Ricky McCormick's encrypted notes
{{Short description|Unsolved encrypted message associated with unsolved homicide}}
{{Infobox manuscript
| name = Ricky McCormick's encrypted notes
| location = Found with body of McCormick in St. Charles County, Missouri
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| Date = June 30, 1999
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| Language(s) = Unknown cipher
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| Author(s) = Assumed to be McCormick
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| Discovered = June 30, 1999
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The partially decomposed body of Ricky McCormick was discovered in a field in St. Charles County, Missouri on June 30, 1999. Sheriffs found two garbled hand-written notes – apparently written in secret code – in the victim's pockets, and these were handed over to the FBI for further investigation. Attempts by the FBI's Cryptanalysis and Racketeering Records Unit (CRRU) and the American Cryptogram Association failed to decipher the meanings of those two coded notes, which are listed as one of the CRRU's top unsolved cases. On March 29, 2011, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation issued an appeal for help from the public in obtaining the meaning of the messages. A few days later, they updated their website to note the "outpouring of responses", and established a separate page[http://forms.fbi.gov/code FBI — Cryptanalysts: Help Break the Code] where the public can offer comments and theories.{{cite web|url=https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2011/march/cryptanalysis_032911|title=Cryptanalysts, Part 2: Help Solve an Open Murder Case|date=March 29, 2011|publisher=Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Federal Government, U.S. Department of Justice|access-date=March 31, 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141215134724/https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2011/march/cryptanalysis_032911|archive-date=15 December 2014}}{{cite web|url=https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fbi-seeks-publics-help-cracking-cryptic-notes-in-1999-murder-victims-pocket/|title=FBI seeks public's help cracking cryptic notes in 1999 murder victim's pocket|date=March 30, 2011|author=Martinez, Edecio|publisher=Crimesider, CBS News|access-date=March 31, 2011}}
Death
=Victim=
{{infobox person
|name= Ricky McCormick
|image=
|birth_name= Ricky C. McCormick
|birth_date= June 14, 1958
|death_date= c. June 25–28, 1999 (aged 41)
|death_place= Missouri
|children= 4
|known for= Circumstances of death and encrypted notes
}}
Ricky McCormick was a high school dropout who had held multiple addresses in the Greater St. Louis area, living intermittently with his elderly mother.{{cite news|last=Williams|first=Timothy|title=F.B.I. Seeks Help Cracking Code in Victim's Notes|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/01/us/01code.html?scp=1&sq=ricky%20mccormick&st=cse|access-date=April 8, 2011|newspaper=The New York Times|date=March 31, 2011}} According to a 1999 article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, McCormick suffered from chronic heart and lung problems. He was not married, but had fathered at least four children. He had a criminal record, and had previously served 11 months of a three-year sentence for statutory rape. At the time of his death, he was 41 years old, unemployed, and receiving disability welfare payments.{{cite news|url=http://www.stltoday.com/news/article_bcc02074-5b1a-11e0-b199-0017a4a78c22.html|title=Major Case Squad finds no evidence of a crime|date=July 6, 1999|publisher=St. Louis Post Dispatch|author=Staff|access-date=April 1, 2011}}
=Discovery of body=
McCormick's body was found on June 30, 1999, in a cornfield near West Alton, Missouri by a woman driving along a field road near Route 367.{{cite news|url=http://www.stltoday.com/news/article_bcc02074-5b1a-11e0-b199-0017a4a78c22.html|title=Body found in field puzzles police|date=July 2, 1999|author=Anthony, Shane|publisher=St. Louis Post Dispatch|access-date=April 1, 2011}} The reason he was {{convert|15|miles|km}} away from his then-current address is another mystery, as he did not own a car and the area was not served by public transportation.{{cite news | journal=Daily Telegraph | url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/8432893/Calling-all-codebreakers....html | date=April 7, 2011 | access-date=April 8, 2011| title=Calling all codebreakers... | author=Tweedie, Neil }} Though the body had already somewhat decomposed, authorities used fingerprints to identify McCormick. There was no indication that anyone had a motive to kill McCormick and no one had reported him missing. As such, the authorities initially ruled out homicide; however, no cause of death was officially determined at the time. McCormick was last seen alive five days earlier, on June 25, 1999, getting a checkup at St. Louis's now-defunct Forest Park Hospital.
Description
The two notes found in McCormick's pockets are written in an unknown code consisting of "a jumble of letters and numbers occasionally set off with parentheses" and are believed by the FBI to possibly lead to those responsible for the killing. Dan Olson, chief of the FBI's Cryptanalysis and Racketeering Records Unit, said, illustrating the significance of the notes, "Breaking the code could reveal the victim's whereabouts before his death and could lead to the solution of a homicide."
Attempts by both the FBI's Cryptanalysis and Racketeering Records Unit (CRRU) and the American Cryptogram Association failed to decipher their meaning, and Ricky McCormick's encrypted notes are currently listed as one of CRRU's top unsolved cases, with McCormick's killer yet to be identified.{{cite web|url=https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna42348642|title=FBI can't crack the code in this murder case — can you?|date= March 30, 2011|publisher=KMBC-TV, MSNBC|access-date=March 31, 2011|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120928091140/http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/42348642/ns/technology_and_science-security/|archive-date=September 28, 2012}} According to members of McCormick's family, Ricky had used encrypted notes as a boy, but none of them knew how to read the code.
{{multiple image
| align = center
| direction = horizontal
| header =The Ricky McCormick Notes
| header_align = center
| width =250
| header_background =#d9e0ef
| background color =
| image1 =Ricky McCormick note 1.jpg
| alt1 =Note 1
| caption1 =Note 1
| image2 =Ricky McCormick note 2.jpg
| alt2 =Note 2
| caption2 =Note 2
}}
{{Clear}}
The FBI has had so many responses with suggestions for the cipher that they later requested helpers to not call by phone nor use email.{{cite web|url=https://www.foxnews.com/us/fbi-flooded-with-tips-on-encrypted-notes-from-1999-murder-mystery/|title=FBI Flooded With Tips on Encrypted Notes From 1999 Murder Mystery|date=March 31, 2011|author=Joshua Rhett Mille|publisher=Fox News}} An FBI news release has stated, "This story has generated an outpouring of responses.
To accommodate the continuing interest in this case, we have established a page{{Cite web|url=http://forms.fbi.gov/code|title = Available Forms}} where the public can offer their comments and theories about the coded messages."{{cite web|url=https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2011/march/cryptanalysis_032911/cryptanalysis_032911|date=March 29, 2011|publisher=FBI|title=Stories: Update|access-date=August 28, 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110917085331/http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2011/march/cryptanalysis_032911/cryptanalysis_032911|archive-date=2011-09-17}}
Response from McCormick family
Speaking in 2012 with the Riverfront Times, McCormick's family members said that "they never knew of Ricky to write in code. They say they only told investigators he sometimes jotted down nonsense he called writing, and they seriously question McCormick's capacity to craft the notes found in his pockets."{{cite news |url=https://www.riverfronttimes.com/stlouis/code-dead-do-the-encrypted-writings-of-ricky-mccormick-hold-the-key-to-his-mysterious-death/Content?oid=2498959 |title= Code Dead: Do the encrypted writings of Ricky McCormick hold the key to his mysterious death? |work=Riverfront Times |date=June 14, 2012 |pages=8–15 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180307174450/https://www.riverfronttimes.com/stlouis/code-dead-do-the-encrypted-writings-of-ricky-mccormick-hold-the-key-to-his-mysterious-death/Content?oid=2498959 |archive-date=March 7, 2018 |url-status=live |first=Christopher |last=Tritto |location=St. Louis |volume=36 |issue=24}} His mother, Frankie Sparks, said "The only thing he could write was his name. He didn't write in no code." His cousin, Charles McCormick, said Ricky "couldn't spell anything, just scribble."
Moreover, when McCormick died, officials told his family about the other contents of the victim's pockets, but the family only found out about the notes when they were informed by a local news broadcast 12 years later.
See also
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- {{cite web|url=https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2011/march/cryptanalysis_032911|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110405112022/http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2011/march/cryptanalysis_032911|url-status=dead|archive-date=2011-04-05|title=Original FBI story|date=March 2011|access-date=April 2, 2011|publisher=Federal Bureau of Investigation}}
- {{cite news|url=http://www.kplr11.com/news/ktvi-cracking-code-could-help-solve-st-charles-murder-case-20110330,0,7253504.story|title=Cracking code could help solve St. Charles murder case|author=Jaco, Charles|author-link=Charles Jaco|date=March 30, 2011|access-date=April 1, 2011|publisher=KPLR-TV|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110821020901/http://www.kplr11.com/news/ktvi-cracking-code-could-help-solve-st-charles-murder-case-20110330,0,7253504.story|archive-date=August 21, 2011}} Local news video showing a photo of McCormick, and footage of police at the scene where the body was found
- {{cite news|url=http://www.riverfronttimes.com/2012-06-14/news/ricky-mccormick-code-mysterious-death-st-louis/|work=Riverfront Times|author=Tritto, Christopher|date=June 14, 2012|title=Code Dead: Do the encrypted writings of Ricky McCormick hold the key to his mysterious death?|access-date=June 13, 2012}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ricky Mccormick Murder Notes}}
Category:1999 murders in the United States
Category:20th-century manuscripts
Category:Federal Bureau of Investigation
Category:June 1999 crimes in the United States
Category:St. Charles County, Missouri
Category:Undeciphered historical codes and ciphers