Who Was Ricky McCormick?

Ricky McCormick was a 41-year-old high school dropout living in St. Louis, Missouri. He suffered from chronic heart and lung problems and had a long history of bouncing between low-wage jobs and extended stays with family. 

Though his IQ was reportedly below average and he lived on disability, McCormick was known to scribble unusual notes to himself often in a personal shorthand no one else seemed to understand.

He had minor criminal offenses on his record and had recently been visiting a rural area about 15 miles from St. Louis. 

Few could have guessed that after his mysterious death, he would become the center of one of the FBI’s most baffling unsolved code cases.

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The Mysterious Death

On June 30, 1999 McCormick’s partially decomposed body was found in a field near West Alton, Missouri. 

The location was remote, and Ricky had no known means of transportation. 

The body was too decomposed to determine a cause of death. There were no visible wounds or injuries, and authorities ruled out homicide due to lack of physical evidence. 

Yet his family immediately suspected foul play.

The area where his body was discovered was one he rarely visited, and he had no known reason to be there. 

Adding to the mystery: he had been missing for three days and his body showed signs of being exposed to the elements for much longer. Something didn’t add up.

The Coded Notes

Inside McCormick’s pockets, investigators discovered two handwritten notes, each filled with strange combinations of letters, numbers, and symbols. 

The notes were written in a kind of cipher no obvious pattern, no standard code. Just rows of:

WLD NCBE MLKQ XL MULD NCBE

74 WUNNUNU WLD QUNUNUL QCUNC

Cryptographers at the FBI’s Cryptanalysis and Racketeering Records Unit (CRRU) and the American Cryptogram Association attempted to decipher the messages but failed. 

The FBI publicly released the notes in 2011 hoping civilian codebreakers might help solve the case.

To this day, the messages remain unsolved.

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Theories and Speculation

There are two main theories about the notes:

1. Personal Shorthand

Some believe the notes are a kind of personal notation system Ricky developed over time. 

Friends said he often wrote notes to himself that no one else could understand. If this is true, decoding them may be impossible without knowing Ricky’s mind.

2. Coded Message with Criminal Connections

Others believe the notes may hold clues to his death. 

In the weeks before he died, Ricky had been visiting a known drug house in the area. Could the codes reference people or locations tied to criminal activity? 

Perhaps they contain names, dates, or drop-off locations.

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More than two decades later, the case of Ricky McCormick’s coded notes continues to baffle experts. 

The FBI has classified the case as an unsolved murder though no cause of death was confirmed. 

It remains on the FBI’s list of top unsolved code cases alongside war-time ciphers and international spy communications.

If the notes are ever decoded, they could reveal not only what happened to Ricky, but potentially unearth a much deeper criminal story.

What secrets did Ricky McCormick take to his grave? 

Were his notes the final thoughts of a dying man, scribbled in code? Or were they instructions, names, or messages meant for someone else?

Until the day the code is cracked, his death remains one of America’s strangest true crime mysteries.