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Never-ignore-Native-wisdom · Crime and Horror

0:00
Speaker 1: One summer day, a man named John Randolph was hiking
0:03
Speaker 1: through a remote forest in Colorado when he began to
0:06
Speaker 1: smell something terrible. Intrigued, he followed the smell until it
0:10
Speaker 1: brought him to this clearing, and in the clearing, John
0:13
Speaker 1: saw what looked like an old campsite. Now, John is
0:16
Speaker 1: out in the middle of nowhere, and so the idea
0:18
Speaker 1: that somebody was camping out out here in what looked
0:21
Speaker 1: like a long term settlement was pretty bizarre to John,
0:24
Speaker 1: and so John walked into the clearing to see what
0:26
Speaker 1: was going on. And when he turned the corner and
0:29
Speaker 1: saw the ground in the middle of the campsite, he
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Speaker 1: saw something that at first he couldn't even process. It
0:35
Speaker 1: was just so horrible. It just looked fake. But eventually
0:39
Speaker 1: he realized what he was looking at was real, at
0:41
Speaker 1: which point John turned around, sprinted out of there, and
0:44
Speaker 1: began screaming for help. But before we get into that story,
0:48
Speaker 1: if you're a fan of the strange, dark, and mysterious
0:50
Speaker 1: delivered in story format, then you come to the right place,
0:53
Speaker 1: because that's all we do, and we upload once a week.
0:56
Speaker 1: So if that's of interest to you, please invite the
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1:12
Speaker 1: get into today's story. On the freezing cold night of
1:28
Speaker 1: February eighth, eighteen seventy four, a sixty five year old
1:31
Speaker 1: man named Israel Swan sat around this roaring fire with
1:35
Speaker 1: a big group of men inside of this valley in
1:38
Speaker 1: western Colorado. The men around the fire, including Israel, were
1:41
Speaker 1: all gold prospectors, which meant they traveled the western United
1:45
Speaker 1: States looking for gold. But over the past several weeks,
1:49
Speaker 1: this group of prospectors had been trapped in this valley
1:52
Speaker 1: because of all the terrible winter storms they had, these
1:54
Speaker 1: storms coming in that each time would dump up to
1:57
Speaker 1: six feet of snow. But on this particular as Israel
2:01
Speaker 1: sat by the fire, you know, enjoying the flames and
2:03
Speaker 1: hearing people tell stories, one of Israel's friends, one of
2:06
Speaker 1: the other gold prospectors, whose name was Alfred Packer, he
2:10
Speaker 1: stood up and basically pitched the whole group as to
2:13
Speaker 1: why they should come with him and leave the valley
2:16
Speaker 1: right now. Basically, Alfred told the group that, you know,
2:18
Speaker 1: the weather is starting to turn a bit. It's not
2:20
Speaker 1: as bad anymore. You know, the snow's starting to melt.
2:23
Speaker 1: And Alfred said, I know a pathway out of here
2:26
Speaker 1: that will take us out of this valley in just
2:28
Speaker 1: two weeks, and it'll bring us right to Breckenridge, Colorado,
2:32
Speaker 1: which was an area that was known by prospectors for
2:35
Speaker 1: having lots and lots of gold. And so Alfred's basically
2:38
Speaker 1: telling them, you know, this is a win win. We
2:40
Speaker 1: can get out of here sooner and we can get rich.
2:43
Speaker 1: After Alfred made this pitch, he sat back down and
2:45
Speaker 1: everybody just stayed quiet for a second. And Israel he
2:48
Speaker 1: kind of looked around and watched to see if anybody
2:51
Speaker 1: would take Alfred up on his proposition. Now, Israel knew
2:55
Speaker 1: unlike him. Most of the other prospectors didn't like Alfred.
2:59
Speaker 1: They said he was lazy and difficult. But Israel felt
3:02
Speaker 1: like that was really not the reason they did not
3:04
Speaker 1: like his friend. He believed the reason other people did
3:07
Speaker 1: not like Alfred was because Alfred had epilepsy, which meant
3:11
Speaker 1: he periodically had seizures, and because he had seizures, it
3:14
Speaker 1: kind of made him a liability for journeys like this,
3:17
Speaker 1: where you know, the whole group really needs to rely
3:20
Speaker 1: on everybody and everybody needs to pull their own weight,
3:22
Speaker 1: and so they were kind of worried about a guy
3:24
Speaker 1: who at any moment could just become kind of useless
3:27
Speaker 1: because he was having a seizure. But for Israel, Alfred's
3:30
Speaker 1: epilepsy really didn't matter. He didn't feel like Alfred was
3:33
Speaker 1: some huge liability. He felt like Alfred was actually very
3:36
Speaker 1: smart and quite bold, and so for him to stand
3:39
Speaker 1: up and make this pitch just kind of felt like
3:41
Speaker 1: in keeping with who he was. He was somebody that
3:44
Speaker 1: wanted to get things done, and you know, Israel liked
3:46
Speaker 1: that about him. However, just because Israel liked Alfred, that
3:50
Speaker 1: didn't mean he was just going to naturally go with
3:52
Speaker 1: Alfred and do his big plan. But he was at
3:55
Speaker 1: least thinking about it. And as Israel was weighing out
3:58
Speaker 1: the pros and cons of, you know, whether or he
4:00
Speaker 1: should go with Alfred, he happened to look across the
4:02
Speaker 1: fire and he saw one of the men, this really
4:05
Speaker 1: big guy was sitting there looking really serious. And just
4:08
Speaker 1: shaking his head slowly back and forth, like no, you
4:11
Speaker 1: guys can't be considering leaving early. And then the big
4:14
Speaker 1: guy stood up and he held out his hand right
4:16
Speaker 1: in front of Alfred basically telling him like, don't say
4:19
Speaker 1: another word. And then this guy, while still looking at Alfred,
4:23
Speaker 1: he said, if you leave right now, all of your
4:26
Speaker 1: friends will die. And then this big guy sat back
4:28
Speaker 1: down again, and then everybody around the fire just sat
4:31
Speaker 1: there really tense for a few seconds, in total silence.
4:34
Speaker 1: The big man who had just spoken was not a
4:36
Speaker 1: gold prospector. He was actually very different than the rest
4:39
Speaker 1: of the people sitting around this fire. His name was Uray,
4:42
Speaker 1: and he was a Native American chief of the Tablewatch
4:45
Speaker 1: band of the Ute tribe. And Chief Uray had actually
4:48
Speaker 1: saved the lives of everybody Israel and Alfred included who
4:52
Speaker 1: was sitting around this fire, because a few weeks earlier,
4:55
Speaker 1: this whole group of gold prospectors had wound up lost
4:58
Speaker 1: in this valley, which was the valley where Chief Furrey
5:01
Speaker 1: lived with his tribe, and he had found them stumbling
5:04
Speaker 1: around on the brink of death with all the snow
5:06
Speaker 1: coming down, and so Chief Furrey and his people brought
5:09
Speaker 1: the prospectors some food and water. They helped them set
5:12
Speaker 1: up a campsite right near a river, and then Chief
5:14
Speaker 1: Urre told them to stay put in this campsite and
5:17
Speaker 1: ride out the winter, and then in the springtime, when
5:20
Speaker 1: the snow melts, it'll be safe for you all to leave. Now.
5:23
Speaker 1: At first, the gold prospectors were only thankful and just
5:27
Speaker 1: totally psyched that Chief Furrey had found them and given
5:30
Speaker 1: them this campsite. I mean, this was great, and so
5:32
Speaker 1: they had no problem agreeing to wait until the spring
5:35
Speaker 1: to finally leave. But now, after several weeks of being
5:39
Speaker 1: kind of trapped in this camp, the whole group was
5:41
Speaker 1: really starting to get restless. They were worried if they
5:44
Speaker 1: didn't leave soon, there'd be no more gold for them
5:46
Speaker 1: to mine and for Israel specifically. There was even more
5:49
Speaker 1: pressure on him to go out and find gold because
5:52
Speaker 1: he had told his family that this would be his
5:55
Speaker 1: last treasure hunting adventure ever, and so he really couldn't
5:58
Speaker 1: go home empty handed. He literally needed the gold in
6:02
Speaker 1: order to continue to survive and take care of his family.
6:05
Speaker 1: So when Alfred stood up and broke the kind of
6:08
Speaker 1: tense silence and said to Chief Furay, you know, thank
6:11
Speaker 1: you for your concern, but I am going to leave early,
6:14
Speaker 1: and I just hope others will come with me. You know.
6:16
Speaker 1: At that point, Israel saw the conviction in Alfred, and
6:19
Speaker 1: Israel really felt like he did need to leave now.
6:22
Speaker 1: He needed to get that gold. And so Israel said,
6:24
Speaker 1: you know what, I'll go with you as well. And
6:26
Speaker 1: then after Israel said he would go, four other gold
6:29
Speaker 1: prospectors also volunteered to leave early with Alfred. Chief Uray
6:33
Speaker 1: could tell he was not going to change any of
6:36
Speaker 1: these guys' minds, and so even though he felt like
6:38
Speaker 1: this was a terrible idea, he shifted his focus from
6:41
Speaker 1: trying to stop them to just trying to give them
6:44
Speaker 1: as much information as he could about the area they
6:46
Speaker 1: were going to go into. And so he called all
6:48
Speaker 1: the volunteers who'd be leaving early over to him, and
6:51
Speaker 1: then Chief Ura drew a map in the dirt on
6:54
Speaker 1: the ground, and he told Alfred and Israel and the
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Speaker 1: other four volunteers that you have to follow the river
6:59
Speaker 1: out of it'll bring you to this mountain range called
7:02
Speaker 1: the San Juan Mountain Range. And you cannot attempt to
7:05
Speaker 1: go over those mountains. You will not make it. You've
7:08
Speaker 1: got to follow that river and go around the mountain range,
7:11
Speaker 1: and then once you do, on the other side there
7:14
Speaker 1: will be an outpost where you can stop, get supplies, rest,
7:17
Speaker 1: and then continue the rest of the way towards Breckenridge.
7:19
Speaker 1: And then after Chief Uray had explained all this, he
7:22
Speaker 1: made sure to mark an x on his dirt map
7:25
Speaker 1: exactly where the outpost would be. And then Chief Ura
7:28
Speaker 1: just turned around and walked over to his horse and
7:30
Speaker 1: rode away. And then shortly after that, Alfred, Israel and
7:34
Speaker 1: the rest of the gold prospectors also turned in for
7:36
Speaker 1: the night. The next morning, Israel, Alfred, and the other
7:39
Speaker 1: four volunteers who were going to be going on this journey,
7:42
Speaker 1: they got up early and began packing up their stuff.
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Speaker 1: And as they did, one of the other gold prospectors
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Speaker 1: who had not volunteered to go with them, who would
7:50
Speaker 1: be staying in the valley until the springtime, he actually
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Speaker 1: came forward and said he would help them carry their
7:54
Speaker 1: supplies as far as he could go, you know, using
7:57
Speaker 1: his horse, but at some point he would need to
8:00
Speaker 1: drop off their stuff and then they would be on
8:02
Speaker 1: their own. And so the men were very thankful about this,
8:05
Speaker 1: and so shortly after eating breakfast, they were all ready
8:07
Speaker 1: to go, and they hit the trail. As Israel and
8:10
Speaker 1: the rest of the prospectors began to hike their way
8:12
Speaker 1: up and out of the valley, they began to see
8:15
Speaker 1: off in the distance the huge, jagged mountains of the
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Speaker 1: San Juan Mountain range. But they were careful to kind
8:20
Speaker 1: of veer closer to the north, to stay along that
8:23
Speaker 1: river path, because they knew they were not supposed to
8:25
Speaker 1: go up and over the mountains. And as Israel trudged
8:28
Speaker 1: through the snow in a line of men, he held
8:30
Speaker 1: onto a coffee pot, a metal coffee pot that he
8:33
Speaker 1: kept hot coals inside of. This not only kept his
8:36
Speaker 1: hands warm, but also if he ran out of matches,
8:38
Speaker 1: he could easily start a fire using the coals. It
8:40
Speaker 1: was an old trick he had learned. And so as
8:42
Speaker 1: he's clutching this magnificent warm coffee pot in the freezing
8:45
Speaker 1: cold weather, Israel heard someone walking up behind him, and
8:48
Speaker 1: so he turned around and he saw it was Alfred,
8:51
Speaker 1: and he looked totally miserable, way more miserable than Israel was.
8:55
Speaker 1: And so without even thinking about it, Israel just handed
8:58
Speaker 1: off his warm coffee pot to Alfred, and Alfred took
9:01
Speaker 1: it and clutched it and was obviously so thankful. Now,
9:04
Speaker 1: none of these gold prospectors had struck it rich. They
9:07
Speaker 1: were all basically poor. But of all these gold prospectors,
9:12
Speaker 1: Alfred really had the least of all of them. And
9:15
Speaker 1: as a result, Israel kind of felt protective of Alfred.
9:18
Speaker 1: And also Alfred was half the age of Israel. Alfred
9:22
Speaker 1: was thirty years old, and so Israel kind of viewed
9:24
Speaker 1: Alfred as like a lost kid trying to find his way.
9:28
Speaker 1: Alfred had also confided in Israel that when the Civil
9:31
Speaker 1: War broke out in the United States, Alfred had attempted
9:35
Speaker 1: to join the Union Army on two different occasions because
9:38
Speaker 1: he wanted to fight the slaveholding Confederate army. But in
9:41
Speaker 1: both cases they kicked Alfred out for his epilepsy. But
9:45
Speaker 1: that had not stopped Alfred from tattooing on his arm
9:49
Speaker 1: his battalion information and his name. And unfortunately, because Alfred
9:54
Speaker 1: could not read or write, he misspelled his name when
9:57
Speaker 1: he gave it to the tattoo artist, and so he
10:00
Speaker 1: got the tattoo it did not say Alfred for his
10:03
Speaker 1: first name. It said Alford Alferd, and from that point
10:08
Speaker 1: on that was his name. Nobody called him Alfred, they
10:11
Speaker 1: called him Alfred, and so this was kind of embarrassing
10:14
Speaker 1: for him. And then after getting rejected from the military,
10:17
Speaker 1: Alfred had kind of bounced around from one job to
10:19
Speaker 1: the next, never really putting his roots down and never
10:22
Speaker 1: starting a family. And so again, you know, Israel just
10:25
Speaker 1: felt like this was a guy who needed some help.
10:27
Speaker 1: And so after Alfred very happily accepted that coffee pot
10:31
Speaker 1: from Israel, he in turn reached into his jacket and
10:34
Speaker 1: pulled out a flask with some alcohol in it, and
10:36
Speaker 1: he handed it to Israel, almost like a thank you
10:38
Speaker 1: for giving me this warm coffee pot. And then the
10:41
Speaker 1: two friends walked side by side for a while, you know,
10:43
Speaker 1: passing back and forth the flask and the coffee pot.
10:46
Speaker 1: And then by late afternoon that day, when the snow
10:49
Speaker 1: was really starting to come down, the prospector, who had
10:52
Speaker 1: volunteered to use his horse to help move some of
10:54
Speaker 1: their supplies, he had finally reached a point where he said,
10:57
Speaker 1: you know, my horse can't go any farther. The weather
11:00
Speaker 1: too bad, and so he dropped all their supplies and
11:02
Speaker 1: then he turned and headed back down the trail, and
11:05
Speaker 1: very likely, as these men watched him disappear down the trail,
11:09
Speaker 1: they all have the same thought. I just got to
11:11
Speaker 1: suck it up for two weeks to get through this
11:13
Speaker 1: treacherous journey, and I will get to Breckenridge and I
11:17
Speaker 1: will become rich. Thank you to Better Help for sponsoring
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13:04
Speaker 1: and help. Two weeks would pass by, and Alfred Israel
13:14
Speaker 1: and the other four prospectors did not show up at
13:17
Speaker 1: that outpost that Chief Uray had pointed out, which was
13:20
Speaker 1: on the other side of the San Juan Mountains. That
13:22
Speaker 1: was going to be their first official stop before they
13:25
Speaker 1: continued the rest of the way to Breckenridge. And then
13:27
Speaker 1: another two weeks went by and still they did not
13:30
Speaker 1: show up at the outpost, and they didn't show up
13:32
Speaker 1: at any of the other camps in the surrounding areas. Now,
13:35
Speaker 1: Alfred's big plan for this group was really dependent on
13:39
Speaker 1: the weather holding up when they left. It was true
13:41
Speaker 1: that the weather was improving, it was snowing less, But
13:45
Speaker 1: within a couple of days of this group setting off
13:48
Speaker 1: on the trip, those winter storms came back with a
13:51
Speaker 1: vengeance and just dumped snow all over the valley and
13:54
Speaker 1: all across the trail this group would have been on
13:57
Speaker 1: in their attempt to leave, But the only people who
14:00
Speaker 1: knew that these men had embarked on this perilous journey
14:04
Speaker 1: was the men themselves, and then also Chief Furay and
14:07
Speaker 1: the other goal prospectors who had decided to stay in
14:10
Speaker 1: the valley until spring. But even if Chief Furray and
14:13
Speaker 1: those other prospectors knew that Alfred, Israel and the others
14:17
Speaker 1: were in trouble, you know, they would have no way
14:20
Speaker 1: of helping them or getting to them or even communicating
14:22
Speaker 1: to the outside world. They were completely stuck in the
14:25
Speaker 1: valley and basically couldn't do anything, And so, in short,
14:28
Speaker 1: it appeared that Alfred, Israel, and the other four men
14:31
Speaker 1: were totally lost somewhere out in the wild, but nobody knew.
14:35
Speaker 1: But that would all change on April sixteenth, eighteen seventy four,
14:40
Speaker 1: roughly two months after Israel, Alfred, and the others had
14:43
Speaker 1: begun what was supposed to be a two week long journey.
14:46
Speaker 1: That morning, a group of officials who manned the outpost
14:50
Speaker 1: that Israel and Alfred and the others were supposed to
14:52
Speaker 1: go to. They were having breakfast in one of the
14:54
Speaker 1: outpost's little log cabins, and as they're eating and talking
14:57
Speaker 1: to each other, suddenly from behind them, the door to
15:00
Speaker 1: the cabin flies open, and these officials they turn around
15:04
Speaker 1: and they see standing in the doorway is this totally
15:07
Speaker 1: disheveled looking guy with long hair that's sticking up in
15:09
Speaker 1: the air in a huge bushy beard, and in one
15:12
Speaker 1: hand he's got a rifle and in the other hand
15:15
Speaker 1: he's got a metal coffee pot, and his eyes were
15:17
Speaker 1: darting like crazy side to side, and he was clearly
15:20
Speaker 1: in shock, and he was trying to speak, but he
15:22
Speaker 1: just couldn't. This man was Alfred, and it was obvious
15:26
Speaker 1: to the officials that this man is in dire need
15:29
Speaker 1: of help, and so without even asking him any questions,
15:31
Speaker 1: they whisked him inside, shut the door, got him some food,
15:34
Speaker 1: got him some water, and immediately Alfred's wolfing down the
15:37
Speaker 1: food as fast as he can until he began vomiting,
15:40
Speaker 1: at which point he apologized profusely and said, you know,
15:43
Speaker 1: I've been starving out in the wild for weeks, and
15:45
Speaker 1: you know it must have done something to my intestinal track.
15:48
Speaker 1: You know, it's probably damaged. But frankly, the officials did
15:51
Speaker 1: not care about the fact that he threw up all
15:53
Speaker 1: over the ground. They were worried this guy was gonna
15:55
Speaker 1: die right then and there, and so the officials helped
15:58
Speaker 1: Alfred get cleaned up and put in close and then
16:01
Speaker 1: Alfred asked them, you know, do you have any whiskey?
16:03
Speaker 1: I want to kind of warm my body up, and
16:05
Speaker 1: they said, no problem. They handed him some whiskey, and
16:07
Speaker 1: so Alfred threw a couple of shots back, and then
16:09
Speaker 1: after that it was pretty obvious that Alfred had kind
16:11
Speaker 1: of relaxed a little bit. And then at that point
16:13
Speaker 1: one of the officials asked Alfred, what happened to you?
16:17
Speaker 1: As soon as Alfred was asked this question, he shut
16:20
Speaker 1: his eyes and kind of grimaced, like even the thought
16:23
Speaker 1: of what had happened to him was just too painful
16:25
Speaker 1: to think about. But after a moment of silence, Alfred,
16:29
Speaker 1: with his eyes still closed, told the officials that he
16:32
Speaker 1: had been with five men and they were trying to
16:34
Speaker 1: hike their way out of the valley to get to Breckenridge, Colorado,
16:38
Speaker 1: to look for gold. But as they were hiking this trail,
16:41
Speaker 1: this huge storm came in and made it really hard
16:43
Speaker 1: to navigate the trail they were on, and so the
16:46
Speaker 1: group decided they would actually cut through the San Juan
16:49
Speaker 1: Mountain range. The thing Chief Uray said, don't do that,
16:52
Speaker 1: do not go over the mountains. They decided to do that,
16:55
Speaker 1: but as they were traversing these treacherous mountains, it was
16:58
Speaker 1: clear that Alfred was just not keeping up with the group,
17:02
Speaker 1: and so unfortunately they made the decision to leave Alfred
17:06
Speaker 1: behind to die, and he knew he was being abandoned
17:09
Speaker 1: to die, and so he had to watch as his
17:11
Speaker 1: five friends disappeared into the snow, but amazingly, Alfred did
17:17
Speaker 1: not die. Instead, he would spend the next nearly two
17:20
Speaker 1: months stumbling through the snowy forest, having no idea where
17:23
Speaker 1: he was going, eating roots and flowers and looking for
17:27
Speaker 1: shelter any chance he got. But the thing that really
17:30
Speaker 1: allowed him to survive out in the wild was when
17:33
Speaker 1: he was abandoned by the five others, he was in
17:36
Speaker 1: possession of that coffee pot that had the coals inside
17:38
Speaker 1: of it, and so at night he was able to
17:40
Speaker 1: start fires. And then also at one point he was
17:43
Speaker 1: so hungry that he cooked his leather shoes in the
17:46
Speaker 1: fire and ate them, because again, this guy is starving,
17:49
Speaker 1: and so really he was on the brink of death
17:51
Speaker 1: when he randomly stumbled into this outpost and found this cabin.
17:56
Speaker 1: After Alfred finished telling his story, the officials were just
17:59
Speaker 1: totally shit and silent, and Alfred eventually would ask them
18:03
Speaker 1: a question. He would say, have any of my men
18:05
Speaker 1: come through here? Did anybody else survive? And they would say, no,
18:09
Speaker 1: it's only you. We have not seen anybody else. Now,
18:12
Speaker 1: The officials did not send out a search party right away,
18:15
Speaker 1: mostly because it seemed kind of obvious that Alfred's men
18:19
Speaker 1: were likely dead. By this point, it's been two months
18:22
Speaker 1: since they started that journey. You know, the chances are
18:25
Speaker 1: just not good that they have survived. But even if
18:27
Speaker 1: these other men were not dead yet, the officials had
18:30
Speaker 1: no idea where to begin their search. They knew that
18:33
Speaker 1: if they actually wanted to go looking for these guys,
18:36
Speaker 1: they would need Alfred to lead the search, because he's
18:38
Speaker 1: the only one who knows where they could be. But
18:41
Speaker 1: Alfred was not healthy enough to go out in the
18:43
Speaker 1: wild and lead a search, and so for several weeks,
18:46
Speaker 1: Alfred just stayed in the outpost, resting and recovering, and
18:50
Speaker 1: then finally, when he was healthy enough, he would go
18:53
Speaker 1: out and lead a search party to go find the
18:55
Speaker 1: missing men. But unfortunately he couldn't find anything. And so
18:59
Speaker 1: it wasn't into that summer, when all the snow had
19:02
Speaker 1: finally melted, that the mystery was finally solved about what
19:05
Speaker 1: happened to those other men. On August twentieth, eighteen seventy four,
19:10
Speaker 1: a traveling artist named John Randolph was hiking through a
19:13
Speaker 1: forest in western Colorado, roughly in the area where those
19:17
Speaker 1: other prospectors would have been walking on their attempt to
19:20
Speaker 1: leave the valley, and as John Randolph was walking through
19:23
Speaker 1: that area, he began smelling this horrible smell, and so
19:27
Speaker 1: John followed the smell until it brought him to this clearing,
19:30
Speaker 1: and then in the clearing was what looked like an old,
19:33
Speaker 1: beat up campsite, and so, being curious, John walked into
19:37
Speaker 1: the clearing to see who was in this campsite. But
19:39
Speaker 1: when he turned the corner and saw what was on
19:41
Speaker 1: the ground in the middle of this campsite, he froze
19:45
Speaker 1: because on the ground in the middle of this campsite
19:48
Speaker 1: were five dead men, all lying perfectly in a row.
19:52
Speaker 1: They were the source of the terrible smell. And right away,
19:55
Speaker 1: even though John was in shock from what he's seeing,
19:58
Speaker 1: he could tell that these five men did not die
20:01
Speaker 1: from something natural. One guy was missing his head altogether,
20:05
Speaker 1: and the other four had obvious signs of something being
20:09
Speaker 1: smashed really hard, probably repeatedly, into their heads. But that
20:13
Speaker 1: wasn't all. The other thing John immediately noticed is that
20:17
Speaker 1: the five bodies were in very different states of decay.
20:20
Speaker 1: Two of the bodies were basically skeletons, but the other
20:24
Speaker 1: three were not. They were basically intact. Their chests had
20:27
Speaker 1: been cut and flayed open, but they all looked like
20:30
Speaker 1: they had died somewhat recently. In fact, one of the
20:33
Speaker 1: men looked so lively that it seemed like he was
20:36
Speaker 1: just sleeping, despite the gaping wound in his chest and
20:39
Speaker 1: his head that clearly indicated he was dead. Now John
20:42
Speaker 1: wanted to turn and run away, but he had this
20:45
Speaker 1: morbid curiosity. He wanted to know what he was even
20:48
Speaker 1: looking at, you know, what happened to these guys, And so,
20:51
Speaker 1: kind of against his better judgment, he walked a little
20:54
Speaker 1: bit closer to the bodies, and when he got close enough,
20:57
Speaker 1: he noticed something else that was totally off about the scene.
21:01
Speaker 1: When he was looking down at these men, he could
21:04
Speaker 1: tell that the wounds they had sustained, especially in their chest,
21:08
Speaker 1: looked surgical, like whoever had wounded them, whoever had cut them,
21:12
Speaker 1: had done so with an incredible amount of precision. This
21:14
Speaker 1: was not random hacks that got these guys killed. This
21:18
Speaker 1: was like a butcher carving up meat. And then John
21:21
Speaker 1: happened to look up from these five bodies and he
21:24
Speaker 1: noticed just a little ways away was the remains of
21:26
Speaker 1: a burned out fire pit, and then there was a
21:29
Speaker 1: trail that kind of led off into the woods behind
21:32
Speaker 1: the fire. And so again, you know, John, he wants
21:34
Speaker 1: to run, but he can't help but be really curious,
21:37
Speaker 1: and so he walked past the bodies. He went to
21:39
Speaker 1: the fire pit, and he followed that trail kind of
21:42
Speaker 1: back into the woods, and he found this ramshackle shelter
21:45
Speaker 1: kind of tucked away in the woods that was abandoned.
21:48
Speaker 1: No one was in there, but it had all the
21:50
Speaker 1: signs of someone living here for a pretty long period
21:53
Speaker 1: of time. And then suddenly it was like all these
21:56
Speaker 1: pieces came together and John realized what he had stumbled on. Clearly,
22:02
Speaker 1: those five men had been murdered, and the person who
22:05
Speaker 1: murdered them very likely lived in this camp. And over
22:08
Speaker 1: the course of what looks like weeks or months, this
22:11
Speaker 1: person was butchering these men and then cooking their body
22:15
Speaker 1: parts over that fire and eating them. This is like
22:18
Speaker 1: a cannibal camp. And John, you know, he's thinking, is
22:21
Speaker 1: this guy going to come back? You know, whoever lives here,
22:23
Speaker 1: are they coming back soon? He didn't know, and so
22:26
Speaker 1: kind of in a panic, he pulled out a sketch book.
22:28
Speaker 1: He sketched the area, and then he turned and sprinted
22:30
Speaker 1: out of there to go find help. It would turn
22:33
Speaker 1: out John the illustrator was totally correct about what he
22:36
Speaker 1: thought was happening at that camp. After Alfred was left
22:39
Speaker 1: behind to die, those five other men carried on into
22:43
Speaker 1: the night, up into the mountains, and then somebody attacked them,
22:47
Speaker 1: began killing them and eating them, and that person was Alfred.
22:52
Speaker 1: That was why Alfred had survived for so long. It
22:55
Speaker 1: wasn't just that he was able to make fires at night.
22:58
Speaker 1: It was that he was able to make fires at
23:00
Speaker 1: night and eat his friends. Now, no one has ever
23:03
Speaker 1: been able to actually determine how Alfred went about killing
23:07
Speaker 1: these five men, or even when he killed these five men.
23:11
Speaker 1: All we know is that, based on the investigation, four
23:14
Speaker 1: of his victims appeared to have been asleep when they
23:17
Speaker 1: were murdered. But the fifth victim, who actually was Israel,
23:21
Speaker 1: the one guy who really liked Alfred and looked out
23:23
Speaker 1: for him and was kind of like a father figure
23:25
Speaker 1: to him. He was the only one who showed signs
23:28
Speaker 1: of a big struggle before he was murdered. While Alfred
23:31
Speaker 1: denied killing all five of the men, he said that
23:34
Speaker 1: he basically only killed one of them and it was
23:36
Speaker 1: self defense, and somebody else killed the other four. You know,
23:39
Speaker 1: it was kind of confusing, you know, despite those claims
23:42
Speaker 1: he had, the one thing Alfred never denied was the cannibalism.
23:46
Speaker 1: In fact, Alfred straight up told authorities that he grew
23:50
Speaker 1: to really like the taste of human meat. In fact,
23:53
Speaker 1: when they searched that campsite that John Randolph found, they
23:57
Speaker 1: would find the remains of a dead deer that was
23:59
Speaker 1: right near the campsite. But despite it being right there,
24:03
Speaker 1: Alfred never attempted to carve it up and eat it.
24:06
Speaker 1: He just kept going back to his stockpile of human
24:09
Speaker 1: meat and eating that. In the end, Alfred was convicted
24:12
Speaker 1: of murder and he was sentenced to forty years in prison,
24:16
Speaker 1: But in nineteen oh one, when he was ninety two
24:18
Speaker 1: years old, he was granted parole and right away Alfred
24:21
Speaker 1: became a vegetarian and then died a few years later.
24:29
Speaker 1: From the eighteen hundreds all the way through the nineteen hundreds,
24:33
Speaker 1: Bodmin's Saint Lawrence Hospital was one of the largest running
24:36
Speaker 1: asylums in all of England, but in two thousand and
24:39
Speaker 1: two it was permanently shut down due to so many
24:42
Speaker 1: accusations of patient mistreatment. Now after it was shut down.
24:46
Speaker 1: The property kind of fell into disrepair. It was basically abandoned,
24:50
Speaker 1: and so when it became totally overgrown, it began attracting
24:53
Speaker 1: vandals and urban explorers, and so the owners of the
24:57
Speaker 1: property finally just put up a fence all the way
24:59
Speaker 1: around the Hote hospital and they hired security guards to
25:02
Speaker 1: patrol the property at night to keep vandals out. And
25:05
Speaker 1: so these security guards began doing that, and very quickly
25:09
Speaker 1: they began reporting that they were seeing and hearing things
25:12
Speaker 1: they couldn't explain on this property. They'd hear things like
25:15
Speaker 1: footsteps on floors that they knew were vacant, or they'd
25:18
Speaker 1: hear doors slamming, and at least one guard claimed to
25:21
Speaker 1: have seen a gurney roll into the hallway from a room,
25:25
Speaker 1: but then when he checked the room, there was nobody
25:27
Speaker 1: in there. But perhaps the scariest account came from a
25:30
Speaker 1: security guard who when he showed up for work that night,
25:33
Speaker 1: he was feeling kind of sick, and so when he
25:35
Speaker 1: was out walking the property, he found somewhere to lay
25:37
Speaker 1: down in one of the smaller hospital buildings, and as
25:40
Speaker 1: he was laying there with his eyes closed, he began
25:43
Speaker 1: hearing a tapping sound. Coming from outside, and so he
25:46
Speaker 1: stood up, and he walked over to the window and
25:48
Speaker 1: he looked out into the night, but he couldn't see
25:50
Speaker 1: anything out there that would cause this tapping sound, and
25:53
Speaker 1: so he shrugged and turned back around to go lay
25:55
Speaker 1: down again. But when he turned around, standing in this
26:00
Speaker 1: room with him was this skinny woman wearing a white
26:03
Speaker 1: hospital gown, and she had this grimy black hair that
26:07
Speaker 1: was covering her face. And so the security guard is
26:09
Speaker 1: just staring at her, totally terrified, and before he could
26:12
Speaker 1: do anything, this woman just turns and walks into a
26:16
Speaker 1: wall and vanishes. To hear the full terrifying story, check
26:20
Speaker 1: out the latest episode on our newest Ballin Studios podcast
26:24
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26:27
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