Ep. 94 | Can the Internet Solve This COLD CASE? | Ricky McCormick

A mysterious death, a pair of coded notes no one can decipher, and a case that refuses to rest. Who killed Ricky McCormick - and what secrets was he carrying when he died? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

• 0:01Speaker 00

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• 0:49Speaker 05

  On June 30th, 1999, in West Elton, Missouri, a woman was driving along a road near Route 367 when she spotted something in a nearby cornfield. So she stopped, got out of her car and approached the field. And to her horror, she would discover a body, face down in the dirt, wearing filthy jeans and a stained shirt. And the body would eventually be determined to be Ricky McCormick's. But it wasn't just the state of his body that would shock and puzzle investigators. It would be what they found in his pockets. Crime, conspiracy, cults, serial killers and murder, all things that I love to consume and I know you do too, you sick, twisted, beautiful, intellectually minded prick.

• 1:30Speaker 05

  Today, we are talking about a very troubling and puzzling case with a lot of twists and turns and ciphers. So without further ado, let's unbuckle our seatbelts, go Mach 5 to the highway, slam on the brakes and buster this windshield into this troubling case together.

• 1:59Speaker 05

  Ricky McCormick was born on June 14th, 1958, in St. Louis, Missouri to Charles McCormick and Frankie Sparks. And they were a working-class family doing their best to get by. And not much is known about his siblings or the rest of his extended family, but what we do know is that Ricky was very close to his cousin, who shared his father's name, Charles McCormick. And the two weren't just cousins, they were practically brothers, spending so much time together that people often mistook them as siblings. But outside that bond, though, Ricky's childhood was difficult. He attended Martin Luther King High School in St. Louis, though "attended" might be too generous a word, because the school shuffled him from grade to grade despite his continuous

• 2:43Speaker 05

  struggles, because he couldn't keep up and he couldn't learn the way the other kids did, and eventually, he would actually drop out. And by the time he left, Ricky was functionally illiterate, and his father put it bluntly, saying he, quote, "couldn't spell anything, just scribble," unquote. And his mother was even more direct, saying, quote, "The only thing he could write was his name," unquote. So these weren't proud parents by any means, and Ricky knew it. And he never felt particularly close to them, but there were signs even back then that something deeper was going on. And according to his mother, Ricky would spend his free time at recess by himself, just standing there, kind of staring off into the distance.

• 3:27Speaker 05

  And the school, obviously, would notice, and they would call home to ask if anything was going on out of the ordinary. But it would be determined that everything seemed fine. But at school and at home, Ricky would tell strange stories, kind of odd tales that made people uncomfortable, the kind that made everyone around him start to wonder if there was something wrong with this kid. But through all of it, there was one person Ricky could confide in, and that was his aunt, Gloria McCormick, or Cookie for short. And she was the only one who seemed to really listen to Ricky. But the concerns about Ricky's mental state didn't go away as he got older. If anything, they got worse. And family members kept noticing the same troubling patterns.

• 4:11Speaker 05

  The way he'd stand alone at recess staring at nothing, the way he'd drift off mid-conversation like he wasn't even there. And eventually, whether from the school's recommendation or the family's own growing worries, they sent him to see a psychiatrist. And the findings were striking. And according to Aunt Gloria, or Cookie, the psychiatrist described it like Ricky had hit a brick wall in his mind. He was trapped behind it, didn't want to stay there, didn't want to live the life he was living, but he couldn't or wouldn't break through. And the psychiatrist's explanation was simple. Quote, "He didn't like the life of living poor and had an active imagination," unquote.

• 4:52Speaker 05

  So a kid, growing up with nothing, dreaming of something better, like escaping into his own head because reality wasn't offering much. But his family saw it differently. It wasn't just a kid dreaming. His own mother would regularly call Ricky, quote unquote, "retarded." Which, yes, it was much different times back then, but I mean, imagine your own mother calling you that. I mean, yeah, that's, that's not nice. And his cousin, Charles, noticed it too, though, saying Ricky would talk like he, quote unquote, "was in another world," like he was somewhere else entirely, even when he was standing right in front of you. So maybe it was just childish imagination that never quite faded, the kind of daydreaming

• 5:36Speaker 05

  most kids grow out of, but Ricky never did. Or maybe it was something more serious, like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or something that was never diagnosed and never treated, never even properly explored. And no medical professional ever confirmed anything, but his own family had their suspicions, and those suspicions followed Ricky for the rest of his life. So Ricky McCormick was around 30 years old when he began a relationship with a young girl. Not a woman, a girl. A girl his family only knew by one name, Pretty Baby. And like I said, she was not a woman, she was a child.

• 6:16Speaker 05

  And according to court documents, Pretty Baby was younger than 11 years old when the relationship began. 11, a 30-year-old man, within 11, I just, disgusting. Uh, so Ricky's disgusting, and he's a piece of shit. And this relationship continued for years. And by the time anyone did anything about it, she was 14 years old, and she had already given birth to two of Ricky's four children. And the court documents used the nickname "Pretty Baby" to protect her identity since she was a minor at the time, but the damage was already done. So on November 9th, 1992, Ricky McCormick was arrested, and he was 34 years old at

• 7:00Speaker 05

  the time, and the charge was first-degree SA. But it didn't stop there. He would also be charged with rape of a child under the age of 14, and his bond would be set at $50,000. So for weeks, he sat waiting for his hearing to be scheduled, and when things finally started moving, the defense threw a wrench into the process, and they filed a motion for psychiatric evaluation. And the claim from his public defender was that Ricky was, quote, "suffering from some mental disease or defect," unquote. And on February 11th, 1993, the motion was denied, and his hearing was pushed to April 22nd. But this time, the judge granted the request, and Dr. Michael Armour, a local psychologist, was brought in to evaluate whether Ricky was

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  fit for trial or not. So months would pass, and finally, in July, the evaluation would come back that Ricky McCormick was fit to stand trial. And on September 1st, 1993, standing before the court, Ricky pleaded guilty to first-degree SA. So he would be sentenced to three years in prison at Farmington Correctional Center. And I think three years is way too fucking low, but what do I know? You know, for taking advantage of a kid, my god. And he wouldn't even serve that entire time, because Ricky McCormick walked out after just 11 to 13 months and released on- Conditional terms, whatever the fuck that means. So now free, Ricky just fell back into the only life that he knew.

• 8:30Speaker 05

  Which at this point, because, you know, he got arrested, was low-paying jobs like a floor mopper, a dishwasher, a busboy. And eventually, he landed a gig as a service station attendant at a Emoco gas station on Chateau Avenue. And these jobs weren't meant to support him entirely. They just filled in the gaps that his disability checks couldn't cover. See, Ricky had chronic heart problems that had plagued him since childhood. And bad enough to qualify for government assistance. But not bad enough to stop him from working the graveyard shift. And his Aunt Gloria called him a vampire and said he preferred the night. Heading out at dusk and dragging himself home at dawn.

• 9:12Speaker 05

  And those late nights would come with habits such as chain smoking, which he started at 10 years old, by the way. That's just different time, again. But he would smoke over a pack a day accompanied by around 20 caffeinated beverages a day. So between the cigarettes and the caffeine and the heart condition he'd had since birth, it was a miracle he was still standing. But his health would send him to the emergency room more times than anyone could count. And it didn't help that he didn't have a stable home either. Because Ricky was known to be a wanderer or a nomad with no permanent address. And he bounced around the St. Louis area, crashing wherever he could. And sometimes at his elderly mother's house, and sometimes somewhere else entirely.

• 9:56Speaker 05

  And eventually, at the apartment of a woman named Sandra Jones. Now Sandra Jones lived in the Clinton Peabody Housing Projects, just outside of downtown St. Louis. And built in 1942, Clinton Peabody was the oldest public housing complex in the city. And 358 units spread across 31 buildings. And none of it was maintained well at all, with gaping holes in the walls and mice living in every corner. And the radiators and refrigerators were filled with mold and roaches and bedbugs. The smell alone could drive you out. But for Sandra, and eventually Ricky, it- was home, and she became an important person in his life, important enough that she'd be one of the last people to speak with him before his death.

• 10:41Speaker 05

  And important enough that investigators would spend hours picking apart every detail of their final conversations, trying to understand what Ricky was doing in those last days, and trying to figure out who might have wanted him dead. And Sandra would have answers, but not the ones anyone expected. So on June 15, 1999, Ricky McCormick woke up at the crack of dawn and made his way to the Greyhound bus terminal in downtown St. Louis, where he purchased a one-way ticket to Orlando, Florida. And this wasn't his first trip down south. In fact, he'd already made the journey at least twice that same year. But it's not completely clear who Ricky was meeting in Florida, but phone records painted

• 11:25Speaker 05

  an interesting picture. So in the weeks leading up to his departure, either he or his girlfriend Sandra Jones had made a flurry of calls to people in the central Florida area, and some of those calls supposedly weren't just to Ricky. So while in Orlando, he checked into room 280 at the Econo Lodge and stayed for two days. And during that time, he placed a call to the St. Louis gas station where he worked, a call supposedly to his boss. But the question lingered, why was Ricky McCormick making these trips? Because he wasn't the vacation type, and he certainly wasn't dragging Sandra down to Disney World. And according to her, the answer was simple.

• 12:07Speaker 05

  Ricky would frequently make excursions to Florida to deliver "packages," accepting offers to pick up and drop off goods in exchange for cash. And he'd done it several times before, but what was in those packages? Well, marijuana, Sandra would say, because he'd occasionally bring some of it back to their apartment and store it in Ziploc bags, and roll it together into bundles as big as a baseball. But when she was asked who the weed belonged to, Ricky told her it was for "Baha Hamdallah," his boss at the Amoco Station. But after this most recent trip... Something was different, and Ricky never talked much about his Orlando runs, but this time he wasn't just quiet, he seemed almost scared.

• 12:52Speaker 05

  So about a week after returning on the afternoon of June 22, 1999, Ricky walked into the emergency room at Barnes Jewish Hospital around 3 o'clock, complaining of chest pains and shortness of breath. And given his history, the years of chain smoking a pack a day and enough caffeine to keep a bear awake through hibernation, this wasn't exactly shocking, but doctors would rule out a heart attack, but admitted him anyway, keeping him under observation for a couple of days just to be safe. And then on June 24th, they released him with instructions to return later in the week for a follow-up visit, just to make sure nothing was missed, but he would never make those appointments. And instead of heading home, Ricky hopped on a bus to his Aunt Gloria's apartment,

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  which happened to be just across the street from the hospital. And he was always closer to Gloria than to his mother anyway, and given everything we know about how his parents talked about him, that makes sense. So he would stay at his Aunt Gloria's for about an hour, but something was off. He seemed rushed and anxious, like he needed to be somewhere else. And Gloria offered to drive him wherever he needed to go, but he would decline. And then he left, and that would be the last time Aunt Gloria would ever see him. So the very next day, June 25th, Ricky was back in another emergency room. And this time it was Forest Park Hospital. And once again, he complained about shortness of breath and wheezing, which he blamed on mowing grass.

• 14:19Speaker 05

  And the doctors talked it up to an asthma flare-up and treated him and sent him on his way. But according to Gloria, Ricky didn't actually leave, and he stayed in the hospital waiting room until late into the night, just sitting there, long after he'd been discharged. And looking back, Gloria had a theory about all those hospital visits. She didn't think Ricky was just sick, she thought he was scared. Because if you think about it, in the span of four days, he checked himself into two different emergency rooms, one of which he would stay at well into the night after. He got discharged. Because where would you go if you were afraid for your life? If you knew someone was looking for you? You'd go somewhere public, somewhere safe, somewhere with security guards and cameras

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  and witnesses, a hospital. And if your health was already fragile from a lifetime of cigarettes and caffeine, walking in with chest pains wouldn't seem unusual at all. So maybe Ricky wasn't running to the hospitals. Maybe he was hiding in them. And when he finally left that waiting room on June 25th, he had nowhere left to hide. And on June 26, 1999, Ricky called Sandra Jones around 11:30 in the morning. And he told her he was out of the hospital and on his way to a Moco gas station to grab some food, which is a detail later confirmed by an employee who saw him there. And that phone call would be the last conversation Ricky McCormick ever had with anyone that we know of.

• 15:46Speaker 05

  So no more calls, no more sightings, and no more witnesses. And according to medical examiners, Ricky died just hours later. But his body wouldn't be found for days. So on June 30, 1999, a woman was driving along a stretch of road near Route 367 in rural St. Charles County when something in a nearby cornfield caught her eye. So she pulled over, got out of the car, and walked closer to get a better look. And what she found horrified her because it was a man lying face down in the dirt, his body already decomposing in the summer heat. So she called authorities immediately, and just like that, the cornfield would become a crime scene.

• 16:27Speaker 05

  And when investigators arrived, they found a scrawny figure dressed in filthy Lee Blue jeans and a stained white t-shirt and a five-foot-six frame that had clearly been there for a while. Because his face was too deteriorated to even identify, so they'd have to rely on fingerprints. And that's how they confirmed it to be Ricky McCormick, dead at 41 years old. But the state of his body raised immediate questions. Because although he'd only been dead for an estimated three to four days, the decomposition was far too advanced. His fingertips, for example, had completely rotted off just below the top knuckles and were lying in the weeds beside

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  him and medical examiners reported that only 72 pounds of bone and flesh remained and that's not normal not even for June in Missouri not even with the heat and the insects so some investigators began to suspect this wasn't natural decay and they theorized that whoever killed Ricky might have deliberately kept his body in a high temperature environment before dumping him accelerating the decomposition and destroying evidence and covering their tracks and if that's true this wasn't just murder it was calculated and premeditated it was murder in the first degree because it seemed someone wanted to make sure the cause of death could never be determined and it worked and the location itself was

• 17:52Speaker 05

  significant because this desolate stretch of land between Mississippi and the Missouri rivers had been a dumping ground for bodies for years which is horrifying to think about remind me never to go there but multiple murder victims over the years had been dropped off in this exact field so this wasn't a place where people died by accident and there was another problem Ricky McCormick didn't own a car and as you can recall he relied on public transportation his entire life constantly going on to Greyhound buses yet there was no bus stop anywhere near where his body was discovered so someone had definitely driven him there or driven his body there and the St. Charles County Medical Examiner's

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  Office ruled the cause of death as undetermined but the story got stranger from there and some investigators initially claimed Ricky had an injury to his head only to walk it back the next day saying the body was too decomposed to make that determination and they said they couldn't find a motive and they weren't even sure it was a homicide yet they were treating it like one anyway and here's the thing that still gets me after reading this case is that during the entire time Ricky was missing not a single person reported him gone not his family not his job no one so maybe they were used to him disappearing for days at a time, or maybe they just didn't think to worry.

• 19:17Speaker 05

  But I don't think any of them expected him to turn up dead in a cornfield. But the strangest part of his death wasn't how he got there, or even the state of his body. It was what investigators found when they searched his pockets. And what they found were two crumpled handwritten notes covered in incomprehensible jumbled letters. And those notes were taken into FBI custody. And in July, 1999, Tom O'Connor, the commander of the major case squad, made a statement that would define this case for decades, saying, quote, "We worked every lead, and not only can we not prove it is a homicide, we can't even come up with a motive for this guy to be dead." Unquote.

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  So what did these notes look like? They were strange, to say the least. Written on two sheets of lined paper, it totals more than 30 lines. And they were composed of cryptic blocks and capital letters, numbers, dashes, and parentheses. And the notes were then folded and tucked into Ricky McCormick's pockets. And it was very strange to the untrained eyes. However, to a crypt analyst, it was code. The letter combinations would appear multiple times throughout the note, the n-grams, if you will. They are sequences of words or characters that go in a particular order.

• 20:40Speaker 05

  And a two-gram from the sentence, "This is a sentence," would go, "This is is a a sentence." Which is a bit confusing. I know we're not code crackers here, so I'm not going to like to fully explain it to you. I don't even understand it fully, to be honest. But the n-grams in the code, S-E-P-R-R-S-E and N-C-B-E, are the most common and repeated patterns in these notes. And there were lots of letter Es scattered in both notes. And some segments are circled as well, leading some to believe that it could be a to-do list with the circled portions being marked as a completed task. And looking at the notes, it doesn't feel like it would be left for investig-

• 21:22Speaker 05

  ...to get her to find or left as a code to solve a murder. Instead, it seemed like Ricky McCormick wrote it himself as a reminder. And Dan Olson, the chief of the FBI's cryptanalyst and racketeering records unit, would later state that with the amounts of ease in the code, they could be used as a spacer instead of a word. But for nearly 12 years, the case would go cold, with the strange notes hidden from the public eye and sealed away in the FBI archives. But finally, the FBI would feel overwhelmed and hit a dead end, even with their best men on the case, completely unable to crack the code. So before turning to the public, a secret meeting at Niagara Falls would take place.

• 22:06Speaker 05

  And the FBI wanted their help. And the FBI wanted their help. So in 2009, the American Cryptogram Association gathered for their annual convention in Niagara Falls, Ontario. However, this meeting would be unusual, as the encrypted notes were from a dead man named Ricky McCormick. And when the FBI called the McCormick Notes one of the hardest cases they've ever dealt with, up there with the Zodiac Killer, they were not exaggerating. And for reference, the Zodiac sent four cipher messages to newspapers in 1969. And one was cracked within a week by a husband-and-wife team in California, but three of them remained unsolved for over 50 years.

• 22:47Speaker 05

  And it wasn't until December of 2020 that a team finally cracked the 340-character cipher, using modern computing power and over 650,000 hours of calculation. And the other two Zodiac ciphers are still unsolved. And the McCormick Notes sit right alongside them on the FBI's list of top unsolved ciphers. But the difference is, the Zodiac wanted people to try to crack the codes. He was taunting them, whereas Ricky's notes seemed like they were never meant to be found at all. They were personal and private and possibly meaningless to anyone but him, which might make them even harder to solve. Because these experts were known for solving cracked codes for fun, solving historical ciphers quicker than some

• 23:32Speaker 05

  Code breakers in history, and from ages 10 to 90, they don't discriminate by age, only by skill. And they read through the McCormick Notes using computers and state-of-the-art software to find any patterns. And 15 to 20 investigators were brought in to crack the code, but all of them failed. And the FBI was right along there with them, turning to them for help due to their own experts stumped. Because it was a cipher they knew nothing about, and they had nowhere to go, not a single step in the right direction. So if it was Ricky, was it a code that he came up with himself? He may have created his own language and grammar and vocabulary, and on top of that, he could have then turned it into a cipher to further disguise it.

• 24:17Speaker 05

  So like two layers of protection. And that's what makes this code potentially unbreakable. See, most ciphers can be cracked because they follow rules, patterns that repeat, and substitutions that stay consistent. And given enough text, enough time, and enough computing power, patterns start to emerge. But if Ricky created his own personal language first, assigning meaning to letters and symbols that only he understood, and then encrypted that with another layer of coding, you'd need two keys to unlock it. The cipher key and the personal language key. So without knowing what the underlying language even is, you can't begin to crack the code.

• 25:00Speaker 05

  It's like trying to translate a foreign language you've never heard of into another foreign language you've also never heard of, if that makes sense. And cryptographers call this an idiosyncratic cipher. A code that exists only in one person's mind. So if Ricky took that knowledge to his grave, the notes might be truly unsolvable, not because they're brilliantly designed necessarily, but because the only decoder is dead. But this seemed so advanced. Because how could a man like Ricky McCormick, a functionally illiterate man who could barely write his own name, create a code so powerful and secretive that it was stumping investigators, and the FBI, and even professionals? Professional code breakers, how is that possible?

• 25:45Speaker 05

  So with the FBI having nowhere left to turn, it was time to ask the public for help. Because for 12 years, the FBI's Crypt Analysis and Racketeering Records Unit had been studying these notes, hoping to crack the code. But the team was stuck, learning nothing after years and years of analysis. And for those 12 years, the public knew nothing about these notes. And the FBI was just sitting on the code. But these notes could be the key to his mysterious death. And according to FBI laboratory examination documents, items and documents were exchanged frequently about the case. And new evidence was submitted and added to the folder of documents, but seemingly, they were hitting bumps.

• 26:26Speaker 05

  And names aren't shown, but new people were taking a crack at the code yearly. And an attempt in December of 2010 stated that all attempts to decipher the symbols were unsuccessful. And one message was when evidence was exchanged in November of 2001. And they delayed it indefinitely, stating that due to the terrorist incidents in New York City, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, they would not be examining this new evidence. And finally, on March 29th, 2011, the FBI did something very strange. They asked for help. And Dan Olson, chief of the Bureau's Crypt Analysis and Racketeering Records Unit, disclosed the existence of the two pages of written encrypted notes found in the pocket of Ricky McCormick's genes.

• 27:11Speaker 05

  And finally, since the case had gone cold, the FBI officially stated that Ricky McCormick had been murdered. And according to documents, examiners surmised that he was killed by a cut to his throat. But here's where things get a little bit murky. The FBI documents that were eventually released through the Freedom of Information requests paint a complicated picture. Because on one hand, they maintain the cause of death was undetermined, but on the other, internal documents suggest examiners believed Ricky was killed by a cut to his throat. So these two things seem contradictory. How can you determine the cause of death but also suspect he was killed?

• 27:52Speaker 05

  ...by a throat wound. It's just that's one plus one doesn't equal three. You know what I mean? Well, the answer probably lies in the decomposition because medical examiners might have seen evidence suggesting trauma to the neck, but with the body so badly decayed, they couldn't definitively prove it wasn't caused by something else like decomposition or animals, the fall when his body was dumped, etc. So officially, undetermined. Unofficially, they had their suspicions. And when the FBI finally went public in 2011, they made one thing clear. Ricky McCormick had been murdered, and the undetermined cause of death didn't mean natural causes. So it meant someone had

• 28:35Speaker 05

  successfully hidden how they did it. And according to Olson, the experts had used a variety of advanced techniques, but despite that, standard roots of cryptanalysis seems to have hit a brick wall, unquote. So to cover the FBI's tail, just in case some super genius figured out the code in weeks, he stated that his team are really good at what we do, but we could use some help with this one. Can't can't admit to just being like, hey, guys, we need help. Like, we probably already are super close to cracking it, but like, I guess we'll let you guys look at it, too, just in case. But if you crack it, like, we probably we're we're already closer. We actually this guy solved it. This guy in the FBI solved it. Swallow your pride, FBI. But he would, and he would ask the public to look at these notes

• 29:20Speaker 05

  with a fresh pair of eyes, and that any details concerning cracking the case would be very helpful, because his coding system, as we know, was so hard to crack. So if anyone could just crack a small piece of it, the FBI would greatly appreciate the help. But there was no promise of reward or glory. They hoped that the challenge would suffice enough. FBI is a bunch of cheapskates, basically, is what I'm hearing. But no matter what the note says, according to Dan Olson, quote, "Even if we found out that he was writing a grocery list or a love letter, we would still want to see how the code is solved. This is a cipher system we know nothing about," unquote. And the responses were overwhelming. So much so that-

• 30:02Speaker 05

  The FBI had asked people not to call by phone or send any emails, and they instead created a separate page for the public to have access to in order to upload their evidence or theories. And over 7,000 public comments and theories had poured in with tons of theories of what the notes could mean. However, there was one woman who was known for code breaking, someone who was very famous. Enter Alonka Dunin. Now, Alonka Dunin is an expert amateur cryptographer, the person who has consulted Dan Brown. Dan Brown, who, you know, wrote the lost symbol and the Da Vinci Code, yeah?

• 30:43Speaker 05

  But despite this, she was like everyone else and would only learn after the FBI brought this forward publicly. But Alonka Dunin has some experience with ciphers, having co-authored a book called Code Breaking: A Practical Guide. And best of all, she had a bit of interest in the Ricky McCormick case to start with, especially since his body was found pretty close to where she lived. And she described the note as something that wasn't random chicken scratch, but methodical and throughout saying, quote, "It feels to me that there is an actual rhythm to it, that there's something that's being communicated, that it's not just random letters being written by someone who is schizophrenic and writing odd characters," unquote.

• 31:25Speaker 05

  She, however, agreed with the findings of others, stating that it wasn't meant for others to see. It was a personal note. So her theory was good, and other people had commonly agreed on at least two basic theories as to who wrote the note. Theory one being Ricky wrote the notes. And according to FBI cryptanalyst Dan Olson, he had stated he believed Ricky wrote the notes, inquiring that they are, quote, "Dunin more of a format of something written to oneself than something written to someone else," unquote. And the fact that there were circles on the page could imply that Ricky was checking off or selecting things in the list, a to-do list of places he was meant to visit and items he was supposed to pick up, maybe.

• 32:10Speaker 05

  And according to some sources who talked to his family, they described that he would sometimes write in code. And the investigator came to the conclusion that it was probably some personal diary writing. So maybe he just did it for fun, and the FBI is just like ripping their hair out for 12 years, being like, "What the fuck is it?" And he's just like... 12 cans of beans, one jug of milk, 12 pack of Dr. Pepper, visit Aunt Gloria, and infuriate the FBI. You know, I don't know. But like, kids, for example, you know, they make up code names or code things or like secret languages all the time. But for a man who could barely read or write for that matter,

• 32:52Speaker 05

  maybe this made it easier for him to write things when it's stuff he made up, you know? And also, he was in his 40s. I wouldn't be surprised that he was abbreviating words that he didn't know how to spell, other than the first two letters. And theory two seems less possible, in my personal opinion, but it is still plausible. And in 2012, which was 13 years after Ricky had passed, his family stated there was no chance Ricky wrote those notes. His mother could not believe in any world that Ricky, the son who could barely read or write, nearly illiterate, had written a code so difficult, the FBI couldn't figure it out. Which, I mean, I feel like it could just be,

• 33:35Speaker 05

  you know, gibberish that he just made up to make sense in his own head because he didn't know how to write properly. I don't think that that's out of the realm of possibility. I think she needs to broaden, broaden her mind a little bit. But I digress. The only thing she knew he could write was his own name, saying that after 12 years, they came back with, quote unquote, "this chicken scratch." And even his cousin Charles stated, quote, "He didn't write in no code," unquote. And that he, quote, "couldn't spell anything, just scribble," unquote. And his mother was upset, stating, quote, "They told us the only thing in his pockets was the emergency room ticket. Now 12 years later, they come back with this chicken scratch shit," unquote. Which, yeah, I mean, it's, I feel like, the family would have been

• 34:18Speaker 05

  the people you absolutely tell. Like, why are you waiting 12 years to tell them what's happening? And like, they could have said, "Oh yeah, that's this." That doesn't make any sense to me, but I digress again. But worst of all, not only did they have to wait 12 years to hear about it, they didn't even hear it from the FBI. They had to hear it on a local evening news broadcast report. I can't even imagine learning- ...news about your son's death 12 years later and not even hearing it from the government or the authorities, but from a late-night news broadcast. It's just, that's sickening. But then again, his mother did not seem to have the best relationship with him, but still, I mean, they're next of kin, so it's just odd to me. So there are multiple theories,

• 35:00Speaker 05

  but Ricky couldn't be a mastermind code-maker and a literate at the same time. And Alonka Dunin, the master code-breaker, also stated that, knowing more about his background, she believed that he wasn't the mastermind behind the note, but, quote, "Perhaps he was the courier," unquote. But why would Ricky McCormick be delivering a coded letter? And what type of trouble did Ricky put himself into? And who could the letter be for? Well, there are a few alleged suspects people have brainstormed over the years. But just to set the scene, set the tone, get all the facts out there, none of this information I'm about to state was linked legally to the death of Ricky McCormick. Just in case

• 35:45Speaker 05

  anyone was looking to sue, all right? I'm covered. Anyway, Gregory Lamar Knox was a major drug dealer who operated in the area in and around Clinton Peabody Housing Complex, where McCormick and his girlfriend Sandra Jones lived. People either knew who he was, or they worked for him, or they ignored him, or they feared him. And according to a March 2001 HUD report, which made it to Congress evidently enough, Knox was a suspect in, quote, "at least two murder-for-hire schemes," unquote. And according to police records, in the LaSalle Park Homes, another area he operated out of, he was the number-one supplier

• 36:28Speaker 05

  of narcotics. So this guy was known to deal in these areas and was friends with Ricky McCormick, or at least acquaintances. And according to police records, a confidential informant told police that Knox was responsible for the "murder of a black man who worked at a gas station on Chateau Avenue," very similar to Ricky McCormick. And supposedly, he dumped- The body near West Alton. Now, this could totally be a coincidence. Gregory was not a good man, so it could be anyone's body that was dumped. However, Ricky McCormick was a black man who worked at a gas station on Chateau Avenue, and his body was found there, too. Coincidence? Maybe. Or at least, the police assumed so.

• 37:13Speaker 05

  But somehow, investigators couldn't make the connection stick. And Detective Yarborough would later say the claims, quote, "could not be substantiated." And Knox, for his part, claimed total ignorance. Quote, "This is all new information to me," unquote, he would write from prison. And quote, "I have no information that could help your case," unquote. The perfect non-answer, you know? So Detective Yarborough stated that despite ongoing suspicions, these claims could not be substantiated and link a connection between Knox and McCormick's death. Despite the confidential informant's claims. And I'm no expert in the justice system, but to really say there isn't a hard link

• 37:54Speaker 05

  between the informant's claims and his suspicious response, I just feel like that shouldn't have been a dead end, you know? But what do I know? I'm just a YouTuber. But it wasn't exactly a dead end. There were other people involved in the case that could be linked to McCormick's death. And one of them was named Baha Hamdallah. Juma Hamdallah was the owner of the Amalko gas station of which Ricky worked at. And he took over the store when the previous owner, Fawaz Hamdan, killed a neighbor with a butcher knife in May of 1994. What's going on in this town, you know? But he would later die in prison. But I digress. So an incident would happen between Juma, the store owner, and his brother, Baha.

• 38:36Speaker 05

  So Juma employed his brother, Baha, and you'd think that with the familial ties, they wouldn't fight. But this family's fights with each other sometimes led to death, it turns out. Because there was an incident in August of 1999, only two months after the death of Ricky McCormick. And police from Maryland Heights were investigating an incident involving Juma, who allegedly claimed Juma had shot his brother. Baja. And Baja survived the attack and filed no charges. However, they linked the incident to possibly being attributed to Baja's involvement with black gang members in St. Louis City and narcotics use. Unquote. And this means they were involved with criminal activity and the police knew.

• 39:20Speaker 05

  Especially with Baja's extensive violence and possession of firearms and knives. And now that you know the family, or at least Juma, you're now ready for Baja, his brother. Okay? Now, the information here is a bit murky, but I'm going to reference the most reliable sources. So Baja Hamdallah was employed at the same Amoco gas station on Chateau Avenue and had a history of violence. And tons of other sources say that he was Ricky's boss, but I'm not 100% positive on that. But regardless, they worked together for sure. But anyway, Baja Hamdallah had moved to St. Louis in 1997 from Cleveland, Ohio. And at 22 years old, he was cruising around in his blue Mazda Protege when a police detective

• 40:05Speaker 05

  watched him pull alongside another man. And this man was named Terrence Clark. And he watched Baja lean out of his car window and fire a shot at him with a 38 caliber revolver. And missing, he drove off. Clark escaping unarmed. And Baja would be arrested, but somehow was never charged? So a violent man who attempted murder was still walking the streets, completely fine. And I'm not sure what the hell is going on with the police in the 90s in Missouri, but my God. But only nine months later, on March 4th, 1998, Baja would get into an argument with one of his brothers named Bahat Hamdallah. Now Bahat worked at the Family Market, a small corner grocery store in the Tower Grove East neighborhood.

• 40:49Speaker 05

  And the argument would then lead to an alleged gunshot from Baja, who allegedly shot at Bajat from across the street. And the bullet tore through the left side of Bajat's abdomen and knocked him to the ground with Baja speeding off in his car once again. And for some odd reason, Bajat also did not press charges. This, this family doesn't. Hold Granger's or something. It's kind of crazy. But it doesn't matter if someone presses charges or not. This is still a crime, you know? However, Bajat completely flipped the investigation because Bajat described to the police that he had never seen the man who shot him before and instead described a goatee Hispanic man instead of his 5'10", 225-pound Middle Eastern brother.

• 41:33Speaker 05

  And six days later, Baha Hamdallah turned himself in and was arrested on a felony charge of first-degree assault. But because Bajat did not press charges, there are no records of this case. It's...

• 41:48Speaker 05

  Make it make sense. Because how can you shoot a gun at another person twice and still not see the inside of a prison cell? I don't understand. And also, even if you shoot someone and they don't press charges, it's legal now? Is that... we can do that? I don't want to, but you know, what? What? But none of this lines up with the law. But according to the sources, it just states that this incident never happened since there was no charges. But this wouldn't be the only incident because Baha would do it again in the same month. And while working at the Amoco Station, the same station where Ricky worked, Baha would be arrested on a felony charge of second-degree assault. Why, you ask?

• 42:30Speaker 05

  Well, he tried to kill someone with a hammer. This time, he downgraded from a gun to a hammer. And the man he supposedly tried to kill was named Elro Kar, and he allegedly did it with a rusty hammer. And he then told police, quote, "I just figured I'd take care of this myself," unquote. However, to no surprise, on August 7, 1998, just two weeks before the court case with Kar was going to go to court, Kar was killed. And he was gunned down just a few blocks from the Amoco Station, and those assault charges went out the window with them. So Kar's murder was never solved, and the police made no arrest despite informants stating that Kar was killed at the behest of Baha Hamdallah,

• 43:12Speaker 05

  unquote. But I digress. To repeat myself, Ricky McCormick then died on June 27, 1999.

• 43:21Speaker 05

  So with this connection, Sandra Jones, Ricky's girlfriend, told police and investigators that Ricky had mentioned he was holding marijuana for Baha Hamdallah, and even believed that the trip down to Florida was for Baha. So obviously, police looked into this matter and watched Baha Hamdallah. Stakeouts, surveillance, investigations, but nothing stuck, and they couldn't prove that Baha Hamdallah was involved. But Baha would slip up and would finally have justice served against him. Finally. Because on October 13th, 2000, about a year later, Baha was working at Charlie's Food Market in Madison, Illinois, and he then got into an argument with a customer named

• 44:06Speaker 05

  Robert Steptoe. And details are a little bit fuzzy here, but the one we'll go with was that there was a fight for the pistol outside of the store, where Baha then shot Steptoe in the face. And with luckily there being a bunch of witnesses, he would be arrested, charged, and found guilty in front of a jury and sentenced to 38 years in prison in September of 2002. Now that murder was obviously Baha. He shot a man point-blank in the face. However, in May of 2006, in the Illinois court, Hamdallah's lawyer made a mistake and didn't call a gunshot residue expert to testify in prison. And because of this, the court offered a retrial of the case.

• 44:47Speaker 05

  So with the second go-round, the jury somehow bought the claim of self-defense, stating his version that the gun went off during the struggle for control over the pistol between the two. This is the luckiest human being I've ever heard of. So on May 15th, 2008, Hamdallah walked out of the court a free man. And now that he is a free man, and no one really knows details about him anymore, but I'm telling you now, watch out for Baha Hamdallah, what the fuck? With attempts to contact them being unsuccessful by reporters, he lives out his life supposedly in the Cleveland area, attempting to restart his life again. So just to recap, men who were possibly involved in the murder of Ricky McCormick now walk free or-

• 45:30Speaker 05

  Have no input in his death and there are still no answers for these men. And although the involvement may seem obvious, the law turns a blind eye and has no connection with them. So with theories still swarming around, people believe to have found connections or even solutions to his murder. And even better, some people think they know what the notes say. And people had tons of theories about the notes with different ideas and situations that could have caused the note to be created. And we're gonna go over a few that I think are the most important and most plausible. And first is the courier theory, and this was the theory that was under Alonka Dunnan's hypothesis.

• 46:10Speaker 05

  Where she stated that the note was either written by Ricky or someone else, meant to carry a message related to his drug running. So let's say it wasn't Ricky. This would be a code that was used to inform fellow people in the drug trade. While Ricky was only meant to deliver the message alongside the drugs. And this code is called idio glossya, which is just a language spoken by two people. And the language could be so basic if you have the notes to translate them. For example, if I say red is the word parallelogram, you have no idea if that is the translation. You know, unless you knew the code ahead of time. It's just completely made up and completely random, basically. But basically, without the cheat sheet, you cannot solve it. It's impossible.

• 46:52Speaker 05

  But this could be the case with the drug dealers pretending they were James Bond with fucking secret codes, being among the few who knew the codes. And if this is true, we will never, ever know the translation. However, if this is Ricky's own version as well, we'll never know either. And this unfortunately is the most tragic theory, and I, I hope it's not the actual answer. Because then there's no way anyone will ever be able to solve this and, and solve the way Ricky died. But the next theory is medical records. And this theory plays both sides, stating that it was either written by Ricky or a nurse. And the theory is that the note is about medical records from the hospital he visited, specifically the Barnes Jewish Hospital.

• 47:36Speaker 05

  Firstly, if a nurse wrote this, people thought they could be abbreviating or using a version of Their own shorthand. Doctors have a shorthand that is very confusing, but a nurse learning might instead abbreviate to help them remember what to inform other nurses or the doctor of. And one Reddit user's theory suggested what each word or combination of letters could be describing. And it's very convincing and honestly really well throughout. Like AL-PR, PPI, XLY, PPIY, NCBE, and so on are all procedures patient priority intake. An X-ray priority not covered by insurance. And magnesium within limits defined receive nurse procedure.

• 48:18Speaker 05

  So when you really look at it, you can kind of see where their thought process was, especially if it has to do with the checkup at the hospital. And theories surrounding the shorthand, but something possibly even more believable is Ricky using shorthand instead. Cause he knew letters and could spell his name at the very least, so maybe he knew enough to abbreviate words with letters instead. And the Reddit user covers the entire thing and I'll show it on screen, obviously, but this seems like a very plausible outcome for his notes. Cause he struggled badly with dyslexia and was borderline illiterate. And in the notes, the words are completely jumbled and the one of the lines looks like it could be a phone number even.

• 48:59Speaker 05

  And this portion of the words, when you turn your head to the left side, look like they read 362. And when people search this number with the 362 prefix, they found it attributed to the Barnes Jewish Hospital, which treated him, which is very interesting. And there are some other quickfire theories that also exist on the internet that were just short little ideas, like VIN numbers for cars that Ricky would work on at the gas stations and electrical components, serial numbers and medication reminders and addresses and directions of street names are abbreviated beyond recognition. And gambling books and debts for bookies. And lastly, the worst guests in my opinion, written by aliens. Uh, but maybe not. I don't know. Anything goes at this point.

• 49:43Speaker 05

  But unfortunately with all of these ideas and all of these theories, over decades of guesses and suggestions of code cracking. No one is closer and no one has solved it. And the notes, to this day, are unsolved. And Ricky's cause of death is still undetermined, although the FBI has confirmed it was murder. But they can't begin to point fingers at who is truly responsible. But he would be found 15 miles from where he lived in a remote cornfield with no bus stops, no public transit, nothing. Because Ricky didn't own a car and couldn't drive, so how did he get there? Someone had to have driven him or driven his body. And I doubt authorities are searching as hard as they were in the early 2000s,

• 50:27Speaker 05

  but they're still open to suggestions if anyone ever gets close. So feel free to try to crack the code. But Ricky McCormick's death continues to confuse investigators and internet theorists to this day with a cipher that could be so advanced it rivals the Zodiac, a grocery list for picking up drugs, or a nurse's shorthand. We'll never know. But I'm curious to know your thoughts. That is the case of Ricky McCormick. It's very puzzling and troubling and confusing. And I did not forget that he did what he did to that kid, so, um...

• 51:10Speaker 05

  Do I hope the family at least gets justice? Yes. Do I think he should have been walking free? No. You know? But I'm here to just tell you the facts of this case because the whole cipher thing is very intriguing and very, very puzzling. So let me know what you guys think down below. Let me know what other cases you want me to deep dive into, and I will see you in the next one, okay? Stay safe out there. Bye.

• 51:34Speaker 06

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• 52:04Speaker 01

  Stone Fire Naan is inspired by ancient traditions, baked on stone at blazing high heat. But it's perfect for your new traditions, too. I love putting out Stone Fire Naan with dips, for board game night.

• 52:14Speaker 02

  Or with cinnamon and sugar, for my book club gals.

• 52:17Speaker 03

  We enjoy Stone Fire Naan. Before the ritual summoning of the Nameless Ones.

• 52:21Speaker 01

  We invoke the Nameless Ones. They shall not be named.

• 52:24Speaker 04

  And we, uh, do Stone Fire pizza parties for the kids. I'm really scared right now.

• 52:30Speaker 01

  Stone Fire: From Our Tradition to Yours. Together, we Naan.