Bacon is one of my favorite foods. I don’t eat it often because the word alone makes my arteries harden. Although turkey bacon is supposedly a healthier alternative, I disagree. I don’t know about you, but I think turkey bacon tastes like something created in a laboratory. Although I occasionally eat pork, I rarely think about the hogs that died to satisfy my occasional taste for bacon or ribs. However, a hog farmer named Joseph Briggen has given me a new perspective about eating pork.

In 1850, Joseph Briggen was born on a ranch in Sierra Morena, California. Since Joe’s family scratched out a living as farmers, Joe almost seemed destined to become a farmer. The Briggen farm sat in a desolate location on barren land. Unfortunately, the land didn’t produce any decent crops. This meant that Joe needed to find another product to sell.

From an early age, Joe took a liking to hogs and had a special talent for raising them. If not for raising hogs, he wouldn’t have made it as a farmer. His plump Berkshire hogs often won awards at the California State Fair in Sacramento, California.

Competitors asked him for advice on raising such large and healthy hogs. According to Joe, “it’s all in the feeding.” Whatever he did, it worked because he collected top dollar for his hogs when it came time to auction them off. To maintain his farm, Joe needed a steady influx of workers.

Joe regularly visited San Francisco and found transients to work the farm. Although he couldn’t pay a salary, the transients received room and board as payment. At first, the transients considered it a fair deal.

Eventually, the men wanted more than room and board. They also wanted cash because the work was so difficult. After Joe told the transients he couldn’t afford to pay cash, they left. Workers stayed anywhere from a couple days to a few weeks. It depended on how long they could tolerate the working conditions.

The arrangement between Joe Briggen and his temporary workers continued until he hired a transient named Steven Korad sometime in 1902. After finishing a day of work, Korad settled down in his new quarters. He looked underneath his bed and found two severed fingers. The discovery sent the terrified man to the local police department.

The police returned to the farm the following morning and searched the property. They found at least a dozen skulls and the remains of several human victims. After an investigation, the police soon learned Joseph Briggen’s horrific secret. In business, labor is a primary expense. However, Joe didn’t have any labor costs outside room and board.

After Joe rejected paying his laborers, they tried to leave. Unknown to them, they were moments away from being murdered. After Joe shot his workers to death, he butchered their remains and then fed them to his hogs. Joe could have simply buried the bodies, but he preferred feeding them to his hogs. Supposedly, he thought human remains made the pigs grow larger and taste better. His customers must have agreed because they often said Joe’s hogs were plump and mighty tasty.

Authorities arrested Joe and then convicted him of murder. In 1902, he received a life sentence to San Quentin. His life sentence would be a short one. In 1903, he died in prison. Today, no one knows how many people ended up in Joe Briggen’s pigsty. He got away with his scheme for years because he hired transients who wouldn’t be missed.

His downfall came after he got careless and left two fingers behind. Since his death, he hasn’t been the only serial killer to use hogs to dispose of dead bodies. In 2007, a jury convicted Canadian serial killer Robert Pickton of killing and feeding 49 prostitutes to his hogs. After Pickton was captured, his only regret was that he was one victim short of killing fifty victims. So the next time you order a bacon cheeseburger, take a moment and ask yourself if your bacon was made with any secret ingredients.

Marc is a longtime resident of Clermont County and an avid reader. Contact him through his website at www.themarcabe.com or through Facebook: www.Facebook.com/themarcabe or his Twitter account @themarcabe