Alfred G. "Alferd" Packer (January 21, 1842 – April 23, 1907) was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

  prospector

Prospecting

Prospecting is the physical search for minerals, fossils, precious metals or mineral specimens, and is also known as fossicking.Prospecting is a small-scale form of mineral exploration which is an organised, large scale effort undertaken by mineral resource companies to find commercially viable ore...

 who was accused of cannibalism

Cannibalism

Cannibalism is the act or practice of humans eating the flesh of other human beings. It is also called anthropophagy...

 during the winter of 1873-1874. First tried for murder, Packer was eventually sentenced to 40 years in prison

Prison

A prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Imprisonment or incarceration is a legal penalty that may be imposed by the state for the commission of a crime...

 after being convicted of manslaughter

Manslaughter

Manslaughter is a legal term for the killing of a human being, in a manner considered by law as less culpable than murder. The distinction between murder and manslaughter is said to have first been made by the Ancient Athenian lawmaker Dracon in the 7th century BC.The law generally differentiates...

. A biopic of his life, The Legend of Alfred Packer

The Legend of Alfred Packer

The Legend of Alfred Packer is a 1980 film by Jim Roberson from a script by Burton Raffel. It is a biopic of Alferd Packer starring Patrick Dray in the title role...

, was made in 1980.
He was born as Alfred Griner Packer in Allegheny County

Allegheny County, Pennsylvania

Allegheny County is a county in the southwestern part of the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. As of the 2010 census, the population was 1,223,348; making it the second most populous county in Pennsylvania, following Philadelphia County. The county seat is Pittsburgh...

, Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...

, one of three children of James Packer and his wife Esther Griner.