Colorado was infamous for a couple of gruesome murders. One of the first notorious crimes in Colorado History to garner national attention involved gold prospector Alferd Packer. A group of men left Provo, Utah for gold country near Breckenridge, Colorado. They made the trek during what turned out to be a harsh winter in the Rockies in 1874. Eventually, the initial group splintered into smaller ones, Packer traveling with five other men.Packer and his party eventually ended up stranded in the Rockies due to rough winter storms. Weeks later, Packer alone returned to civilization, arriving in Gunnison on April 16, 1874. Packer was initially believed when he reported how the rest of his party had died (around present day Lake City founded 1875). He advised that other party members killed one another. He would concede that he lived off the remains in order to survive.Eventually, people started to doubt Packerís version of events. Packer was soon charged with murder, if not cannibalism, and the gold-seeker went on the lam, captured nine years later. In his first trial, he was found guilty and was sentenced to hang. The verdict was set aside by the Colorado Supreme Court. He was tried a second time, found guilty and sentenced to 40 years in prison, eight years for each of the five dead men.Now this is weird: When Packer was released from prison, he went to work for the Denver Post and its owner ó as a security guard!Adolph Coors III was the grandson of the founder of Coors Brewing Co. He was the companyís CEO and chairman of the board.On Feb. 9, 1960, Coors was kidnapped on the way to his office in Golden by a prison escapee named Joseph Corbett. Later that Tuesday, a milkman found Coors idling station wagon, along with blood spattered on the bridge. This started a massive manhunt for Adolph Coors.The 31-year Corbett was already a convicted murderer who had escaped from a California minimum-security prison about five years earlier. Corbett demanded a ransom in the amount of $500,000, but likely had killed the Coors heir not long after kidnapping him. The kidnapping of the brewery magnate made international headlines.The remains of Coors body was found at a Douglas County dump months after his disappearance. Corbett ultimately was captured, convicted and sentenced to life in prison. He was released on parole in 1980. He took his own life in 2009 at the age of 80.
