, A 1 Parker in company with five others left Dry Creek, San Juan County, for the Los Pinos Agency, and in March of the same year he appeared at his destination, wildeyed, haggard and alone. He told conflicting stories about his companions, finally stating that they had died on the trip. Parker lett Bingham, Utah, in the fall of 1873. Winter found his party of twentv-one snowed up at Dry Creekwith Chief Ouray, the famous Uncompahgre Ute. After camping with the Indian a few weeks he proposed that a few of them push on to the agency. In company with Swan, Miller, Bell. Noon and Humphrey they bundled up blankets, cooking utensils and a gun, and with a horse started over the range in the coldest part of the winter. Food was scarce, and soon the horse was turned loose to die. Three days later the provisions gave out and the party became desperate. It was bitterly cold and the snow fell fast. The men took turns breaking the trail, those- following carrying the canm utensils. Starving, the men chewed their moccasins, and cut up tb.eifcblankets to serve as shoes. When the matches gave out fire was carried in a coffee pot by Swan, who was old and feeble. Sometimes the mon found frozen rosebuds and leaves and ate j them ravenously. Swan gave out when near the top of the Continental divide, j

and then the devilish work began. Several stories are told, but the one most generally believed is that each agreed to climb the mountain and look for signs of the agency, leaving Swan in camp in a dump of trees. « hen they left, Parker returned and struck the old man a blow on the head with a hatchet and killed the others as they came In. Bell, it seems, was bent on murder, and had about made up his mind that some one had to die to save the others. He returned to tamp and Parker assaulted him. A fight took place and Beil succumbed. All that winter Parker, ghoulisn-1 ke, remained with the dead and subsisted on the choice cuts from their bodies. The tale is a fearful one. He was arrested at the agency, but escaped and was not again captured until 1883, in Cheyenne. In 1888 he was sentenced on five counts to eight years each, each sentence to commence wtien the other expired. He is an ex-Union soldier.