Joseph Briggen of Sierra Morena, California was proud of his award winning pigs.
They were beautiful creatures, plump and frisky. All the farmers knew he had the very best and healthiest pigs around. When one of his pigs were up on auction, the bidding would get fierce.
When Briggen was asked how he managed to raise such fine pigs, he replied,
“It’s all in the feeding.”
What people did not know at the time was that Briggen’s secret to raising fine pigs was feeding them humans.
They Come and Go
Hired hands to work the ranches were notorious for taking up jobs and leaving work abruptly to chase after other pursuits. It was the nature of the work. No one stuck around forever and a farmer was lucky if someone stayed on for several months before packing up and leaving.
So when Briggen would hire a ranch hand and the man later disappeared, no one gave the matter a second thought. In fact, Briggen complained so much about not being able to keep any of his ranch hands that he was known to travel to San Fransisco to pick up homeless men. He would bring these men back to his ranch for an honest living and they would never be seen or heard from again.
Found Severed Fingers
Briggen might not have ever been caught had it not been for an observant hired hand. The hired hand, Steven Koran, discovered a pair of severed fingers behind his bed in the workers quarters and reported it to the police.
The police came and searched the pig farm. They soon uncovered the human remains of at least 12 men
Given a Life Sentence
It is believed that Joseph Briggen committed the murders between 1880 and 1902. No one (except Briggen) knows the actual number of men he murdered and there may have been many more bones on the farm that were simply never discovered. It was also believed that Briggen had ground up entire bodies for feed which would have sufficiently destroyed the bones and made discovery of the fragments nearly impossible in 1902.
In August 1902, Briggen was sentenced to life imprisonment in San Quentin. Briggen did not last long in prison, and he died in 1903.
Lure of Buried Money
After Joseph Briggen was imprisoned, a rather strange rumor began to circulate. Many believed that Joseph Briggen had buried gold or money at his ranch with a value of $1,350.
A paroled convict attempted to uncover the treasure in 1910, but was warned that the Briggen family already held a claim on any money or gold found on the property.
There is no word on whether or not anyone ever uncovered the hidden money.
