The story of how Ricky McCormick was found dead with two (apparently enciphered) notes in his pocket hit the news a while back, but I hesitated to write it up as a cipher mystery at the time because I didn’t think the media coverage was even remotely reliable. But revisiting the whole affair recently, I found a simply splendid online article courtesy of the River Front Times called “Code Dead” (by Christopher Tritto), which turned my opinion of the whole case right round.
This revealed…
* that McCormick had just travelled back from Florida, from where he had allegedly brought back baseball-sized zip-lock bags of marijuana for Baha Hamdallah, brother of the owner of the gas station where McCormick worked.
* that he was closely associated with some violent (if not actually sociopathic) individuals, such as Gregory Knox
* that the stretch of road his body was found on was used for dumping dead bodies both before and after his death
* that the FBI’s Cryptanalysis and Racketeering Records Unit (CRRU) sat on the two mystifying notes for 12 years before announcing their existence
* that McCormick’s family knew nothing about the notes until they heard them mentioned on the news. (“Now, twelve years later, they come back with this chicken-scratch shit.”)
Moreover…
* McCormick fathered two children with a girl he called “Pretty Baby” before she was 14 (for which he went to prison)
* he experienced chest pains and shortage of breath the week before he died, severe enough for him to check into ER. (Though admittedly he had smoked “at least a pack of cigarettes a day” since he was ten, and typically drank “more than twenty caffeinated beverages a day”).
* McCormick could hardly read or write when he left school. (“The only thing he could write was his name”, and that Ricky “couldn’t spell anything, just scribble.”)
Coincidentally, everyone’s favourite crypto-gal Elonka Dunin lives close to where McCormick’s body was left, and she’s taken an interest in the cipher mystery aspect of the case, even doing a video interview for the River Front Times explaining how monoalphabetic substitution ciphers work (not that that’s what we’re looking at here, *sigh*). But having learnt more about McCormick’s background and situation, she concludes “I don’t think McCormick wrote these notes”, and that “[P]erhaps he was a courier.”
(If you haven’t seen the notes before, the two thumbnails below link to decent quality scans of them – well worth opening up in a browser to see what all the fuss is about.)
So, what *are* we looking at here? Well, the Internet (as always) has plenty of commentary to wade through. The CRRU’s Dan Olson points out that “There are many E’s… that could be used as a spacer”: while Elonka notes the plethora of patterns periodically peppering the pages (such as “WLD”, “NCBE”, “SE” etc). There are also lots of bracket pairs (which have somehow led to the suggestion that it may in part be lists) as well as punctuation marks, most notably an apostrophe, which would loosely imply that the word preceding it (“WLD”) may well be a noun.
Olson seems convinced that the writer of the notes was ingenious and calculating, while Elonka too appears to think that they are of a complexity that would have been beyond McCormick’s abilities. Respectfully, I have to disagree: for I suspect that the main key to the notes’ impenetrability lies not in paranoia or secrecy but in a probable explanation for why McCormick failed school (and, conversely, why school failed McCormick) – dyslexia.
Look again at three highly structured consecutive lines from the notes:
To me, this looks a lot like a mixed-up version of:-
* FIRSE PERSON D 71 NCB[E]
* SECND PERSON’S D 74 NCB[E]
* TRD’S PERSON R D 75 NCB[E]
Specifically, I think “NCB” will turn out to be a local address in St Louis (maybe even initials for Clinton Peabody?) – and if that’s right, why would the numbers not be the flat / house numbers of people buying drugs? McCormick preferred moving round at night (like “a vampire”), and he carried and held big bags of marijuana from Orlando for Baha Hamdallah (according to McCormick’s girlfriend), so the suggestion that he might have been some kind of small-time drug runner or dealer probably isn’t totally wild.
I don’t know, though: it’s all just awful. Victorian-era historians saw their job as weaving narratives around Events In History for the moral edification and correct instruction of Society In General, and even many moderns would find it journalistically tempting to take McCormick’s life of denial and ignominious death as launching pads for some glib commentary on a whole set of social macro-epidemics – guns, drugs, poverty, social inequality, education, dyslexia, whatevuh.
But all I’m actually left with is a feeling of deep sadness – that what we’re glimpsing into in these two notes is the life of a poor, illiterate guy who aspired to ride the horse of opportunity, but only ever got dragged behind it.
So, what strikes me most powerfully is that quite unlike other cipher mysteries, I don’t actually want to read what was written on McCormick’s two notes. I understand people often feel a deep-seated need for closure, but does any kind of (capital-j) Justice have the power to right the wrongs of these slow-motion train-wrecks?
I agree with most of this – it’s all rather horrible and pathetic. Personally, I feel this way about the Zodiac ciphers too. But if deciphering these notes were to lead to the conviction of someone who would otherwise get away with murder, isn’t that enough justification for trying?
That said, doesn’t quite a lot of the River Front Times article strike you as odd? I’m not an experienced dumper of corpses but isn’t leaving enciphered notes on the body a bit too Dorothy L. Sayers? Do we really not know whether the notes were written in McCormick’s handwriting? If I were going to play at being a conspiracy theorist for the afternoon, I’d wonder if this were some kind of mind-game by the FBI…
SirHubert: I’m a cipher guy, not a policeman – which means I get to choose what I do. 🙂
I think it’s fair to say that the FBI could have done a better job on giving us supporting evidence to work with, e.g. verified Ricky McCormick handwriting, etc. “Cock-up” gets the vote over “conspiracy” almost every time! 😉
I’m not a policeman either. I’ve served as an expert witness, which wasn’t much fun but was probably the right thing to do. But social responsibility versus individual action is better discussed over a pint, I think.
I also agree with you about preferring cock-up over conspiracy, and indeed incompetence over malice. But I still have a feeling that there is a lot which hasn’t been made public – probably with good reason. The paper is distinctive, the pen must be identifiable, the handwriting can surely be matched – but we are still told that it is uncertain whether McCormick wrote these notes? (And does the first of these documents really have P1 at the top right hand corner? If so, what can this stand for apart from Page 1 – and what has happened to Page 2?)
Of course, if the police have a shrewd idea whom these notes were intended for, releasing them in this way might just provoke a reaction. And with that, I’ll leave the conspiracy theories and rejoin the sane part of the Internet.
Nick
error vs collusion – the odds are not greatly different even at the best of times. And then what began as error can become collusion when colleagues or ‘mates’ cover when they believe one of their number has made a mistake they might one day make themselves.Add to those factors elements as drugs (possible) and some kind of pressuring (not unlikely) and odds on the cause being error alone reduce very considerably, I’d say.
I’m puzzled by these clean looking copies. And by why a person functionally illiterate would voluntarily write anything if not obliged.
On one side the formatting looks oddly practiced – very “admin.” so to say.
D.
Nick – a request, from p.o.v. of someone only recently a total newbie.
You once wrote a post explaining clearly the difference between code and cipher.. and a few other terms, I think.
If you can still find it, would you put it as a permanent page in the side-bar?
I wanted to refer someone else to it but – search ‘code’?
😀
A little research (OK, two minutes on Google) shows that much of this story comes from the FBI’s own website…
http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2011/march/cryptanalysis_032911
…where it is claimed that Ricky McCormick was in fact able to read and write as a boy, and had been playing around with ciphers and codes from a young age. His own mother, however, allegedly described him as ‘retarded’ and the Riverfront Times article states that he was barely literate.
It’s going to be very difficult to find an angle to approach these notes when the context and background is so murky.
Hmm.
Wow. Is that supposed to be the translation? It certainly doesn’t make much more sense to me than the original!
plenty of glass see out
you’ll see me see me first
person drives wild an see me
puts on the like you would see in Mexico
and dumps it in the box
cause last trees tress make mess
and seizing me nuts
cause last tries makes me tries
and im not to see past to be with..
36 minutes because to kens old place
35 see close and to cross the past the hill
65 minutes me see hills and gutter more
99 soon pass place where old kens been
—puts it with —
an me sees in trailers and see in shack
and using space makes her be …excellent
write down 19 mile across the lakes
Boyd: a spirited try – almost poetic, even – but I suspect the real thing will turn out to be prosaic, desperate, and far sadder.
It is my translation of the code headed “NOTES” typed at the top. Came up with that in December last year. Only just found the file on my computer. Woke up one morning and wrote out what I read phonetically on the note. Cannot say I tried to make it poetic, just fresh from sleep and wrote down what I read. Took less than an hour. Have never attempted to rationalise it.
Boyd: obviously you’re a poet in your sleep. 🙂
Maybe Ricky was…:-)
Hello from Spain
If it is a letter, signature of the author should be at the end (2nd note)
–In my humble opinion the master key is in the 2nd note, last line.
–I see that: “O-W-m-4 H8L XORLX”
Can you see which letters aee repeated and where?
Can you remember the Arthur´s C. Clarke joke about HAL 9000?
Have a pen and paper handy?
Yes? Then my solution is like a child game……
+If O=O, W=W and R=R
+If m=N, H=I and L=M using Caesar Code B or +1 move
+If X= Variations of the letter “C” (MC,C and KC) using shorthand
+If 4= four= FOR by phonetic solution like SMS language.
+If 8= eight= eit= ei= letter “A” by phonetic solution like SMS language (example L8= late or leight, H8= hate ….)
+If the hyphen join the letters in a word.
+If we add vowel “i” by transcription shorthand solution.
THEN…..
“O-W-m-4 H8L XORLX” means “OWN-FOR I AM MCCORM(i)CK”.
It is the signature on the last will or testament of Mccormick.
+ If you think “4″ is not “4″ but “y”
+ If you think “8″ is not “8″ but “I” then the solution is:
“Y”= wai= WHY or WAY by phonetic solution, similar sound.
“I”= ai= letter “A” by phonetic graphic representation.
THEN= “O-W-m-Y HIL XORLX” = “OWN-WHY? I AM MCCORMICK”
Bye from Spain.
JSP
Im perplexed and baffled and much intrigued by these notes…still
I feel the true meaning/translation (call it what you will) will never be known.
I think people are massively over complicating this, and much of what is ‘put out there’ via the internet is misleading.
If you want to shoot me an email nick, i’d be happy to compare some notes on what I have learned thus far….which is not too much!
Danny-boy: if anyone genuinely wants to get to the bottom of this, I think they would have to talk with McCormick’s family and try to understand his situation in a rather more sympathetic way than has been managed to date.
Sadly, because the FBI people kept this to themselves for such a long time, I’d be fairly unsurprised if his family were less than receptive to the idea of raking these coals over.
Exactly Nick, it’s leaning in my mind to 50% profiling work and 50% understanding the notes themselves.
Unfortunately due to time passing and the lack of updates or new information from any reliable source it is extremely difficult for an ‘outsider’ to get a decent handle on it.
It is very similar in more ways than one to The Somerton Man case.
I think your page is by far the most recent discussion page still ongoing….glad to have found it!
hi im just wondering if the FBI confirmed if it’s really McCormick’s handwritting, cause i have been trying to solve this case for sometime now and i might have an idea about the murderer.if McCormick did’nt write those notes, the murderer might have just jot down some random letters and put it on McCormick’s body so it will confuse the police because he knows the police will only figure out what the note is about, sure McCormick have histories in writing puzzles but i think the murderer knows that, so he killed McCormick and just put the notes to confuse the police. thank u for listening i wish i atleast helped a little bit in this case.
Lynn Tailor
I agree, I think the written notes are a combination of the writer having dyslexia, being barely literate and spelling phonetically, and his own code to help aid his memory, which I think was probably poor, which is why the order of some longer words have the ending before the beginning.
I’m convinced on the second page he’s writing something about his nurse and medication instructions, that whatever they put him on were the slow release variety. I think the hospital told him the code written on the tablets, so he knew which one to take half a tablet of. Maybe a doctor can make more sense of that part.
He may be talking about first person, second person, third person, or first prednisolone, second prednisolone, third prednisolone – cortisone tablets used for asthma or inflammatory conditions. If he was having trouble breathing, they might have wanted him on a high dose of anti-inflammatories. It would be unusual to come out of hospital without some sort of written discharge summary. Obviously he couldn’t read someone else’s notes, so he wrote his own.
It’s also very telling he writes a sum of money, 99.84 and puts the dollar sign after the figures … again indicating that this might be how he constructs his words, not releasing the sequencing is a crucial part of normal written language.
Diane,
I am responding to March 13 post. I think you are definitely correct regarding error v. collusion angle.
I am emphatically NOT a conspiracy theorist, however,
experiments have been conducted over the years, which
indicate how potentially pliable human beings can be towasrds
figures of authority, leading to, as Dr. S. Milgram memorably put it,
“potentially destructive results.”
I think the difference in the details between Mr. Tritto’s article
and S. Anthony’s article, written mere days after Mr. McCormick’s body was found, may well be instructive-and illuminating
Charles,
I’m no fan of Hall or Milgram, whose experiments I consider improper.
I think those involved in conspiracies think of their behaviour as closer to self-protection of ‘our lot’ than effort to rule the world.
Sometimes comes down to the same thing, though.
To Lynn Taiylor (and others). There are three questions, not one, and they are interlocking: One did McCormick write the notes, yes or no? If so, what do they mean, and if not, what do they intend? If the FBI claim it could be a “love letter” or “supermarket list”, then that could have already been be proven if the the letters, numerals, and punctuation
are not random. (Since there are numerous iterations, it is unlikely they are random, but represent some sort of jargon known to its author. (As for bafflement, or misleading
federal, state or local agencies: that ship has long sailed!)
Third, if McCormick did not write them, or found them, or as I suspect, could not have written them, who did?
In reading the wiki article on the encrypted notes, it is said that the notes were confirmed to be written by two different hands from the FBI. That is what seems to elude the story to him being a courier for drug operations.
I do not see anything on the FBI website that says it was a correspondence between two “hands.”
It is extremely unclear from the few facts published on the McCormick case allude to whether he was a courier of any kind; that is speculation. The notes themselves display damage and smudging unrelated to the handwriting. Such a sample of two pages. Would’ havee not be sufficient to draw any such conclusions, far more material would be required; hence-the Bureau in effect deputizes john and Jane q. Public for assistance with ideas: could they refer to Orienteering with its critical points; or letterboxing and so on. I will not let this matter rest: the country where I was born would never let a human being; or should let a human being be left like trash near a levee. For when the levee breaks-it will for all.,
Apologies, all. Made lousy typos on cellphone, and I hate phones! (Just to be clear on that.) Anyway, Diane, on her March 13th note, as usual, made an interesting remark about the “clean looking copies” of the Notes. It is very unlikely, possible yes, but unlikely, as above, that the troubled, underemployed, very nearly transient victim would have made an effective courier of any kind. (Not to mention the lack of vehicle for any prompt or distant service.)
Yes, Diane, the clean looking copies are strange. They speak of someone writing in an official capacity, with a jargon known to a sender to receiver, or vice versa, but
not a third party (i.e. us.) The reiterations of SE, NE at first glance appear like they could be anything, anything that is to a “motivated” reasoner. Like SE, for example. Have you ever noticed how Digital discs for example, could be a Special Edition, or Limited Edition, on the sides of the packaging for example? Problem: this kind of guesswork
is too unsystematic to break into what ever semantic lies
within the Notes themselves [thanks to journalist Margalit Fox for this insight], and worse, not solve the highest possible percentage of what these letters could be abbreviations of (If they are that) I propose, then, that a sort of “analogical”, not digital method might be used. Like the modular math of grade school, with a clock face, and have
the letters be coded a color (say, green) if they appear to be
a, or b, or c to z. If however, they are either a number, punctuation, or undetermined/indeterminate letter, (color code that red) and move, and talley counterclockwise. (One of the benefits of someone typing up the notes resulted in typing an “n” when I thought it looked like a “u”. Conclusion: we, the typist and I, could well both be wrong, it could have been “mu”, or “nu”, small Greek letters.) Then, one could make a dummy plaintext, say, “Went to Publix for Grave Nuts @8 Not On Sale (remember NO SOLE!?) and compare it, to the Notes. I suggest the result will reveal a level of skill, knowledge, or professional circumspection, beyond the level of the victim (perhaps, most of the contiguous forty eight!)
List of people he killed or saw killed?
First person d (ead) (19)71, N(ot) C(oming) B(ack) E(ver)…
I’m unsure of when this occurred, so if the numbers make no sense, my bad.
Happy Holidays to Nick and Everyone! May the New Year bring more surprises.
ERRATA: Nov. 26, 2013 post should have read “Went to Publix for Grape Nuts @ 8 Not on Sale…
RE: McCormick case. Have worked both “ends” now of this strange case; the “location” and environs of where body was allegedly found (or transported)…
The other end, would be of course, the code itself, have submitted various ideas to (Federal) authorities, but no one in particular seems interested.
However, someone on State level might be, so stay tuned…….
jrst r ainn yjomgd u nsle i nsgw yjis ez 4u kidy like Ricky yjuml about it poor guy
You need a linguist, not a code breaker. This is not encrypted, and is not cipher (but you already knew that), but it seems to have a structure and grammar. I suspect it is a non-standard transliteration of Arabic. For example, in the parenthetical (TFXLF TCXL NCBE) if we substitute Q for F, and L for “XL”, and KH for the C, and let the E be silent (that is B for BE) we get: TQLQ TKHL NCB. We type that into Google Translate for Arabic to English and we get: تقلق تخل نسب or “Worry prejudice ratios”, or “Worries about changing rates”. If we take the parenthetical (NOPFSE NLSRE NCBE) and apply the same substitutions, but also changing the “SE” to the numeral 2 (the hamzah letter of Arabic: it is a guttural stop with no easy analogue letter in English), and P to V, we get: NOVQ2 NLSR NCB. We change the spacing between the words and get NOVQ 2N LSR NCB, which Google renders as “Reconcile the mystery ratios”, which I take to mean “Calculate the unknown rates”. If we take the parenthetical (SAE6NSE SE N MRSE) and make similar substitutions we get: SAE6N2 2 N MR2. We make the adjustment of joining the standalone “2” to the first word with a vowel, and moving the first N sound by deleting it and adding M to the stand alone N to get: SAE62A2 MN MR2, which Google Translate renders as “One of the mediators” or “One of the brokers”. When I do similar substitutions on the parenthetical beginning (TENE TFRNE . . .) it is roughly translated as “Calculate the combination of the old rates with your rates.” These seem to be business notes of someone trying to qualify for a loan or refinancing a mortgage.
Now, I realize that many of these changes or substitutions may seem arbitrary, but they are all somewhat justifiable given the phonetics of the language. For example, changing F to Q is substituting one voiceless fricative for another: the F is labio-dental while the Q is velvar. We think of them as very different letters, but their sounds are similar: the F being made in the front of the mouth and the Q in the back. Similarly, in the first parenthetical I substituted “kh” for the first c, but not the second. While a code-breaker would see this as arbitrary, a linguist views this as recognition that the English C is pronounced two very different ways: the hard “C” and the soft “C”, one of these is taken to be a hard C and the other is a soft C. Someone whose native tongue is Arabic, but immigrated to the US or England at an early age might become literate in English, but remain unable to write in Arabic. If they were to write notes, they might use just this type of non-standard transliteration, using the Roman letters to approximate the sounds of their native language.
Some further comments:
1. Ricky McCormick worked for a Palestinian immigrant who until 2002 used the name David Ratigan.
2. On June 18th, 1999 a David Ratigan purchased a house in Ballwin, MO 63011, a few blocks up the road from one of the larger mosques in St. Louis. The home was financed with a mortgage originated by CTX Mortgage.
3. For the week of June 11th, 1999, the Wall Street Journal listed mortgage rates for 30-year fixed mortgages as follows: Month Ago: 7.10%, Last Week: 7.40%, This Week: 7.10%. These are the 71, 74 and 75 referred to in the note. (“NCBE” stands for rate or percentage and the numbers are written without a decimal point, as are almost all of the numbers in the note.)
4. The “26 MLSE 74 . . . 29 KE . .. 73” line are notes from a conversation with a mortgage broker about the different indices and margins used for variable rate mortgages. For May 1999 (the last full month then available) the 1 year CMT (constant maturity treasury) index rate was 4.8%, which plus a 2.6% margin equals a 7.4% fully-indexed rate, the 3 month T-bill (on an investment yield basis) was 4.4% which when added to a 2.9% margin equals 7.3%. So 26 and 29 are the margins and 74 and 73 are the fully indexed rates. (The mortgage broker is explaining that you shouldn’t compare ARMs on the margin rate alone, that the index rate must be considered as well).
5. The “65\” is a reference to the fact that 6.5% was the lowest rate ever for the 30-year fixed rate mortgage up to that time.
6. The dot in “99.84” is not a decimal point, it is a dash “99-84”, noting that the decline in interest rates to 1999 had begun back in 1984, many years ago. (In the line above, the phrase “NCUTCTRS NMRE” if we render it as “NKUTH KTHR MN RE” this is a more standard transliteration of “نكوث اكثر من ير” which means “going back over the years of”.)
7. The “35” refers to the preferred back-end debt to income ratio of 35% that would make it easy to qualify for a loan. (In that line DK, rendered as DKH becomes دخ or “Income” and “PSEHLE” rendered as “P2SHLE” becomes “بأسهل” meaning “the easiest”.)
8. The line beginning “NMNRCB . . .” refers to the typical two point cap on annual rate increases. (NMN becomes “نمنع” which is the verb “prevent” or “bar” which is a loose translation of “cap” or “capped”; “R CBRNSE” is the “annual rate increase”; “WS” rendered as “ ‘us” or “أس” translates to “index” and “PTE” is probably “points”.)
9. The line “(194 WLD’S NCBE) (TRFXL)”: WLD rendered as “ ‘uld” becomes “ألد” or “worst”, 194 is 19.4%, the worst possible rate. “NCBE” becomes “نسبي” for “proportional” or “NCB” becomes “نسب “ for “rates”, “TRFXL” written in a more standard transliteration becomes “TRQ KL” or “ترق كل” translated literally as “Lived all”, but better translated as “lifetime”. So the full line is: “(19.4% worst rate)(lifetime)”. 19.4% is the loan margin added to the maximum amount the 3-month t-bill index has ever been.
Peter M: from what his family and friends have said, it seems clear that Ricky was barely literate in English, let alone in a non-standard transliteration of Arabic. Are you suggesting that someone else wrote the notes?
Yes. According to the Riverfront Times article his boss and his boss’ family were Palestinian immigrants. Perhaps David Ratigan wrote the note and left it or dropped it at the gas station he owned (and where Ricky worked and might have picked it up).
To Peter and Nick. Unless someone, somewhere can produce evidence
to the contrary: yes, it is very unlikely Mr. McCormick wrote the eponymous notes. Such evidence would include, for example, samples of his handwriting or far more material than has been thus far on offer.
Regarding whether “Notes” are cipher, substitution or otherwise:
1. In any dark room mystery, one remains quite literally in the dark, unless some sort of key, or method of producing illumination to find a way out is found. Mr. McCormick’s, acquaintances, friends, arrest or criminal background may, or may not, be relevant. But, this ground,
presumably covered adequately by local LEOs. (Again, the details of Ricky’s employment is sketchy at best. So, this is becomes another dead end.)
2. However, there is one incontrovertible fact here glimpsed in the Riverfront account; especially, if Mr. McCormick journeyed as far as Lamberton Avenue, St. Louis Int’l Airport, as I have every reason to believe he did: petroleum.
I think I have solved part of it. There are actually more than one type of encryption that appears to be used. There appears to be a set of directions. And possibly locations. I am guessing that he was held just prior to his death based on what I see in the text.
Abe. Honestly, I hope you have solved it. Though I suspect
one or a combination of encryptions would have been decrypted by the CRRU after a decade in their possession.
(It is, however, not without interest to note, seventy five hours after Mr. McCormick’s death, an early news item by Shane Anthony, does not mention any scrawled writing or “notes” later claimed to be found in the pocket of his jeans.This would not be revealed until 2011 when the FBI asked the public for assistance on the Notes.) Surely, the Bureau believed, but now(?) that a decoding of the Notes would lead to information about his possible whereabouts before his death. I’ve thought about this a bit: I do not think this is correct. Regarding directions and locations, though, there may be something to this: after all, consider the SE area of Missouri; there are two great geographical and topographical features, respectively,the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, essentially trisect it (i.e. Southeast Missouri & East St. Louis and downtown St. Louis, for a circumference of miles and miles. This includes the distended shape of St. Charles County, MO where, as it happens, Mr. McCormick’s body was apparently disposed of, or moved to. Whether one moves north or south, east or west, in this SEastern area you will come upon one of these rivers, so this leads me to tentatively conclude that whomever dumped the corpse knew this area somewhat well. (Consider, too, how Mr. McCormick was not even given the minimal dignity of a shallow grave. Why? Because whomever placed his corpse there, did so hurriedly, I believe, but cannot confirm, in haste.) However, if the “Notes” were “decoded” to reveal Mr. McCormick was, say, on the other side of E. St. Louis, the other side of the Mississippi river, say, Fairview Heights, IL, this would not necessarily contribute to finding how Mr. McCormick was killed. Especially, if he was on the other side of the Mississippi, (at several locations, in fact) where many witnesses had placed him before the (presumed date of his death), around June 27th.
Apologies, Abe. I erred in citing the Anthony article. It should have read “75 (or thereabouts) hours after the discovery of the corpse in July 1999”. The main point remains unchanged, but error accrue over time cause needless confusion.
Peter M., I have rethought your earlier post, and you may be right about the idea of transliteration of some sort. (Not persuaded for various reasons it is Arabic, though.) The CRRU chief Olsen, then, too may also be correct if the original is not English that the “E” are break or rest, (or rather) silent vowels.
If the original system, will call it L, for now, is not English, than could explain why Olsen hewed closely to the “laundry list idea” this would work, however, if the original system L is not written
in English.” That is to say, an item list in English would, i think
tend toward verticality, while the “Notes” have a very pronounced horizontality. I am going to work on a more fuller explantation soon, and appreciate the input of all on this site.
Thanks.
Ah, these “Notes” how they have become akin to a sort of bizarre, insistent music, that somehow, have gotten beneath my skin. All my efforts, thus far, have proven short of a complete unraveling ( of the “Notes” anyway!)
I think Liz in her comments of July 31, 2013 have provided one partially correct, if unintended clue: Mr. McCormick was not alive in St. Charles county or what I heretofore believed, even at Lambert Avenue, St. Louis International Airport, via the Metrolink. No, I don’t think, alas, he made it that far.
However, I suspect the truth will emerge, because it is allied to a still larger truth, assiduously hidden; but, like Mr. McCormick’s undignified corpse,it will become unburied, despite the best efforts of those who’d prefer to conceal their tracks.
GLSE-SE ER+E
new london missouri
611184-184 417+4
Just how big were the bags?
71 Ounce?
74 Ounce?
75 Ounce?
Unpublished work by L & W Klim have produced yet another geographical angle to McCormick case. This research may yield answers to some questions surrounding the case. Why did Federal officials form a task force with local authorities in the earliest phase of the case? Why were the “Notes” revealed more than a decade later? Still (allegedly) without knowledge of their semantic or syntactic significance. Will keep VM posted with followups as they come in.
RE: Sept. 11th comment. I wish to add several clarifications to last post. First, as I’ve stated in earlier messages, I am definitively suggesting nothing conspiratorial in regard to any government agencies. However, in light of more than a few cases of significant laxness (or as CBS News has put it, “dysfunctional”) governmental bureaucracies accross the entire Executive branch (State, Defense, Justice, Treasury, etc.) Mr. McCormick may have fallen through a crack much larger than anyone has previously suspected. The Government Accounting Office (GAO), is largely responsible for the herculaean task of keeping these
monstrosities in check, as an official arm of the U.S. Congress. However, as Professor Alan Ryan has pointed out, Americans, (myself included) tend to be “self-congratulatory” about the idea (rather than the reality) of “check and balances”. The Legislature passes (and repeals) laws and attempts to balance (or fails to balance) Federal budgets after all, and by the time malfeasance or waste is uncovered it is far too late for anything to be done about it….
the answer to the code is an imput method with rules repeting…..i have an ideea about the imput device, if it is lost you have no chance to decode……so i supose:
1.the killer had it …papers can be omited on a fast body search but the device not
2. after all this years de device is junk at his last residence or home, or on the location he was found
3.i only hope its in a box of evidence
4.where was last time seen ? with who?
This is not encrypted is ease to read this he has something on a looker romm in wet and wild and the looker number and password is there
To: George R. The notion of an “input” device is intriguing, and the accompanying notion of a key decoder-as-“one-off-pad”, has some a parallel, of course,(as several Cipher Mystery contributors have pointed out) in the Somerton Man case. However, it remains unclear (even apparently) to the authorities what, or for that matter,if the “Notes” are “encoded” in some strict crypto-mathematical fashion. (n.b. the authorities “simply” wish to identify what the symbols or sign could be represented in the ” Notes”, not the fate of the victim himself.)
For me, the McCormick case has two (does anyone require more?)enormously frustrating aspects, “Finding (X)” and “Proving (X)”. The former aspect, would be initially
easy, in other words, the “Notes” may make semantic sense, if and only if, the “key” (what the symbols or signs represent) could be found. In other words, a straightforward algorithm, in principle could be found to “decode” the message. If this view is mistaken, however, the problems would grow explosively very, very fast.
The second aspect, “Proving (X)” is far more interesting, but I cannot expand upon this at the moment.
Charles Witteck….i belive you…sorry for mi english i’m from Romania..so sometimes i write like i speak…excusable….i hope ))))))))… i suposed that he used a device to encode his notes because he had no other posibility…mental or expensive ideeas…
so a fool throw a rock in the lake and 10 wise guys are not capable to find it….in this case everibody ask why, but no one is realy loking for the rock)))))))….well………. if i share what i know on this site what’s in it for me ?
i’ve seen crazy ideeas, complicated math, or algorithms, but in my opinion we must ask with what he could wrote those pages not how!!!!!!!!>>>>>thinking outside the box is to close the box and leave those complicated things in it ….
and if he developed a code asociated to words and memorise it, we will never know!!!!!!
George, not to worry, your English is better than my Roumanian. I concede your point: like your countryman, Ionesco, the case has an absurdist dimension to it.
But, is that a feature of the case, or our fate as human beings?
(what it is “in it for you?” if you share your information, is a question only can be answered for oneself. (For me, my allegiance is simple: (and yes, I have been publicly accused of being “simplistic” regarding it): the truth. Also, I do believe
the victim’s family, ultimately, deserves to what happened to their son or nephew.)
It may well be, too, that when the “exotic” possiblities of the “Notes” are exhausted what may remain, is a rather prosaic one.
“The wise guys”, the authorities [?] you mention,are not able to find the “rock” because, I suspect, the documents were
originally and mistakenly routed to the wrong department within our (US) troubled crime laboratory bureau. If had been processed by, say, a behavioral sciences unit, and not a cryptographic unit, the “crazy ideas, maths, and algorithms” you mention, may not have emerged at all. (Though, it should be noted, the signs, and symbols appear not to be random,
that is “machine generated”, so they were made with some sort
of intention, what that intention (mneumonic, acronomic, etc)
was, remains, like the fate of what happened to the victim,
upon which they were found, unknown.
RE: October 10th post. Two typographical errors were made.
First paragraph should read: ” deserves…to know….” Second paragraph, should’ve read: ” intention (mneumonic, acronymic, etc.)
Charles Witteck……you are….simply……right….so…can you provide a link ore pictures from that date with the site crime? the position of the body, etc, i want to see if it was watter involved around the body……first pictures of the site?…is it posible?
George, thanks for your gracious comments. Regarding pictures of the site where the body was found, their are various search engines available on the Internet that
could provide, maps, pictures and even video of the site where the victim’s body was recovered.
I don’t know whether I am right, or wrong, regarding this
case. It does not matter; only that some sort of genuine effort was made on behalf of the victim. What really happened, and why? Perhaps you have some angle that might bring the whole matter greater clarity: the (encryption?)device you mentioned.
For my part, I’ve come to look at the “Notes” differently.
The central idea of the authorities: crack the code, and the
author will become “visible” to them. I no longer think that may be true: the code tells us something about its author, yes; it is “cryptic”, yes; but the “map” it describes may not be entirely, or strictly geographical, as I wrote in earlier posts. Thus, their “author” remains “invisible” .(This is why, in part, I think the cryptanalysts were stumped: when is a cryptogram not a cryptogram? When it is not [strictly speaking a cryptogram.) How can the author of the “Notes”
become ” visible”?
Will provide further comments in near future. Thanks again for your kind words.
I believe I have a likely solution to this mystery. It came to me when I initially saw the code and it actually fits perfectly with the background of McCormick’s personal history as well.
Let’s put ourselves into the shoes of McCormick. He came back from a long journey and was facing eviction. This means a.) his trip wasn’t financially successful, otherwise he would have paid up and b.) he will have had relationship trouble coming along with about any eviction stress. In short he was out of luck. He likely then did something (maybe to get money) which didn’t resonate well with his killer. Actually to me, it doesn’t matter what he did to whom or who killed him – my guess is it was about some criminal activity, maybe drugs or also just an argument he had. For the code, these circumstances don’t really matter.
He was illiterate, maybe “a retard” as his own mother called him. At he same time, he has a code on him that is perceived so complex that it remains unsolved for now more than a decade. And which hasn’t been carefully drafted in writing but which was rather quickly scribbled onto a piece of paper. This would hint towards the author to be a true genius to be able to create such a coded message on the fly.
I believe it is not a a code. If you ever have been to a psychatric ward, you will have seen patients with thought disorder. Thought Disorder/Hypergraphia can have many different symptoms, especially when combined with psychosis. Patients repeat the same words over and over, sometimes syllables or they make up new words. This is what I believe happened to McCormick. He came back from Florida already changed, as his girlfriend recalled. The financial stress, eviction fear and relationship trouble then put him over the edge. He was unable to write anything other than his name his parents said and they should know. In an acute psychotic phase he however scribbled letters on a piece of paper. These texts are usually characterized by repetitions and long strings of words or symbols. And it is all here: the SEs, the NCBEs, the long chain of symbols.
He scribbled this text on some paper, stuffed it in his pants, went off to get some money and was killed. The last days of McCormick. I don’t think there is a code, it is the scribbles of a mentally deranged man with acute psychosis that happened to be in his pants when he was killed.
Charles Witteck when is a cryptogram not a cryptogram?…..when we use something comon and simple to encrypt!!!!!>>>I have someting for you….”TERME OR OPEN PAPER”…..first words..he’s talking about>>>>who is that?<<<<i have no ideea that was an abbreviation not a person, because i'm not familiarized whit your medical sistem later i found out that is… calculating ICF/MR reimbursement rates? Medicaid program reimbursement rates?
to be a true genius to be able to create such a coded message on the fly? ……..no i think it's simple but this guy used code and abbreviations….what do you think about that?
he’s talking about>>>MR REIMB<<<<<<
TERME OR OPEN PAPER about MR REIMB?…….i’ll be glad to know how much money had to receive or received around his time death..that can explaine the numbers ….can you find out?
Charles Witteck when is a cryptogram not a cryptogram?…..when we use something comon and simple to encrypt!!!!!>>>I have someting for you….”TERME OR OPEN PAPER”…..first words..he’s talking about<<>>>who is that?<<<>>>i hope i explaine what i mean>>
To George: If there was a common “encryption” or (highly)
sophisticated one, it is highly probable that the CRRU would
have broken it by now. They claim they are “very good at what they do” and I have no evidence to doubt it. However, my current thinking is if one considers the McCormick “notes” as, say, akin to a historical document, what is the provenance of that document? How and why was it routed to the cryptographers and not another part of the National Crime Lab? (Note: George, you may not be familiar with a decades-old difficulties, with the U.S. crime lab. It was widely reported, for example, that the 2001 “anthrax” letter case, and others which predated it, where poorly handled. This resulted in one of the most expensive internal investigations ever launched by the U.S. Department of Justice. It should go without saying, the “notes” arrived in the Lab during this tumultuous period. Since then, it is alleged some forty institutional reforms have been instituted at the Lab. [In part
due to the efforts of a former Special Agent and whistleblower, F. Whitehurst]. Thanks again George
for your contributions, only by hammering away at this
will some glimmer of meaning surface. (To mix metaphors!)
To Torben: A number of commentators have drawn the conclusion that R. McCormick was schizophrenic or psychotic. I am not an expert on either condition, though
I am aware, through various works of art, Schreber’s (sic)
memoirs, or the work of the Swiss artist Woffli (sic), what
such a production would look like. The same would apply to the scribblings of a severely disturbed mental patients. It can
not be pointed out enough that does not seem to be the consistent with the notes. N.B. Consider the notes are written on stationary marked NOTES[!] What does that tell you? There is structure, which further indicates intention, not a total, or even intermittent break with reality. However, the idea the notes could reflect a mental “map” of some kind, only underscores the point made above: why did the Crime Lab send this to CRRU and not behavioral sciences?
Thanks again to you both, as I have found this to be a enjoyable exchange. Le’ts keep at it.
Ok Charles Witteck now i will try to explaine why i belive those notes are difficult to translate:
1.abreviations……….if MR REIMB is reimbursement rates, i’m on to something, you can find out….
2.the mighty language T9 , the very true headache for CRRU I’ve notice them by e-mail couple of years ago but ….no reply
3.dictionary and the annoying function ‘check spelling’ who creates inputs in dictionary associated whit letters placed on 8 keypad buttons
4. finaly…..the phone who contain the dictionary…if it’s lost ………
i belive he used this type of encryption and what we see on those two pages are short key strokes from T9 language….assigned letter with unique dictionary…..find his phone and we have the answer….if it was his phone….
))))))))))
if i’m looking at those pages from this angle (T9 angle)..i am surprised to find a similarity whit the well know ENIGMA MACHINE first broken by the Polish Cipher Bureau, beginning in December 1932…….but only after they capture a device or codes…though Enigma had some cryptographic weaknesses, in practice it was German procedural flaws, operator mistakes, laziness, failure to systematically introduce changes in encipherment procedures, and Allied capture of key tables and hardware that, during the war, enabled Allied cryptologists to succeed
And in our case the enigma machine could be a phone!…a damn phone?
Personaly i hope not…but for CRRU, yes, to succeed braking the code
To George: I will look into the reimbursement idea. I am unfamiliar with T9 language. It seems very sophisticated,
too sophisticated, for the victim surely. For a long while,
I too, believed the “Notes” to look largely qualitiative in nature, thus observational….then possibly…proprietorial?(Of course, this premise works if Mr. McCormick was not the author of “Notes”.) I think that possibility, again, is too sophisticated for this case.In my opinion, it is a better “rule of thumb” to go with what we know….however sparse that may be. The information we possess indicate that Mr. McCormick was in not one, but two, health care centers before his death. These are notoriously unsecure locales (as the Ebola situation, reconfirms). If Mr. McCormick, were
upon his release from hospitals, to encounter yet a third
domain of “low security”, I believe he might’ve been the
victim of what Prof. Taleb has termed a “black swan”: a low
probability/high impact (for the victim) event. [If I am correct about this he takes credit, if I am wrong, I will take blame!]
This further underscores my previous posts: Why did the CRRU get these “Notes” and not Behavioral Sciences”?
The latter might have concluded the author of the notes
to have certain characteristics of personality, then, it would
have been recommended to be sent, for example, to U.S.
postal inspectors for further examination. RE: the FBI, George, like everyone these days, they are undoubtely overworked and understaffed, etc., and I am sure they will
at some point approach the public with some reasonable conclusion to this matter. Kind regards.
Baha “Bob” Hamdallah
George: I did look into the T9 gadget you mentioned. Chronologically, it is true such a thing was licensed by the mid to late ’90’s. However, I don’t remember if telephonic communication played a large role in the victim’s latter days.
(Phones, then, you remember what quite larger and more cumbersome, too!) It is quite possible that something unrelated to cryptography, could help break the case.
Remember you asked me if the victim was near a body of water? Yes, he was. Or more importantly, was found near a levee. Law enforcement officials believed the corpse, found
in the condition of decayed remains, had been moved to this location. Many commentators have, rightly, pointed out, however, how a body could have been dumped without being noticed. If you look at the road in question (I’d have to look it up, again) which leads to the levee, via internet video, indeed, the road artery is bidirectional, and moderately trafficked. Unless…..the vehicle was so unremarkable, quotidian, that no one paid any attention to it. (see remarks above.) Thanks again for your comments.
well said…about the chronologically period for T9, phones aswell…did you try page 1?…it seems to be logic for the first words but more difficult after or quite imposible to understand the rest……i have doubts about the space between words
Me personaly i’ve tryed to avoid this factor “explain the code by placing the victim near an event or something” because it leads to dead ends and to many interpretations…
First i discovered by accident the similarity with the T9 language and after that i “decoded” some words then i was curious about the victim location,healt, last seen etc…..so i am sure that those words decoded lead me to his reimbursement fees and not the articles or storyies from papers describing his last days or whereabouts or healt state…..for me this logic chain is important and i belive is the break through for this case…..outside the box means in this case and for those coded papers an explanation independent from old events and starting only from the text itself….we must link the text to events not vice versa……..
i belive the CRRU and the FBI released those papers to public attention whitout offering important details to obtaine the direct aproach of the text….but years gone by and no break through or no lucki guess come to this …..
George: thanks again for your kind response and efforts
on the “Notes”. I agree the texts and the events of Mr. McCormick’s demise must have some causal relationship.
A significant problem remains, though. First finding, then
proving that relationship. I have looked at pg. 1 more times than I care to admit. It appears to be a working vocabulary,
or jargon of some sort. Abbreviations known to its author,
of course, but not, necessarily a strictly encoded, “high-level” language. It could be a natural language, like English.
Second, it could be written down if its author possibly for training purposes. But it proved too unwieldy for teaching use. On the page with the NOTES heading, many of the same clusters of symbols, NCBE, for example, but they are set off, this time, far more clearly by hyphens. On the same page there are five encirclements, one notices the numeral four. Does could well refer to the previous four encirclements? I’d believed for a while, too, they referred to “high-level” matters as you and others have. I now reckon they refer to units or segments of a “mid-level” matter like a route or itinerary of some kind. At present, then, it is possible that “E” is not silent, but represents some word like “entry” or “entrance”. Note as well, the profusion on both sheets, of “L”s and “Rs,” it is an ineluctable feature of our world, symmetry, or more accurately asymmetry. Left and/ or right. Whoever wrote the “Notes was dealing with real-world issues, I am convinced. I agree the case, somehow, became FUBAR (please don’t ask me to translate
this acronym George!), but I am not interested in a finger pointing exercise, just trying to find answers. Kind regards.
……or against my T9 teory…. it seems in page 2 in the third or fourth encirclement ,the letters (when the numbers apear in text) “that is some kind of shorthand, like writing down a letter or two from each word in a sentence”….. 2 letters for a word minimum? that had to be a rule of some kind! but the vocals are not helping and are missing a lot in that kind of rule….i’m lost in it…..)))))…….nothing new i supose….
George, there is nothing new. Just the same sun shining on the same old, mean world.
That is to say, sometimes things are just as they appear, sometimes, things are not just as they appear.
I think of all the odd features of the “McCormick case”,
so called.
The fact, for instance, of the victim’s death. No “forensics”
could be gathered from the corpse it has been alleged, despite being treated for serious, mortally serious conditions at no less than two hospitals, right before this death. The victim, an African-American male, hailed from locales known, by the US government, detailed by its own extensive documentation, to be lethally toxic environments.
It hardly need adding that the poor, African-American community where Ricky met his demise was, and very likely, remains, disproportionately exposed to, (vis-à-vis, the larger, total US population)and adversely affected by sufficient “legal” but inadequate environmental monitoring.
(Of course, various glib [hirelings] will balk, there is a difference between “correlation” and “causation”, etc.,
the talk of the courtroom prima donna, etc.) For my part,
I will take a glass to the river, put it in, and ask my interlocutors to swallow.)
So, what about “the Notes”? I don’t know, truly. I do however, think about the case being made public,
the timing of it, the page 2. mention in the MIT “Tech”,
RSA and its later incarnations, (circa 1998), and the thought
crosses my mind, for a moment though, could I be wrong?
There must not be a connection between the depredations visited on these communities, by greed, short-sightedness,
and the government, my government, who very largely,
looks the other way? In exchange, for what, one must wonder, what was the price paid, and for what?
George,
I have come to accept your “phone” idea, but in this case,
the game, not the device.
After the remains of Mr. McCormick were found in 1999,
I have no doubt a sincere effort on the part of local authorities was made to determine what happened to the victim.
However, after 9/11, things changed. Close to two dozen
Federal agencies became enfolded into DHS, including
Secret Service, FBI, etc. This does not include of course,
all manner of consultants, and “experts” with expensive
arrays of software packages, and the like. Somehow, during
this period, the “Notes” probably became attached to the case file, and….. Questions became quickly became facts: the victim was “murdered”, “killed”…when investigators had little idea of what happened. How did the victim get so far from his homes? Well, for one thing, there was ample transportation, in St. Louis, (indeed, the Metrolink) is not
far from the hospital, where he was treated. (Consider
the writer Ray Bradbury, lived much of his entire adult
life in LA, land of the eight-lane freeways….without a car.
Didn’t seem to bother him that much.)It is most likely,
as Nick and Hubert discussed a while back in ’13,
the “Notes”, are the outcome of some error,
or mistake, that has over time become magnified, and mythic, than caught early and dissolved.
2. It is true Federal agents went to MIT, upon release of the “Notes”, but there is nothing unusual in this either.
While one discerns at least in the first encirclement of the “Notes” there are apparent sets of six, ALPNTE..
GLSSE, ERTEVL.. and six is a magic, or so called
“perfect” number which can be decomposed into
1+2+3, the latter primes which can be, multiplied, and employed in cryptographic communication, it is rather fanciful to suggest (and did not intend )that the victim, or authorities, were testing the strength of RSA, or any other encryption system. (Though the strength of said system is said to have withstood all attacks, and yet at other times, to be less than previously claimed.)
However, I continue to believe that environmental
factor played some role in Mr. McCormick’s, and
perhaps, ailments of other citizens of the communities, where he resided. Many of the good people of Missouri, have taken an increasingly skeptical stance about how
accurate the information the Government has supplied,
about the presence of toxins, pollutants or contaminates,
in the environs. After examining a large amount of reports on this subject, I would say this skepticism is entirely warranted. Work on the “Notes” and the fate of the victim, then, may not have been in vain.
There is No code…after a few hours I figured it out. It’s all about Ricky going to RC Branson for a “prse”-prize of a CBE rc airplane. “ncbe” reads and CBE. “n” is always and, “ne” is always and he, there are at least 5 different names of people on these notes, can you find them? They all begin with a capital.
Tim: maybe, maybe… or maybe not. By which I mean: I think you’re broadly on the right kind of track, but if you want to glimpse even one word from poor Ricky’s mind, I’m pretty sure that “PSECHLE” = SPECIAL.
By in-depth analysis, And by reading the site- https://erowid.org/archive/rhodium/chemistry/lsd-buzz.html.
I came to the conclusion that this document describes a way to create Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (LSD).
Quantities, weight
Everything works out after conversion, for example-
code(p1,line 9) – 0.71 oz -> site(paragraph 8, line 1) – 20 g of NaOH, ~0,71(0.705) ounces = 20 grams
Materials
code(notes, line 7) – tetr
site(paragraph 5, line 5) – tetracyclic ketone
Row 7(code) is comprised of parts of compounds
site(paragraph-11, line 1)
Okay, I don’t have much free time.
So good luck with the rest of the solution
I hope I helped
He’s definitely a left-hander.
I find some of the stuff above interesting – and certainly the dyslexic illiterate theory is somewhat intriguing – especially since it would seem a vowel sounds is most commonly ‘e’.
Some random thoughts/observations (many of which would not support each other):
I had also noticed as one commentator put it that the ‘n’ seems to often represent “and” (or maybe that’s because it looks smaller than the surrounding characters). P1 begins with bracketed text MnD – Mum and Dad?? (followed by MKnEM….
NCBE appears a lot, most often at the end of a line – and often seems to refer to people (as stated in the article above and lines like:
PNRTRSE ONPRSE WLD NCBE ( Present??? PERSON WOULD NCBE )
Possibly PRSE is Person (rather than PRSE ON), and the “ON” is actually ON (it seems to be distinct from PRSE in most occurrences)
I don’t know Arabic, but I was intrigued by the commenter who claimed it could be a bad (non standardised) transliteration of romanized Arabic….
There are bits that hint at the sort of errors you’d see in typed work – P’s that could be O’s (and other keyboard fumbles) – of course, this is incredibly unusual in something that is hand-written – unless it’s transcribed from something poorly typed
LRSE RLSE is interesting….
Some of the writing seems to be in a noticeably different size. This is most of the ‘N’ (and) as well as the NC in NCBE and ON after PRSE. It sort of reminds me when I was at university and came up with all sorts of abbreviations and other shorthands as I desprately tried to keep up with the lecturer (and tried to minimise the number of pages used). The shorthand tended to be smaller than words written not in a shorthand
I like CDNSE as “Second”, but I can’t see “first” in FLRSE or “third” in PR+SE (I would think these are names rather than counts and I would assume ‘+’ would represent something phonetically similar to plus (like some of the l33tspeak highlighted by others)…I could speculate on the names (CDNSE = Denise?), but I don’t think that would be particulalry helpful
There’s a semi-interesting article online that suggests he could be keeping track of some medical condition (where the E would represent ‘Episode’ and some of the numbers be dosage of different medicines – originally I remember thinkg it was really strange to have so maby E (while
E is common in English, not so much as the 1st letter of words – and fairly early on I was speculating that this is simply Acronomization overkill).
Other than it doesn’t seem to fit contextually, can’t help seeing NCBE and thinking Bacon (or better yet Bank)
WLD is quite prominent, often with NCBE – I immediately think the l33tspeak “would”, but also “wild”, “Win/Loss/Draw”
This bit looks like addresses:
NMNLCBRNSEPTE2PTEWSRCBRNE6
36 MLSE 74SPRKSE 29KCNO8, OLE 17SRTRSE
35 SLE CLGCE JUNUTREMOKRSE PSESHLE
6S1MTCSEHTLSE N CUTCTRS NMRE
99.84.3 2UNE PLSE NCRSE AOKTSENSKSENB5E
N5REONSE PUTSEWLDNCBE (3XORL)
Maybe mny imagination is ott, but there’s hints of “street”, “Junction”, “place”, “name” (or perhaps “number”), “”customer”
And I can’t help but think the last line (which is sort of squeezed in as an afterthought) is some sort of instructions about “if no response put (and then our favourite WLD NCBE) – perhaps with a reminder to ring the bell 3x before deciding there’s no answer.
Other than E; L,X and R seem quite common (so does S, but that’s not so surprising) – X often seems to mean “times”, but not every time…..
Bling, thanks for your input and thoughtful discussion of the “Notes”; without one trying to make some sense of pages, no solution to the fate of Mr. McCormick, will
very likely be found.
1. RE: Arabic. Interesting, but the number 4, for example
(“4 MIL”)I’ve learned subsequently has shifted in Arabic, through classical times to modern times.
2. Dyslexic. Difficult to infer from too few pages of documents. If the Notes are shorthand of some sort,
certainly problems of “rehashing” them into credible prose would arise. Then, of course, a main difficulty will continue to plague us: why were they abbreviated in the first place?
If, Ricky was a “numbers” runner, (BTW, all the people who keep book for me say “First, let me break out the Crane’s Crest stationery!.;).. as George R. pointed out above, there must’ve been some procedural/formal way to decode if it was encoded in the first place..” All, this too, presupposes that Mr. McCormick was the alleged “Author” of “Notes.”
The use of letters is interesting, but maddening, Letter utilized in this manner AL,NP,TE, can be used to abbreviate anything from the members of a bridge truss,
in civil engineering to the geometrical diagrams and theorem translations from the Latin, of Isaac Newton’s Principia. (Coincidentally, I.B. Cohen’s translation published by U of California Press, was released
in 1999.) [Was someone trying to follow such proofs in a library or academic setting?]
Geography. Unquestionably, geography must play a major role in this case. Why, for example, did Federal HUD investigators, get involved in the first place? I suspect it is because Mr. McCormick lived within the walls of HUD-funded or federally funded housing, at one time or another. Did they really believe he was involved in drug trade? If so, it should have been quite neat to put such things together, right? I mean they’re the pros at this thing, you and I, are just amateurs, right?
Just came across this mystery today. Fascinating stuff!
I don’t think that’s a code at all, and more a home-brew
argot developed by an individual who was deeply dyslexic and in equal measure both abandoned and abandoned-by the elementary education system.
This, from a blog entry on http://casecrackers-puzzler.blogspot.ie/
“On 6/25/99, Ricky went to a dr. appt to get medication at Forest Park Hospital, 6150 Oatland Ave., St. Louis,”
When I looked at the following line, the phrase “please increase” jumped out at me.
99.84.3 2UNE PLSE NCRSE AOLT SENS KS EN BSE
N S REONSE PUTS E WLDNCBE (3XORL)
After a lot of squinting and coffee, it looks like this to me now:
99.6.25 June Pulse increased a lot since Kansas (EN BSE)
and his response was he would wait and see (3XORL)
I can’t make out the EN BSE, maybe bse is base, or and because, or whatever you’re having yourself.
3XORL I’m sure I’ve seen on medical prescriptions/pill bottles as shorthand for “Take orally three times daily”
It’s all probably just a lack of sleep and surfeit of caffeine on my part.
Hi,
@Bling July 6, 2015 3:44 am
Interesting, because I read “FIRSE” instead of FLRSE when I saw the letter. I translated it to “First” and only after that I thought maybe CDNSE means second. Funny, it was just the other way round.
—-
After that I translated “PRSE” as “price”, but maybe “praise” “ONDE” sounded like “on the” for me
(=First praise on the 71, second praise on the 74)
At the top right of the letter are 4 letters in brackets. If you look closer, you can see there are 2 other letters nearly substituted by the brackets – it seems the brackets where added later. First one seems to be a “P” and the last one seems to be a “S”. You get Palsms or Pacsms
I just followed the idea it maybe Psalms (I know, stupid idea) If only the background story wouldn’t be so sad! it is interesting how easily you can fool yourself if you want to. The story I got was:
NCBE = New Century Bible
WLD = World
At Line 7: GD DMN SENC U RE RCBRN
GD = God
DMN = Damn
SENC = Sense
U = You
RE = Are
RC(E)BRN = Reborn
The spooky thing is, if you take the ICB (=International Children’s bible) there is nothing said about “reborn” at Psalm 71, in the New Century Bible it is.
There where many things that fitted, but I don’t want them to write down, it is time wasting and first of all it is disrespectful against the family! (Sorry, but that is how I feel, I always imagine the family reading stories about their son, being “retarded” and all the speculations)
But as said, and I really want to figure out it was just a “try”, this is how the brain works. You follow the path you found, even if you know it is stupid. I just wanted to say, that I also think “CDNSE” means second, now the text is so long – amagd 😉
I feel sorry that the family will probably never know what happened to him. 🙁
(Sorry for my English, I`m not a native speaker)
could NCBE be Ounce?
First Person 71 Ounces
Second Person 74 Ounces
Last Person 75 Ounces
(a total of 220 Ounces)
His total was 194. There are 16oz in 1lb so he was over 1lb short?
The rest relates to times, dates, addresses, and product.
Hello, I com from to Europa,
I don’t speak English but I can to speak French or Italian.
I understood a litle what is that and why he is dead.
Can I writte French?
M M: if you can explain it in any language, you’re doing very well. 🙂
Please feel free to leave a comment here in (almost) any language you like.
I wanted to correct an error made in a January 2014 post. At present, there is no reason not to think Mr. McCormick made it to Lambert Avenue, and the St Louis International Airport. The links here are several: the actual transportation link (the Metrolink rail serves one of the hospitals where he was a patient, and extends to the STL), the density and rapid transcription of whatever information the notes could relate to, possibly suggest an important terminus or similar area, and of course, local authorities commented upon the earliest discovery of the victim, the corpse seemed to have “been moved”. To prove any possible “BLE”, however, or whatever nomenclature the aviation authorities currently accept, will be difficult. But, this has been discussed at length already. However, the difficulties may not prove insurmountable.
Nick, please accept my apologies. I must correct an intended correction: I meant a later post, May, not January 2014. Also, I should have written “disprove”, rather than “prove” a BLE, (or “Blue Lightning Event”, so called, and cited by the FAA[Federal Aviation Administration]), . All this means, quite simply, the strong possibility there was a [non-migrant, in this particular occurrence, though] non authorized entry to a (commercial) aircraft in the spring of 1999.
I agree with Bling’s comment mostly.
I don’t think it a code so much as a shorthand of his own using his own slang and since he knew the places he was visiting the shorthand needn’t of contained more than just a letter for a street name or persons name I suppose. I was hoping to see a phone number or a full address. Maybe NCBE are the first letters of a street and suburb?
Peter: indeed, “NCBE” could easily signify a road, a block, a building, a project, a neighbourhood, or whatever. But right now, I really don’t think it’s anything so classically cryptographic as the initials of anything: I’m pretty sure that the answer will be both dyslexically straightforward (if that makes sense) and face-palmingly obvious, rather than anything resembling cryptography per se.
I hate to say it, but the foolish-sounding notion that Ricky McCormick was some kind of secret crypto genius seems to be no more than an FBI bureaucratic alibi to help it explain away its collective inability to decrypt the two notes.
Indeed – Hanlon’s razor: “Never attribute to malice that which is sufficiently explained by incompetence” (or something)
Milongal: is the short version “don’t cryptanalyse dyslexic diaries”?
Here is some of my work on Mr. McCormick’s ” MYSTERIOUS NOTES ” . PAGE 1 & 2 . : ACSM ” = A SCAM FIRST PRSEONDE 71 NCBE = FIRST RESP.(RESPONSE) ON DE(DECEMBER) 71 in C.B.E. ” CDNSE PRSEONDE 74 N CBE ” = SECOND RESP(RESPONSE) ON SE(SEPTEMBER) 74 IN C.B.E. INC. . “PRTSE PRSE ONREDE 75 NCBC) = PART RESPONSE DE(DECEMBER)75 IN C.B.E. . ” HMCREN MREFCBE ” = FRENCH MEMBER . ” 99, 84.5 ” = DOSE LEVELS IN RADIODIAGNOSTIC PRACTICE ” XDRLX ” = DIAGNOSTIC REFERENCE LEVELS . : NSREONSE ” = NO REASON . ” 651 MTC SEHTLSENCUTCTRS NMRE ” = 651 MTC THE LENS CUTTER CENTERS . ” SAIETENARSE ” = ARSENIST AEE .
What Is or was C.B.E. INC. ? Were the responses Emergency Medical Responses ? Did Mr. McCormick know something that someone did not want him to know about ? Perhaps a radioactive overdose given to a patient(what was he treated for ?) . Also, did he wear eyeglasses ? Was there an arson at a local Lens Cutter Center back then ?
There are difficulties with a straightforward medical interpretation of the “Notes”. As far as I am aware, McCormick was treated at two medical centers, one of which has since closed. It might be imagined that this ground was covered by local law enforcement, but the details admittedly have remain very sketchy. However, the idea that his illness, in turn, had some environmental facet, given the wide swatch of his documented residences in Missouri and greater St. Louis, (which is actually [Sauget, Illinois] near Fairview Heights, IL prove plausible. Could the letters could be arranged to form a chain within a phonetic alphabet? (If so, they become less frail looking and sounding.) Didn’t a government cartographical agency occupy two locales during the late 90’s, including a low-slung building in St. Louis greater St. Louis? Can this somehow connect with the other government agencies in this area, during the late 1990’s NIMA (now known more grandly, as the GSA, or National Geospatial Intelligency Agency), like the FAA, DOD, and NATO, which would’ve utilize such shorthand? As far as I’ve been able to gather, this area had heavy industry: zinc, copper, chemicals, etc. However, I cannot explain, what these “notes” were doing with the victim, though.
Charles Witteck: I struggle to read McCormick’s notes in terms of any well-known technical abbreviations. When I searched for abbreviations early on (just in case there was something obvious there), that essentially came up blank – though there were (inevitably) individual matches, nothing even remotely systematic stepped forward from the fog.
I’m still trying to make some sense of the notes that were found with Mr. McCormick . The line, ” VLSE MTSE – CTSE – WSE – FRTSE ” , could be, ” Very Large Scale Evaluation, Materials Science Engineering, Corps Tactical Operations Center Support Etcetera, Weapon Systems Engineering, Failure Rate Test South East “. Could it be that Mr. McCormick had two pages of notes each relating to different subjects ? Perhaps he obtained some type of official documents that had been discarded and he transcribed them on paper of his own . One page being of a medical significance, and the other being of a military nature . I am continuing look at both pages .
Nick: Thanks for your kind post. I merely wished to add, I too have struggled (!)
with the “Notes” as representing well known, as well as extremely obscure abbreviations.
Several posters on the “Notes” mentioned the word phonetic, but I’d misunderstood
them. I had believed they were referring to, say foreign words, represented phonetically, so an English speaking actor, for example, could appear to speak Chinese, without actually being able to read or write the language. I am referring
to the specific phonetic alphabet, that could be used to create a sort of syllabary” Alpha…Lima…Tango…November….Charlie…Bravo……Echo” and so on.
Of course, any sort of communication, would still have to be decrypted. Still, the idea
that these letters form continued iterations,has if instructions were being relayed;
No,perhaps rather commands, of some sort, changing, than repeated
as if ensuring they were being followed out. One can see that many
of the letters that are illegible or were changed, are more often consonants than vowels. I have come across some interesting documents– that I’m still trying to make sense of–that were published by enthusiasts who’d monitored radiotelephone broadcasts in 1999. They demonstrate that these broadcasts sometimes move from different, sometime highly secured bandwidths which could help explain the fragmentary nature of the “notes”.
Rick: I’d rejected any notion of any covert or semi-covert activity, on the face of it as implausible. However, increasing knowledge of the area has changed my initial views
considerably. I will have to return to this notion shortly.
Another line on Mr. McCormick’s Notes Page , ” N WLD XLRC MSP NEWLD STS MEXL “, could be, ” NORTH WEAPON LOADING DIRECTOR, EXTRA LARGE RANGE CONTROL, MEDIUM SIZED PROJECT, NORTHEAST WEAPON LOADING DIRECTOR, SPACE TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM, MISSILE ENABLE EXTRA LARGE “.
Rick: It is true the “Notes” display N WLD XLRC MSP and so on. However, the combinations will change again from WLD to HLD or alphanumerically 194 WLD’S . It might be interesting to note that XL is can be employed at to begin or end radiotelephone communications. Letters and symbols 1/2 or ‘ D-W-M’, say, into Morse, or back again. Consider XLYPPIY being read out as “X-Ray-Lima-Yankee-Papa-Papa-India-Yankee.” or GLSE-SE as “Golf-Lima-Sierra-Echo-Sierra Echo”, etc. What these specific combinations or iterations would mean, of course, I have no idea. I’m still digesting the work of the radiotelephone enthusiasts who monitor this kind of thing, to be entirely clear about this point. Only that to point out that the repeats and iterations could have some underlying meaning, without being simply nonsense.
(If it is nonsense, then, the avenue of grasping what happened to Mr. McCormick becomes firmly closed.)
I am curious, though, why your thoughts have landed on missile systems. Are you aware of any such defense system facilities in St. Charles, MO, where the victim was found?
Charles,
Having a former nuclear background myself in the U.S. Navy, the missile system connection intrigues me . However, your thoughts and ideas of radiotelephone communications using Morse Code makes a lot of sense . Perhaps, somehow Mr. McCormick found notes of military importance that were improperly discarded and should have been incinerated . I was aboard Fast Attack Nuclear submarines . On Shore Duty, I also helped to see to it that information or communication of a Confidential or higher classification was discarded properly in an incinerator on the base . I also safeguarded this type of information at Submarine Headquarters .
I have no knowledge of defense missile systems in the St. Charles, MO Area, but I am going to do some research into this idea .
What do you think of my other posting about, “LENS CUTTER CENTERS and the MEDICAL/RADIATION Exposure “, ideas that I earlier posted ?
I truly believe that Mr. McCormick found this information at perhaps two different locations, and then wrote them down on paper in his own handwritten type of shorthand that he could understand . Thanks .
Charles,
I found that a Boeing U.S. Navy Harpoon Missile Systems Headquarters has been and is still located in St. Charles, MO . They also have a Defense & Space Security Strategic Missile System located there along with Unmanned Airborne Systems . Whiteman ( Formerly Sedalia ) DOD Missile Headquarters 4 351st & DOD Strategic B2 Bombers is also located in St. Charles, MO . Nike Battery KC DA 10 located in Lawson, MO is a Surface-to-Air Guided Missile Installation . They also manufacture missiles that engage high flying aircraft .
I found that there are several sites in Missouri where harmful heavy metals, asbestos, and possibly radioactive substances are buried . Also, much ammunition has been buried and is undetonated, but continues to be found .
Rick, first thank you very much for your service and your very helpful information. Part of the reason for this website, is to try to search for, and share evidence, and above all, perhaps receive independent confirmation. Otherwise, we’d be speaking into the void. I promise to post a full reply later.
I
Charles,
Thank you very much. I did some more digging and on Mr. McCormick’s ” NOTES PAGE, “, the line ” AL PNTE GLSE – SE ERtE ” might be, ” ARMAMENT LABORATORY, PENTAGON EAST, GEOPHYSICAL LABORATORY SOUTHEAST ( Washington, D.C., U.S. DOD ), SOUTHEAST EXCEPTIONAL RELEASE MISSION CAPABLE AIRCRAFT TEST & EVALUATION “. Another line, ” DULMT 6 TUNSE NcBEXL “, might be, ” DISCARDABLE UNIT ( Logistic Analysis ) LIMIT, 6 ( SIX ) TANGO UNIFORM ( Inoperational ) NON – DEPLOYED SHOREBASED EQUIPMENT ( NAVY ), NUCLEAR CHEMICAL BIOLOGICAL EXPLORATION LICENSE “.
Charles, thank you for your ideas and information. I look forward to your input about this enigma . Through sharing evidence, we may all figure it out .
Rick: I apologize for the delay in responding. One principal difficulty of trying to understand the “Notes” has been the impossibility of fact-gathering and evaluating facts simultaneously. What follows is yet only another attempt , grounded in current history (as per the gentle chiding of Mr. Pelling) and public knowledge. By no means, do I argue there is a definite connection with these segues and the “Notes”, only suggestions how some “soduku–like” aspects of this case, might be arranged.
1. A little while ago, I stumbled upon a website, World UTE News, (http: http://www.wunclub.com), that was loaded with information about aviation, marine, etc broadcasts throughout the globe. One issue in particular, WUN-V06, contained much about the B-2, then known as the B-1 bomber (remember, these were the days
before “shock and awe”.) Amid all the stuff about advanced avionics, weaponry (more of this in a bit), one fact stood out: regardless of whatever the point of origin, Guam or Branson, MO (yes, Whiteman AFB), despite the classified range of nautical miles, the bomber could return to it’s home base, with at most, one refueling. But what really piqued my interest among the mention of cluster bombs, electronic countermeasures, etc. was JDAMs
2. Briefly, the acronym JDAM (which does not come trippingly off the tongue),
stands for Joint Direct Attack Munition. During the late 1990’s, according to fascinating documents of the Federation of American Scientists (one of the few organizations that raised questions over their use), [see http://fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/smart/jdam.htm%5D, this involved affixing a microchip, plastic housing and tail
kit, making a heretofore “dumb” bomb, into a ” smart” bomb. Apparently, the generals, and their contractors, were very happy with the results; for these weapons
became extremely effective (100 percent), and also, quite cheap. (In these documents, the assemblages were in Berkeley, MO; I have seen others were the MDS of Boeing is in St. Charles, MO. I will try to pin this down). Anyway, the point is, everyone was pleased, until something went wrong.
3. In the spring (May 8) of 1999, NATO bombers launched an airstrike in Belgrade, the former Yugoslavia. The intended target was something called the Federal Directorate For Supply and Procurement. (Earlier attempts by officials and legislators to freeze funds had, it seems, proved inadequate.) Instead of hitting the target, the Chinese Embassy was struck, killing three persons. (http; //www.nato.int/kosovo/ace/990508a.htm). So?, you ask. Didn’t I just tell you that these JDAMs, had an
effective rate of 99 or 100 percent? Exactly. According to the published reporting, in the NY Times, several facts emerged. One, the targets and bombs were controlled by civilian officials. Second, the military pilots were given (obviously) erroneous cartographic information, which brings us back, I think, to that low slung building at the Sauget, IL location. My session as this console is coming to an end, so I will return to this last point tomorrow. Thanks
Charles,
You have posted some very interesting and thought provoking work. I believe that you have uncovered the significance of what is contained in the ” NOTES “. I am really interested about the JDAM ” dumb ” to ” smart ” bomb conversion and its high percentage of effectiveness when used by the military for military purposes. The efficiency rating of 99% to 100% and low cost per conversion rate must have. indeed have impressed and made military officials very satisfied. The errant geographical location of the intended target(s) However, the use of converted JDAMs by NATO and the errant results were terrible. The ultimate control by civilians is scary, to say the least.
I have done some more work on Mr. McCormick’s ” NOTES “. The line, ” N M N R C B R NSE PTE 2 PTE WS RE BK, N SE “, could be, ” NOMEX MYLAR NOMEX, RADIO CONTROLLED, BOMBER RECONNAISSANCE, NON-DEPLOYED SHORE BASED EQUIPMENT ( NAVY ), POINT TARGET ELLIPSE ( PILOT TONES ), 2 (DOUBLED ), POINT TARGET ELLIPSE ( PILOT TONES ), WEAPON (S) SPECIFICATION ( GPS, Satellite, Radar, Lasers ), RESEARCH ENGINEERING, NOT CLASSIFIED BUT SENSITIVE, SOUTHEAST “. I believe that all of this relates to your JDAMs and what happened.
Nomex Mylar Nomex is fire retardant, not effected by high altitude, lightweight and strong. I found out that it has applications in aerospace and aeronautics for covering of wings, etcetera on craft, including Unmanned Aircraft ( JDAMs, UAV’s ) . Radio Control is the method of guidance and Point Target Ellipses are used to zero in on targets. The Point Target Ellipse Tones are doubled to allow for standard deviation away from target.
The military may have found a fatal flaw in Targeting System used by the JDAMs, and perhaps that is why use of JDAMs by the military cooled off. When the civilians used the JDAMS, they may not been aware of the downfall of using JDAMs . Also, they may not have been knowledgeable in setting or programming the target coordinates.
Mr. McCormick may have stumbled upon something that was not supposed to get out to the public when he discovered discarded ” NOTES ” .
Rick: I plan to write a longer post later. It is true that Sauget (pronounced) “Saw-gay”
IL had been a Superfund site. However, one of the NIMA locations I mentioned was Lemay, MO, somewhat further down the river, not Sauget, IL so I erred on that point. However, there was another NIMA location in St. Louis county, so it does change the main thrust of the thesis. I will return to this shortly. Thanks.
I
Charles,
I was looking at PAGE 1 of Mr. McCormick’s papers. Line 1 is ” M N D MU NE M R SE-N-S-M UN ARE “, could be, ” MISSION NEEDS DOCUMENT (STATEMENT), MAINTENANCE UNIT (AF AIRCRAFT MAINTENANCE UNIT), NORTH EAST, MULTI-MISSION, RISK ASSESSMENT, SENSITIVE UNCLASSIFIED, MULTI-MISSION, URANIUM NITRIDE, AIRCRAFT REACTOR EXPERIMENT “.
Rick: The idea of Mr. McCormick coming across something not intended for him, is interesting. This could explain some factors: what the nature of the “Notes” might
be (“raw” [signal] intelligence?); that they should have be properly disposed of or destroyed; why no one has hastened to come forward. (For what its worth, the outfit I mentioned, NIMA, had no less than two locations in Missouri, Lemay, MO, and St. Louis, Central Avenue.)
hellow to all of you !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
well for page 1 in the first paranthesis i have seen in the spirit of abreviation and others trics ( Another try from my part or twisted mind and vision- WAS the first try of the phone T9 language ) Something That blow my mind and give me shivers ! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ……… i want to share with you Those words and hope you see what i ‘ m seen ……..
P1
( MY END IS NEAR SENSE IM AWEARE ) deducted from ( MND .. . NEAA RSE -N -S -M -A WARE ) ……… (MY END IS NEAR SENSE I’M AWARE )
Ive noticed that the W is in half and after MND ” is” is gibberish and he used an ” AA” and the ” N ” to concealed leters ……. Those other pieces of papers has been translated in the wrong way that’s the couse of confusions and misinterpretations -leters transcripted wrong…..
thanks…..and waiting for an opinion……..excuse my writing im from Romania))))
I am in 6th grade and my class is doing this code. We figured out that Ricky has been to jail for 13 months at age 35 for doing you-know-what with a 14 year old girl, and had a child.
ilikecatz: I’ll post up a new page for you on Ricky McCormick and his notes. Perhaps you’ll be able to solve it then!
ilikecatz: …and here it is… http://ciphermysteries.com/2016/04/12/ricky-mccormicks-notes-for-6th-graders 🙂
MAYBE !!
FLR = Florida
SPRK = south park
71 onde = 7 ounce x 1= distribution quantity = 28,3495 grams
74 onde = 7 ounce x 4 = 113,398 grams
75 on red = 7 ounce x 5 = 141,748 grams
28 + 113 + 141 = 282
282 – 194 = 88
99.84.5 5UNE = 1999.84.5 JUNE
TRFXL = traffic light
HE know how to right is name so he know how to right all the letters mixt in is writing , The N is simply the next after M , normal to know about it , same thing to right few time few letters together as a tempo , a beat in is writing ( poetry ) SE , BE, RTE, RSE, RTSE, NE, NCBE, CBE, NSE, it is a is mind blur or-and echo … repeat time after time because of stress and maybe overdose of caffeine ( coffee drinker and night owl )
”
in Quebec a well known Poet that lost is mind , was using this kind of way of writing more intellectually by using sound of words and letters to express him self – Émile Nelligan – declare to have a Juvenal dementia and nevrosis in is teenage life, and a dissociatif Syndrome ,maybe there is a same relation with Ricky MC Cormick writing but with out the intellect to write full words, but just playing with letters and pictural sound that he got in mind glue to a chaotic symphony of letters that he got is own way to see them together + repeat pattern and imitative harmonie
Maybe Ricky was using this paper and writing time to show he was doing something for the eyes of people look at him , to give him self a temporary status in life, behaving like he could write and read for the eyes of people around him. For some that have illiteracy, faking to write or read in public its common, l in a public place for some ”protection” reason or to make them ”lookalike” like others in society. ex. : old street man using newspapers to hide their head when they sleep or just avoid eyes contacts, Ricky was maybe keeping is head down on something when he take is coffee , to have something to do and stay where he want to stay for more longer then just drinking … etc. a way to pass the time and also let go is mind on something in-staid of talking alone, close to a compulsif disorder but trick by is own way that he want’s to be seen by others in public area , as a educated person or someone that is just taking a brake alone and dont want to be talk to .
FOR the time he was found and the time he was seen, the place he live and the places he go there is a ”straight” line to draw
IF
HE walk is path home — if you join the last adress know and areas that he live with ”Sara” and place he lived , and the Gas station and Haunt place, the spot that they find is body it is align with is walk alone HOME . ( if he home you can see a lots of things to read on a road and on the street and at the Gas station work place , So if we keep in mind that he was working at the gas station, he had time to regroup alote of info about day task and so , he had time to know some words , like money counting and numbers to read when it is a full tank or a load for 20$ of gas — the repeat LETTERS are on signs SOUTH , EAST , WEST , NORTH , Bridge sign, roads signs, HIGHWAYS, etc. + Hospital signs + doctor consulting , plate numbers and letters that he can see everyday in the back of cars. etc. and this in a ”photographic” way. After is memory can be dysfunctional between what he see and read and remember and can write after seeing it.
Where he have time to write ? ( nicely – no wave in the movement, like in moving transportation writing ”shaky” style ( =he was not abduct, cannot take bus out of the city to go to is home area + he was a heavy coffee drinker, so writing in this condition ( + is mind, mood etc. ) can be fast and stress, so he got time to write calmly , the only place he can do that, it is when i got time to do it , at the hospital , the night he pass before is death and/or coffee place ( 24h or night or day open place, where they serve coffee and where he can sit at a table to write – different ways to write ( on a hand-to-hand , on a flat surface, on a leg, ? … ) Best way for him it is on a table or a desk , for sure not on a bench writing position, the writing will be to centered or place in corners, in angle, or on the side of the paper for a better confort position. The note is perfectly set on the middle or using the space = flat writing position = table, calmly and not in a moving state.
MNDMK fist sentence it is the title of is letter —
the letter was not a list or few idea , but write as a single sentence and tell something, like a poem . exemple : today i want to pass the bridge to see if on the other side it is better N if i am cool with this i will visit my aunt and go to the hospital ( but i dont now yet ) N blablabla blablablablabla etc.
N can be the AND , or teenagers twist repeatably say :
LIKE , BUT, You know, etc. — NS, NSE , NCBE
same with kids : And, And and, after, why, why not , because, because what, because because, because i say no, no means no, etc.
———————
Hope i help in a way …
[ my first language is french , so if i make mistake in English , oups ! sorry hope it is cmore clear than Ricky McCormick writing 🙂 ]
IF there’s some big glubberment conspiracy here, then surely when the FBI sat on the notes (for 10 years) they would have realised if there was some tangle of OGAs (Other Govt Agency) there – and in that case I don’t really see them saying “oh well, we can’t make head or tail of it, let’s crowd source it” (and if there WAS an OGA involved and the FBI didn’t know it, then surely they could have stopped the release of the note).
No, I think this is exactly as it appears. The FBI has realised that the letters are mundane (though not necessarily useless), and has released them as a last-ditch effort to get some meaning from them…..Even the 10 year gap between his death and the release of the notes to me suggests that a new (“cold case”?) team took on the case, rather than they were puzzling over it for 10 years.
2c
Milongal: I appreciate and welcome your thoughts on your recent post. I hope anything I have posted recently has not mislead lead anyone to believing I am making any specific accusations about any “OGA”. (Hence, my disclaimer in my March 15th post.) There have been widespread critical noises over the Web, regarding “armchair detectives”, who’ve for one reason or other, have been prompted to give attention to unsolved cases. Yet, I fail to see any real or supposed differences between, say, crowdsourcing to the public (not the other way round) of the McCormick case and, ZetaGrid or Seti@home, whose objects of study are far more esoteric. As for what the FBI strategizes, knows or does not know, regarding any particular case (i.e. the alleged wrongdoing of Apple) is anyone’s guess, too.
I
I do believe that Mr. McCormick somehow found the “Notes “, by chance, and he transcribed them into a type of Cipher that he could easily understand. There have been many things throughout history that have knowingly been kept from the public. If the ” Notes ” were simply a cipher that was of a government format, it would have been recognized, and there would not be a mystery surrounding the ” Notes ” today. This is why I believe that Mr. McCormick enciphered the information that he found.
Rick: Thanks for your provocative post. At this point, it may be premature to assert that Mr. McCormick enciphered the information he found. Yet, somehow, the “Notes” attributed to him and/or allegedly, found on his person, remain stubbornly inscrutable.
A summary of what is known might consist of the following:
1. In the spring of 1999 (May), there was a “controversial” NATO bombing, in one of the several suburbs of the city of Belgrade, former Yugoslavia. The US authorities,
largely insisted the wrong building (i.e. Chinese embassy) was struck due to flawed targeting data. However, other members of the NATO Alliance, most especially the British and the French, believed the building to be targeted deliberately.* Subsequent testimony delivered before the US legislature, acknowledged the targeting data, in intelligence-community-speak, of the “Belgrade environment”, could have been rechecked by savvy, skilled members of aforesaid agencies, including the DOD, but were, curiously, and perhaps chillingly, not.
* Many commentators and investigators (for example, Britain’s The Observer), at the
time, inferred this may have been done to force negotiations, and hasten the end of hostilities.
2. We now know that the cartographical agency (then known as NIMA[National Intelligence Mapping Agency]), located in Lemay,MO and St. Louis, MO provided cartographical information, to a plethora of private and public clientele, including the FAA, DOD, and NATO. There’d been, too, a troubling track record of inaccurate information given to those clients, and this record was made known in US Congressional hearings by 2000.
3. It is curious to note the operational files of aforesaid agency (e.g. NIMA) are subject to decennial (that’s 10 years, for Nick’s sixth graders!) for review and potential destruction. This is in all probability, a coincidence.
3. What may not be a coincidence, according to a report by a humanitarian watchdog (an estimable organization I choose to leave unnamed in this speculation)
is: apparently, there was a “workup” folder produced by the cartographical
agency (NIMA) sometime in mid-April 1999, for the benefit of the pilots who’d presumably fly the aforesaid Belgrade mission (from Whiteman AFB?).
4. It may be not be a coincidence, then, that according to this published timeline: before Mr.McCormick’s untimely demise, there was a “paper trail” (did something, did anything shake loose from contents of aforesaid folder? Were notations of some kind, any kind, made during the presentation of information?); not a coincidence, that before 9/11, loud but unheard ,complaints of a bureaucratic “wall” existing (i.e. lack of intelligence sharing between intelligence [read: Langley, VA] and counter-intelligence [read: Quantico, VA] agencies; and not a coincidence, that the CRRU, the Bureau’s own cryptographers, insist the “Notes” display what they termed “structure”, not gibberish.
If you haven’t already ‘been there’, you may want to take a look at Nick’s other discussion page in re McCormick’s notes to himself. Particularly the last line of the second note: …d um t (dumped) six tunse (tons) ncbe (nuclear b(omb) uast (waste?)
I guess my guess is as good as ne (any) other wch (which) have been posted on Nick’s two or three “McCormick” posts (?). I’m still trying find out the ’cause of death’. Would there be still extant a coroner’s report? If so, it probably would reveal exposure to radioactive material — which the Coroner would be under the attention of various Federal agencies. Perhaps the Federal records can now be released to the viewing public? (ps: probably not–can you imagine the class-action suits which would occur, on the behalf of the housing subdivisions which apparently are still subsiding, and apparently being overwhelmed with ‘radon’ gas?
bdid1dr
bdid1dr: I have noticed your very energetic and impassioned posts on this site,
and had meant to thank you very much for your contributions towards finding out the fate of Mr. McCormick and/or the meaning of the “Notes” attributed to him. The site is run by the graciousness and patience of Nick after all, and I have no desire to take up any more time or space than I have!
I do wish that the authorities had provided far more information than they have
regarding the circumstances of his death. However, as you, Rick, and any others who have taken the trouble to find out, the environmental situation in the very areas of this case (wherein Ricky McCormick lived and worked), in Missouri, and Illinois (EPA regions 5 & 6) respectively remains troubling. Yes, I’d “been there” as you rightfully put it (!), and early on, I’d even considered the letters, “WLD” to be signifying “Weldon” for Weldon Springs”, the (“rails to trails”) area not far from where Mr. McCormick’s remains were recovered. In this general vicinity, as Rick Roberts
corroborated, the Weldon Springs Ordnance site, stored munitions, the contents of which leached (hence the word “leachate”)into the ground. This created a huge mess for the US government, and no less than a half dozen Federal agencies became involved with the cleanup. Remember the end of the Cold War, and all the Beltway blather about the so-called “peace dividend”?
In short, I do believe, and have believed for some time, based upon the amount of information that is out there, and that I have reviewed, Ricky McCormick, age 41,
and others, have not lived a “natural” lifespan, due to the extent of environmental conditions that existed from the time of his birth, to his untimely death.
Gentlemen: I am now 1dring if Mr. McCormick was at all aware of the Weldon Springs Ordnance site. The final sentence which I translated only speaks of 6 tons of nclr waste being dlumpt.
I may be way off base, since my eyesight is becoming more cataracted (both eyes — even though I’ve only been able to read with my right. Long story involving several surgeries to correct impairments of E-E-N-T (ears, eyes, nose, and throat). I still take meds for mitral valve prolapse. I was born in St. Charles, Illinois — 1943.
Thanx, Nick, for your patience with me.
bdid1dr: I was sorry to learn of your condition, which makes your contributions and experiences with illness, especially valid, given the victim’s own very poor health.
As far as I know about the case (which is as little as anyone else), Mr. McCormick’s remains were found, as they say, “in situ”, not far from the Weldon Springs trail in St. Charles county. Yet, the authorities believed these remains were “moved” to this locale, not that the victim had necessarily perished at that spot.
Further, the authorities at some point, changed cause of death from “unknown” to ” suspicious”.
I’ve just discovered that Nick has two discussion pages to which we are posting. So, I’ll be returning to the other page – whereupon I mention that Ricky McCormick had gone to the hospital because he was feeling seriously ill. Apparently the Doctor or Nurse rattled off a prescription and instructions for taking the meds; which Mr. McCormick tried to write down (phonetically). So instructions such as BID or TID or ‘once a day’ would be somewhat incomprehensible to him. He may have died as a consequence of his not telling the doctor and/or the nurse that he was hearing impaired & maybe visually impaired.
Question: Did any of the various investigators try to interview folks at the hospital?
bd
bdid1dr: Please see my March 2, 2016 post, regarding medical angle.
I only mentioned the Weldon Spring/Katy trail area, because it was merely the first
alas, not the final, area of environmental concern that as it happens, coincides
with some of the residences Mr. McCormick lived or worked. (Remember: local authorities insisted they did not know the cause of his death, or did not believe he was murdered, only that the death appeared “suspicious”.)
My mention of a specific Federal agency, especially the former NIMA facilities and, properties, etc. sprung, in part, from similar concerns. These concerns include, but are not limited to, prolonged (airborne?) exposure to industrial chemicals, especially, benzene. (More information about this can be found at http://www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/benzene/basics/facts.asp)
@ Charles Witteck : Please see my very recent comment (about 10 minutes ago) on Nick’s other discussion about Ricky McCormick’s notes. Oh dear me! I’m done with this particular cipher mystery! I do thank you, sincerely, for your clues/backup comments! It was Mr. McCormick’s ‘scribbles” which led me to both of Nick’s presentations of the McCormick story.
Adieu!
Charles & bdid1dr,
Like both of you, I believe that the nuclear waste, heavy metals, toxic poisoning such as Radon Gas and Benzene might have very well played a part in Mr. McCormick’s death. The mention of benzene reminds me of the ” Burn Pits “, and the sabotaged gas and oil wells in Iraq. Our soldiers were exposed to the lethal demons that resulted from the discarded munitions and resultants of the airborne contaminants. At the time of the Iraq Wars, I had written a letter about toxic metal poisoning and the petroleum ingredients such as Benzene on both the psychological/mental and physical/medical. Regretfully, I never sent my letter of the thoughts of connection between Toxic(Heavy) Metal Poisoning(Toxic Metal Syndrome) , and Bipolar Disorder, Depression, Diabetes, Hypertension, Lung Diseases, Cancers, and an extensive number of other life shortening demons that our military members and their families have had to deal with and are continuing to endure.
Gentlemen: Several last observations (if you haven’t already ‘been there’) :
#1 :Check out the recently built visitor center/domed structure which encloses the nuclear waste pile near Weldon Spring.
#2 : A news article written by Ryan Schuessler: ” St. Louis burning: What killed the babies near Weldon Spring? ” You’ll know you’re on the right page when his interviews are with a Priest in Dardenne Prairie, Missouri : Gerry Kleba & his discussion of the Weldon Spring site.
#3: Activist Kay Drey & photos by Alexey Furman (disposal cell at Weldon Spring), Daniel McKeel/Washington University pathologist.
#4: Several other studies of St. Charles County and St. Louis County
Several other brief discussions with various officials involved (& the lack of ‘data’ from Northwestern University). (Daniel McKeel/Washington University) Two last references: Uranium ore from the Belgian Congo …
Final reference is to stories of young people jumping the fence and swimming in the contaminated quarry. A mile from the well fields that provide the drinking water for the entire county. Inconclusive state health studies………
bd
Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals History — you can find it on Wikipedia —–The very first page should show a ‘box’ of their NYSE url. and their website.
Check out several other WWW offerings which discuss Coldwater Creek…….and activist Kay Drey.
As a total ‘aside” : I live less than 10 miles from a major source of electricity in Northern California: The Geysers Steam Plant. Because I was the only curious visitor to the Cal-Pine Center that day, I got the “deluxe” tour of the plant (up-mountain) some ten miles or so. NO radioactive minerals; but lots of elemental sulphur.
My guide drove us past the small cemetery where a mountain lioness cared for her babies. When we arrived back at the plant, we put on hardhats and earplugs. A rope barrier was all that separated our path from the steam-driven belt three feet away. The entire generator was covered with a ‘mattress-thick’ ‘thermal blanket”. With my promise that I would not lean over the rope barrier (and he holding on to the back of my jacket) I was able to reach the palm of my hand to within a foot of the very hot thermal blanket.
No radioactivity — but tons of elemental sulphur. I asked what was done with the tons of sulphur. Today, our wineries’ bottle labels all explain the presence of sulphides.
Check my spelling, folks, I’m too lazy to haul down my six-inch thick “Webster’s” from its current setting……
bd
Just in case I haven’t referenced Nick’s other pages in re Ricky McCormick’s death and his handwritten notes: See if you can get a copy of a certain book from your local library or from the WWW:
“From Knights to Pioneers” — written by a member of the Mallinckrodt family:
Anita M. Mallinckrodt – particularly page 426 ….. in re purity of its chemicals — uranium — a ton per day … and a reference to Arthur Holly Compton — renowned physicist working on the University of Chicago project……….
bd
bdid1dr, Charles Witteck
I was reading about what activist Kay Drey had found about the Toxic Dump Sites. Thorium and Uranium are found at fifteen times acceptable levels. There is no liner at all! This is ridiculous! Even dumpsites that are not designed for toxic and or radioactive waste are layered and lined! How did Weldon and the other sites get away without at least the minimum protective measures for the public? Where is the EPA?
Rick: Thanks for the post and your (quite reasonable) question. I’ll be damned if I can answer it. I’d been in something of a dilemma, since I first started looking into this case, some time ago. On one hand, not wishing to be seen a person with an axe to grid, i.e. “environmentalist crank”; (nor a person by merely questioning governmental policy, [or lack thereof], denounced as “conspiracy theorist”), and on the other, striving to follow wherever the appalling few “facts” of the case might lead.
Charles Witteck,
I went back and read about the condition that Mr. McCormick was found in. His body was found in a state of ” advanced decomposition ‘, and this made an autopsy difficult. However, was there in fact, an autopsy performed? What were the results? I read that no obvious bullet holes were found. I wonder what the findings of causation of death were?
Charles, someone out there knows what happened to Mr. McCormick. As you have stated, this really is a dilemma.
Rick Roberts, thanks for your continually attentive posts. You’ve mentioned
whether or not there was an autopsy. I do have a vague recollection there may have been some hairline fracturing of of the victims skull during a postmortem
examination, the information relayed to the public (or originally produced?)
by the authorities was hardly conclusive.
However, contrary to many commentaries, I don’t find the “drug courier” or foul play from alleged “bad persons” persuasive. Aside from the fact,
Mr. McCormick served several months months in prison would have placed him in close proximity to the latter. Much of what can be been inferred from this is hearsay, innuendo and would have little legal standing. The same is true of the victim as an alleged “courier” for drugs. (If you have seen Joe Carnahan’s movie “Narc”, you will get the strong sense that narcotics officers know who’s in, who’s up, who’ s out, etc. with a nearly scientific precision.) So, unless the local police were incompetent, (which they likely were not) this, too, could be ruled out.
Does someone know what happened to Mr. McCormick? do not know. I did learn however, during the Mid-1990s President Clinton signed an executive order, directly addressing the issue of poor (and unjust) environmental conditions in minority and native American communities. This would be interesting, if there was any link between the victim’s demise and those increasingly documented conditions. Also, possible parallels between the Ricky McCormick case, and the McKinley Norton*case, both African American males, whose “mysterious” respective fates, were known to the levels of government,
could be established.
*During the final days of the Vietnam war, Mr. Norton was alleged to have defected to Cambodia. The U.S. government had denied knowing his whereabouts. Years later, due to the work of an intrepid investigative reporter,
this was shown to be false; the government was in possession of his exact location, and could well have expended an effort in exfiltration, should it chose to do so.
Hi, I’m no professional, and although it seems that the whole ‘PRSEON’ part may be person, my thoughts were that the part to look at is ‘SE ON DE’ – SE perhaps meaning South West, ON either being ‘on’, or something else, and I’m not too sure about the DE. Also, the 4 letters ‘NC BE’ appear to be written quite a few times. As well as this, in the first encrypted note, I have noticed that there is a tangible phrase, of ‘Sent as next’, in the 5th line from the top, close to the left side. Not sure if this is important, but may link into dealing. As well as these phrases, the two letters ‘NC’ appear many times, on its own, along with ‘SE.’ Perhaps these could link to places, such as streets, or directions – SE being South East, and if NC is a vague area, perhaps North Corner? There are also two dashes, in the fifth line – perhaps they could be of significance.
Jude Lawrence: in my opinion, Ricky McCormick’s notes aren’t complex at all. If PRSEON is “person”, then (probably) so is PRSE, PRSE N, and PRSEIN. If we could understand what NCBE, WLD and TRFXL denoted, it would probably all make complete sense (albeit a dyslexic kind of sense). All his customers were there: MRS D[U]PRE, MR DELU[I]SE, and doubtless plenty more we can’t yet make sense of at all.
So when people try to read Ricky McCormick’s notes as abbreviations, it always seems to me that they’re just missing the point. He was on the bottom of the heap, school had let him down, his health was bad, and he was almost certainly just doing whatever low-level hustle he could to keep things going. The FBI CRRU would love it if this was some kind of high-level drugs code McCormick had on him, but that’s just the kind of bureaucratic foolishness that leaves cipher mysteries unsolved for decades.
If the FBI actually wanted people to decrypt these papers, they’d release other examples of Ricky McCormick’s handwriting so that we could gain some kind of appreciation of what he was thinking about and how he tried to write things. Or perhaps some enterprising journalist might ask his family if they’d do the same?
Personally, I don’t hold out much hope, but there’s no harm in asking, is there?
Hi everyone,
Is Ricky McCormick’s notes could be in other language, such as french or French Canadian?
This is part of personal assumption that McCormick’s family could be related to some migration within North America?.
I’ve read lots of post, I keep thinking this could related to some kind of dsylexcic gberich!
I do not believe this is espionage or any high level of coding.
But it is very special to try so hard for almost 12 years to hide this, an after asking for help. I’m not saying this is a conspiracy or something, but this is a lot of time.
Anyway, have a good night!
Stephan
Stephan: there appears to be no linguistic “edge” to this story, sorry.
Right about that same time, scientists were investigating the use of cobalt (Co 60). I later learned from my parents why someone inserted a slim metal rod into my nostril (when I was about ten years old) I had to lay absolutely motionless for almost a half hour. They were hoping to reduce the scar tissue which developed after they had repaired my cleft soft palate and uvula when I was about 3 or 4 years old.
So, who knows, Mr. McCormiick may have been mentally brilliant. Just lately, I learned why my parents ended up in a Quonsit hut near Inyokern California, when I was about 5 years old. Inyokern was one of many towns who were involved in purifying uranium.
bd
Just one part that said 1/2 MUNDDL5E I am wondering if when he was down in Florida someone was killed or something like that. Maybe that part means 1/2 Mile Under DL? 5 East. Might be directions in part. Is it possible that people in general are overthinking what is written? It is hard to figure some of the things out, because I don’t know anything about the area or where he might have been down there. Is it possible that some of it like LUSE might be loose misspelled? People say when he came back from being in .. florida? where he delivered drugs he was nervous. Might it be a clue to something that happened down there? Perhaps DL is an abbreviation to a road name or a landmark.
Eric: in my opinion, there’s no reason at all to think (as the FBI seems to have done for a decade) that this is a complicated gang encryption scheme, and very nearly every reason to think that this is just Ricky McCormick’s private, probably dyslexic, note-taking style.
So in many ways you’re absolutely right to try to read the text in the way you do. But we still have far too little knowledge of his life and literacy to make the final few jumps into his head. 🙁
Yes, Nick –dyslexia. My sister was dyslexic. I taught her how to read. By first sounding out any word (like the word ‘sounding”, 4 x m pl : so n d i n g , and then insert s oun ding..
Which is why I was able to fully translate both of Mr McCormick’s notes. Poor man! He wrote about the tons of nuclear waste which was being dumped into the TWO dumpsites nearby to where he died. He was already ‘melting into the ‘lawn’ when his body was discovered. Those notes were not found (in his pockets) until the morgue attendant was removing his clothing in preparation for the coroner’s examination.
Shortly after all that hullabaloo, and they were not able to determine cause of death, the coroner turned his body over to the local police detectives, who referred to the FBI. The FBI have apparently made McCormick’s autopsy “Top Secret”. Probably because the cause of death was “exposure to radioactive materials”. Malinckrodt Industries were dumping ‘enhanced” uranium into the side-by-side dumpsites.
One of the dumpsites is STILL burning under housing subdivisions. As far I know (I don’t) that radioactive material is descending — and cannot be extinguished.
bd
bdid1dr,
I, too believe that exposure to radioactive materials that were buried – (Out of sight, out of mind), could have played a large part in Mr. McCormick’s death. I wonder how many other lives will be effected by the radioactivity? Heavy metal poisoning can most probably be added to the list of effects incurred at the weapons dump sites too. Pollution of drinking water supply sources needs to be addressed also. What monetary resources have been used for attempted clean-up?
Ricky McCormick and his best buddy Greg Knox are cruising in their ‘Barra’,on the way down to Florida to pick up a consignment. Before leaving West Alton, they swing by the local medical centre in order to pick up some results from tests done on Ricky the week before, after a visit to the emergency room. Staff tell him that his results are clear but for disclosure that he has been assessed as being quite impotent. After letting them know that is well aware of his impotence, he collects some life policy forms completed by staff following his last visit, promising to read through them at his ‘leeezure’, sign and return them when convenient. After letting Greg in on the news that all is “Jess fahn” and giving him the insurance papers as further proof of his newfound status, adding that the policy docs mean he’s so ‘impotent’ that he’s now worth a cool million according to his medial report. Before heading off, they stop off at the post office where, so as to impress his none to bright companion even moreso, he procures two blank memo sheets, then at the counter, proceeds to fill them with his ‘bird scritch gobbledigook’, as his mother calls it. Back on the road he produces the two new documents revealing that he’s now ‘double demnified’, and therefore even twice as ‘impotent’ with a sly precautionary caveat that the latest papers are only redeemable by his own safe hand. Although the trip goes smoothly businesswise, our Ricky has proven to be quite insufferably uppity which has really gotten to Greg, who as we are aware, is known for his rather unpredictable nature along with a quick and dangerous mood swing capability. To cut a long story short, on their way back with the supply, they decide to stop for a slash and to sort the stash into deal sizes, this thereby necessitating a detour off the blacktop and onwards some further distance to Greg’s private dumpsite. Whilst stopped and away from the ‘barra’, having their whizz, Ricky is unceremoniously popped and Greg, who after mumbling something about impotency in reference to the stiff, is then on his merry way with all the profit, plus, much to his later disappointment, a useless bundle of ‘chicken shit’, unredeemable, unprocessed insurance papers in the name of Richard McCormick Esq., deceased…. If nobody can tell me this isn’t the way things really went down, then the case is closed from my humble perspective.
…..and of course it was either Greg’s wheels or else a hot shot, and the reason that the latter apparently got two shots off when one was the norm for him, can be found in his rage over Ricky’s bullshit ‘double demnified’ ploy, as well as to remind the prick that, not only had he been totally ‘unimpotant’ in life, but also that you don’t mess with Mr.Gregory Knox by coming from a doctors office with a smile likely to split an atom ‘an think’n you’s so ha’n mahty’. The biggest problem with my hypothesis, is in knowing that bdid1dr believes its all got to do with nuclear waste mismanagement and such. This may well have something to do with her late hubby, the zodiac killer or else the unidentified photo of a dead man, recently discovered on an Australian beach of all places, plausability of which cannot be discredited.
I am hoping that Charles Wittick is still working on this! After learning of the basic facts that have been made public concerning this case, I avoided the temptation to figure out the code to the cipher. I think that the computers that the FBI has would be capable of determining a) whether or not this is a genuine cipher, and b) what the notes mean. Basically, I think that massive computer systems would be far superior to us people at arriving at those conclusions. So, the questions for me then go to what do the FBI, or that other government agency (I can’t recall the name right now) know and why are they concealing that? An unsolved murder case involving a victim in Ricky’s life circumstances does not usually garner the interest of federal government. So, either there was something remarkable about the note or something remarkable about the body, IF we assume that the circumstances have led nowhere (for now I am assuming that for reasons I hope to explain later.). In these posts I noticed that both the note and the area, if I have read correctly, may have this one variable in common- the idea that there may be chemical waste affecting the people there. If there is a possibility of two concurring factors amongst two seperate paradigms of this case, it seems that even statistical my speaking, that should be emphasized- underlined, highlighted and circled. That would explain the release of these notes absent the implied reason that they are important- and the purpose for the release as well. From the government’s perspective, does anyone else know? Thank you for reading- I hope that made sense!
This appears to me to be directions/a map and guidance notes….for instance, I think he’d either found a way of maneuvering through woodland at night to a specific point by using the trees possible to lead him to previously buried possessions of importance.
Example: If I were to start at a given point that I was familiar with, I would use the trees as stop points to my next location such as Turn East (TE) or South East (SE).
Every tree I walk to becomes my next datum and eventually I’d end up to where I aimed to go.
So the note (KL SE – LRSTE – TR SE) would mean:
Keep Left South East [ HIT TREE] Left [TREE] then Right [TREE] then straight [TREE] then Turn East [TREE] etc….
This may be why he had the notes in his pocket as clearly they were his map through the woods to where he was going.
Ok it took me 5 mins to find out he killed himself and by the look of the handwriting he was high and he didn’t want it on the news.
I was somewhat fascinated by this story when I read of it in March of 2011. Like many others, I tried to figure out the code. At that time, all I was aware of was the few paragraphs in the FBI press release. I kept it on my desk, and fiddled with it sporadically for a couple weeks, before printing a copy for more fiddling in the future. Fast forward to this week. While engaged in sorting and shredding, I came across the file, and wondered what the outcome, if any, was. That led me to this site, where I perused five years of posts. The most significant finding to me was the additional information about the victim. That has led me to offer my comments.
I believe there is no code. No evidence has been cited that McCormick himself scribbled the notes. The FBI must know this, There is also no evidence that the notes are connected to his death, nor that they were actually found on his corpse. From a profiling standpoint, there is nothing to indicate that he had a motive , or the ability, to be involved in any activity so secretive or sensitive as to require codes. That would be way out of his league.The most likely scenario is that he was killed in a drug, and/ or money dispute, argument, or similar.
So what about the notes? Someone had to have made them. It appears that the FBI has some serious interest, to go to the extraordinary measure of a public appeal on a 10 year plus local murder cold case. The notes must be more significant to them for some other reason. Since FBI says they were found on McCormick’s dead body, that is either incidental, as in he randomly found them, or perhaps it is an investigative technique to ferret out the individuals involved with them. I suggested there is no code. That is why it appears meaningless, which it is, to all except the writer. I suggest that it is a list, or memo,of the writer, not a communication to another party.. I think it is a one-off personal shorthand method using non-repetitive terminology and abbreviations meaningful only to the writer.
The FBI must have reason to believe that the notes are connected to something major to national security. I hope they are successful in their efforts.
Ive looked at first line of second note and it comes up as direct latin to mean ‘express themselves’ ?? Why has this not been sussed?
Loving this discussion. After looking at what we do know, I doubt this is a cipher as we understand them.
I think that NCBE has got to be “ounces for bobby.” (Bob) I don’t know that that is what he was called, but seems fitting.
I have more, but the discussion seems to touch on those subjects.
I also find it difficult to believe he made personal use of a second language. I think his employers used vernacular he tried to incorporate into his notes. This is probably just one note in the day-in-the-life of Mr. McCormick that’s unfortunately not much of anything.
If so, then I doubt deciphering this can lead to any meaningful arrests.
NCBE – i suspect this is a reminder each time to himself to NC (NoC phonetically – knock!, B – Before, E – Entry! Or even B Back and E Entrance)- would make sense if this is a reminder each time to do a special knock to get in to each door number to make suspected deliveries!
Reminder: Body was found 15 miles away from his house middle of nowhere where there is no public transportation and he has no vechile.
This was 100% drug releated death. Anyone who thinks this is suicide is absolute moron.
He went two times hospital in both occasions due to shortness of breath. Obviously it wasnt heart attack because when you get it there is not much time and you would need 100% ambulance at your service instead going 2 different hospitals on your own. And if he had one hospital wouldnt let him go just like that.
I predict he had panic attack or he just wanted to hide/escape. When you get panic attack you can easily confuse it with heart attack because in both cases your adrenaline will spike up. Panic attack are caused by worrying of future harm (like drug dealers on your ass) = Anxiety.
As for letter… Look at lines of of ORIGINAL letter.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/58/Ricky_McCormick_note_1.jpg
F L R S E P R S E O N D E 71 N C B E )
C D N S E P R S E O N S E 74 N C B E )
P R T S E P R S E O N R E D E 75 N C B E )
Do you see how each of those 3 “sentences” are neatly in line in their own separate paragraph? Like you would dash to list things
Second of all I dont think its F L R but F I R. Look hat which i has in original letter.
So you have
1. FIR (first)
2. CND (secnd)
3. PRT (has both t and r for TRI for Third and is 3rd in line in pharagraph).
Also one note is that this letter contains nearly every number and letter and even symbol like 1/2. If someone is illitrate how would he know to write every single letter. To do that you would know how to spell them. This letter is also very systematic as it contains same 3 words again and again. Some 2 times some 10.
To me this letter was written by his drugpimp and not by mccormick.
These are just my two cents.
Toying around. (194 WLD’S NCBE) Made me think 19(7)4 WorLD’s fair. I mention this because in the 70s there were only 3 world’s fairs. 71, 74, 75 shown higher in the note. I’m grasping at straws but found it interesting enough to share. Locations of the seventies fairs. 1971 – Budapest, Hungary 1974 Spokane, Washington 1975 Okinawa, Japan
Just found this site and took a look at the notes, read all the comments and came up with this…
last line in NOTES
D-W-M , 4h8L XORLX = day-week-month for hiatal thorax
One line up from this is
1/2 MUNDDLSE = 1/2 mayonnaise
Anarchy Sam:
nickpelling surmises that there are St. Louis drug delivery addresses within. What if (194 WLD’S NCBE) = 19 (and) 4 World’s Fair, meaning the 1904 St. Louis Exposition? “Nineteen and four” is the way old-timers sometimes pronounced it. Some buildings remain from the fair, including the administration building at Washington University.
Code: Ricky McCormick is not that complicated. The one who wrote it was not stupid. Or retard.
Hi Nick, how are you? I do not know if you will know the answer to this, but thought I would ask. The solves I did – someone put an address on my computer, no to or from – nothing more than Quantico address but Attn” Ricky McCormick case. Does that make sense? Do they have a connection? Thank you,
Given Peter M’s speculations from January 21, 2014 we need to get Behrooz on this case!
“You need a linguist, not a code breaker. This is not encrypted, and is not cipher (but you already knew that), but it seems to have a structure and grammar. I suspect it is a non-standard transliteration of Arabic. For example, in the parenthetical (TFXLF TCXL NCBE) if we substitute Q for F, and L for “XL”, and KH for the C, and let the E be silent (that is B for BE) we get: TQLQ TKHL NCB. We type that into Google Translate for Arabic to English and we get: تقلق تخل نسب or “Worry prejudice ratios”, or “Worries about changing rates”. “
Steve H: welcome to Ricky McCormick’s mysterious notes (sans any mystery)). If you scare to go back to March 17 of 2017 (so long ago and far away), you’ll see that I beat you to the punch yet again. Whatsmore we put that one to bed post haste, no need for any of that rag head squiggle encryption of your’n just a fair flare for black rap as she is spoke by da bros.
Authors of Cyril Keith Sparrow’s family tree have done a masterful job of cluster fuck creativity in efforts for achieving desired anonymity, so much so that I’m sure venerable Steve H’s head must be even more confused than when he was dropped on it as a wee bairn. At last, more by a lucky break and a Dorothy Jean D’Arcy location mnemonic, than any thanks to My Heritage, I’ve tracked the cunning old dugite snake to his place of eternal torment despite all manner of cunning stunts being deployed to evade capture. Grandson Bruce Bennett would have us believe no doubt that his old pop died in Adelaide circa.1954; Not so, because the basket lasted until 1980 and can be disinterred should there be need of DNA verification, at Bermagui (Bega) cemetery on the NSW south coast…question goes without asking, but I’ll ask anyway, WHY the need for Bennett/Webb/Robertson/Sparrow familial secrecy 75 years down the track?
I peered at the NOTES for ages and ages and compared the notes proactively with the street map of St Louis.
I see some interesting coincidences but there is much I cannot understand at all.
As to patterns, I get the impression that place names are encoded, RM (or the actual author) seems to have the habit of cyphering the same thing twice in succession differently.
Eg. P1L1 MCNEARSE M-KNARE.
Now MCNEARSE could be McNair – a street, road, or drive nearby the Amoco filling stn at 1401 Choteau that was RMs place of work sometimes.
Contraindication – MCNE /ARSE could be Arsenal – a very long road.
HOWEVER, as a matter of doctrine, BOTH ideas are not likely to be simultaneously correct i.e. not both McNair and Arsenal, and I do not have enough information or insight to chose which at this point.
McNair begins at Serbian (see map) and joins Allen at a point AL PNTE (Allen point) i.e. P2L1.
It might seem irrational to see this, but it is only necessary that it is a personal code that RM could understand. Or, plausibly understand.
McNair is a long road going south from Serbian (P2L16. MKSERBSE). Eventually it ends at a junction with ARSEnal…there are ARSEs all over the place.
Well I won’t tire you.
Plotting a route from Barnes Jewish Hospital to 1401 Choteau I came across an avenue and district VANDEVENTER see VUNVTRE P2L11.
Also, I looked at P2L6 MUNSARSTEN MUNARSE.I can see another ARSE there Arsenal. It also is another instance of something coded twice differently. Also, having changed VUNVTRE above to VAN… I changed Mun to Man and anagrammed the rest almost to get Manresa – there is a Manresa Center a few miles away.
Obviously, this is becoming at bit strained.
The notes here cannot simultaneously mean Arsenal (twice) or Manresa (twice).
Then I remembered what someone (who?) said a long time ago and looked at P2L6 again.
MUNSARSTENMUNARSE is a good anagram for Surname+ stn+ Surname i.e. Surname coded twice plus bits left over.
Here I see three different things….Surname, Arsenal from Arse, or Manresa …. Which cannot be.
Line P2L10 has 29KENOSOLE …. There is a Kenosha in St Louis but further away. Round the corner is a school WYLAND – could this be WLD? Kenosha and Wyland are only a few minutes walk apart.
Another commentator sees 29KENOSOLE 173RTRSE as Route 173 Kenosha (Avenue) which is hundreds of miles away…but I see that he was thinking along the same lines and same procedure.
On the whole this is an intriguing puzzle.
There are hits that are contradictory, there is the Surname anagram, the suggestion of a complex code then evidence that it isn’t.
The numbers 36mlse 74sprkse (Forest Park?) 29Kensole 173rtrse 35 gke 651mtse do not appear to be encyphered at all. This would be a huge flaw if any cyphered note.
Having a cyphered note with eg 1401 right in the middle would give even the casual reader an idea the author was talking about Amoco 1401 Choteau…since it would be a private code privy to RM and his contacts.
I also interpret 99.84 as 99/8/4 i.e. 4th August 1999 – a date RM sadly never reached.
Who knows?
I have spotted at least one typo above … It is Kenosho Avenue, near Wyland Elementary School, St Louis…. NOT Kenosha Avenue. (Referring to 29Kensole in RM’s notes.)
Apologies
Apologies if this has already been covered, I have read a fair few comments but it’s now bed time. I realise a number of hours, lot of thinking and expertise have gone into the website and responses to posts.
I heard it mentioned that there was a pick up from Miami, so started looking into the Interstate theory and 71, 74 and 75 could run from Florida to where Ricky lived and on to the Canadian border, including on a couple of lakes.
I’m no expert but I used to be a teaching assistant so I’ve had the pleasure of reading some dyslexic pupils written work, and it does come across as some sort of instructions of the route and drop off points. I started to see first, second, enter entrance, murder and the like. I guess we will see what we want to see.
I started to wonder if NCBE was a a full stop, as in STOP in a telegram but then remembered you guys being American probably use the term PERIOD, which wouldn’t make sense for a dyslexic to write that instead of make a ditty dot.
The remains were not too wet that the note was destroyed and still legible. Could he have been involved in a hit and run? I’m thinking of a scenario where someone realises, stops and takes Ricky first towards and hospital but then maybe realising that Ricky had died, store him for a while to think about what to do, and then dumped him hoping nobody would notice. I realise no forensic data to prove this but just thought that he might have been walking alongside or across a busy road at night where he may not have been seen. I’m not sure of what damage was found, only mention of some decomposition but he wouldn’t necessarily have had too have much of an impact if his system was weak anyway. Right, I haven’t helped at all but I just thought I’d add for fun, yours not mine. I find this very annoying. I love a mystery, hate not having an answer and I’m suspicious when I get one. Thanks all
kee
All I can say is, what an interesting and well composed comment. Only wish I had your style and grace. Certainly hope someone up to speed on CM Ricky McCormick thread gets back to you for more intuitive thoughts.
Not a code. Just rambling abbreviated gibberish. Towards the end you can read one line as “(First person dead 71 not coming back ever)”. I guess the 71 refers to 1971.
Referring to
In page one
(FLRSE PRSE ONDE 71 NCBE)
(CDNSE PRSE ONSDE 74 NCBE)
(PRTSE PRSE ONREDE 75 NCBE)
And in page 2
PNRTRSE ON PRSE WLD NCBE
comment
I observed that the fourth line follows a similar pattern to the first three except that PRSE ON (lines 1-4) is the other way round in line 4 being ON PRSE (Correcting the transcription DRSE at that locus with reference to the published photograph.
I am not aware that anybody else has commented on this issue.
This being the case the codes FLRSE, CDNSE, PRTSE, PNRTRSE seem to form a sequence.
Note FLR, CDN, PRT – these characters FLR etc happen to be in alpha betical order.
PNRTR breaks that pattern.
(I conjecture that lines 1-3 might be outbound routes and line 4 a return route)
I also speculate that WLD might be an abbreviation for WILDCARD meaning any number.
This is because if we line up lines 1- 3 they end 71 NCBE , 74 NCBE, 75 NCBE
whereas line 4 ends WLD NCBE
Of course, that might be wrong.
Symmetry breaking.
If coded, I cannot understand what code would output ON DE, ON SDE, ON REDE that is, each increasing by one character in length each time.
Also, line four, the pattern becomes ON PRSE to be specific…selecting only the relevant part
PRSE ON DE
PRSE ON SDE
PRSE ON REDE
……..ON PRSE
….. blank reflecting there is nothing filling up the pattern in line four.
(So I am tentatively suggesting these four lines read, label, home via route 71, label via route 74, label home via route 75, label return home via any route)
Without pressing an interpretation too hard for now.
Further observations.
Similarities between PRTSE and PNRTRSE.
Observe that PRT insert N insert T becomes PNRTR .
This feature of RM’s notes (that of character insertion) is found on both pages and, I am sure, is what puts off many students of the case.
Using lines 1-3 as a way to crack a way into RM’d notes, I also observe the insertion of characters in the following ONDE, ONSDE, ONREDE
This isn’t a feature of any code in my virtually non existent experience.
I find it significant that these are ordered in increasing length, coincidentally with 71,74,75 being in increasing numerical order.
On the other hand FLR, CDN, PRT, don’t appear in alphabetical order.
But, as mentioned above, PRT plus inserts =PNRTR
ONE ASSUMPTION
One assumption here is that these aren’t random scrawlings, that the characters are written down with such extreme attention to detail that even copying them becomes an exercise in attention to detail.
What SE, DE, BE etc mean
If we line up the four lines we get (selecting the relevant bit)
ON .. DE
ON .S DE
ON RE DE
ON PR SE
I see inserts taking place between columns of ON and DE/SE….I have spaced them out a little for clarity . I put dots in tonrepr sent inserted blanks for clarity.
CONCLUSION
It seems this principle of insertion of characters is a feature or Ricky McCormick’s notes.
All this without yet any significant contribution to understanding the meaning.
Just my little pennyworth.
Referring to the line. MUNSARSTENMUNARSE on page 2.
I had previously suggested that SURNAME is anagrammed into that line.
Subsequently, I used an online tool and found much more can be gotten out of that line including NURSE, USERNAME etc etc
So much so, this comment of mine has little significance and I would personally downplay that comment now.