Ricky McCormick murder case
Ricky McCormick († around June 27, 1999 ) was an American sex offender and alleged drug courier. He was murdered on June 27, 1999 and his body was dumped in a corn field in St. Charles County , Missouri , where he was found on June 30, 1999. The killer has not yet been caught. Two handwritten encrypted notes found in McCormick's pockets attracted greater attention to the case. The secret texts could not be deciphered until today.
Life
McCormick grew up in St. Louis, in school he was rather untalented and had difficulty passing the respective grade. He was able to read and write with difficulty; his mother Frankie Sparks later described him as "lagging behind". As a teenager, he initially stayed away from the criminal activities that were common in his area.
He dropped out of school and then got by with odd jobs such as cleaning man, dishwasher, waiter and gas station attendant. Chronic heart problems made his professional life difficult.
In November 1992, McCormick, then 34 years old, was arrested by police for having a relationship with a young girl with whom he had two children. The girl was 14 years old at the time. According to court records, McCormick had slept with her since she was eleven years old. The girl's identity was kept secret. McCormick's public defender called for a mental health check to determine whether he was insane, but McCormick was declared sane and was eventually sentenced to three years in prison for sexually abusing a minor . After eleven months, he was released early.
Incidents in the last days of life
On the night of June 14-15, 1999, about two weeks before his death, McCormick bought a ticket to Orlando at the Greyhound bus terminal . Once there, he moved into a room in the Econo Lodge hotel. Telephone records revealed that he or his girlfriend Sandra Jones had called several people in Florida weeks before McCormick set out on the trip. It is not yet known who he met during his stay in Orlando or what he even did there. What is certain, however, is that McCormick had phoned Sandra Jones during his two-day stay in Orlando, and he also called the gas station in St. Louis, where he worked, at least once.
Jones later testified to police that she believed McCormick was accepting paid courier jobs involving the transportation of marijuana. According to her, he made trips to Orlando to pick up marijuana and bring it back to St. Louis, where he shared an apartment with his girlfriend Jones. The marijuana was packed in small bags and rolled up the size of a baseball. McCormick told his girlfriend that he was keeping the marijuana for Baha Hamdallah, the gas station owner he worked for.
McCormick didn't like talking about his trips to Orlando. After his last return, he looked fearful, according to Jones. In fact, McCormick went into medical treatment twice since his last return: on June 22, 1999, at around 3:00 p.m., he visited Barnes Jewish Hospital. He complained of shortness of breath and chest pain. However, this was not uncommon, as McCormick had suffered from asthma and chronic heart problems from early childhood . He told the doctors that he had not used alcohol or other drugs . However, McCormick was a chain smoker and drank a lot of coffee, a condition that can lead to an exacerbation of asthma. According to his own assessment, McCormick consumed caffeinated drinks more than twenty times a day.
Doctors ruled out a heart attack, but kept McCormick in hospital for two days, which he finally left on June 24th. He was ordered to come for a check-up a week later. McCormick then went to see his Aunt Gloria, with whom he was on good terms, for about an hour. During his visit, he said little and declined his aunt's offer to drive him to a place of his choosing.
The next day, June 25, at around 5 p.m., McCormick went to the Forest Park Hospital emergency room . This time he complained of breathing problems caused by mowing the lawn. Doctors diagnosed an asthma attack but did not keep him in the hospital. He was officially released at 5:50 pm. It is not clear at what time he actually left the hospital. According to his aunt, he spent the night in the waiting room and left the hospital the next morning. It is not yet known whether McCormick sought medical help because of actual ailments or whether he went to this place out of fear of people who might persecute him. His aunt Gloria suspected that he might be seeking refuge from someone who wanted to harm him.
Jones testified that she spoke to McCormick on the phone at around 11:30 a.m. on June 26. McCormick said he had left the hospital and was going to an Amoco gas station for something to eat. The last witness to see him alive is a gas station employee who said he saw him there the next day, June 27th. Coroners are certain that McCormick died that same day.
Find the corpse
A local farmer discovered McCormick's body on June 30, 1999 in a corn field in St. Charles County, Missouri. The body was about 15 miles from McCormick's apartment. McCormick did not own a car, and public transport does not go to the site. The FBI only stated that the cause of death was so badly decomposed that the cause of death could no longer be determined. The newspaper Die Welt reported that his throat was cut.
The corn field McCormick was found in has been used by criminals in the past to dispose of bodies. McCormick was not reported missing after his disappearance .
Suspects
Baha Hamdallah
McCormick's friend Jones suspects that Baha Hamdallah, the gas station owner McCormick worked for, may have had something to do with McCormick's death because McCormick appeared to have worked as a drug courier for Hamdallah. She further suspects that McCormick may have made a mistake in Orlando that led Hamdallah to either murder him himself or hire someone else to do it.
Hamdallah was sentenced to 38 years in prison for the murder of a customer at his gas station in 2000, but was released in May 2008 after the court later overturned the sentence and found that Hamdallah had acted in self-defense.
Gregory Lamar Knox
The FBI and St. Louis police also suspected Gregory Lamar Knox, a drug dealer. Knox mainly dealt in the area where McCormick lived and is also considered a suspect in other murder cases. Allegedly, Knox is said to have worked as a contract killer in addition to his drug business. According to an informant , Knox was responsible for the murder of a dark-skinned man who worked at a gas station on Chouteau Avenue and whose body was thrown in an area of West Alton. The St. Louis Police are not ruling out a possible collaboration between Knox and Baha Hamdallah. Knox himself denied McCormick's murder.
Knox was sentenced to prison in January 2001, not for the murder of Ricky McCormick, for which there was no evidence anyway, but for illegal possession of weapons and drug trafficking .
The encrypted notes
The Ricky McCormick murder case was best known for two pieces of paper that were found on his body. Encrypted letter and number combinations can be read on the slips of paper. The FBI kept the find of the notes secret for a long time, but since they and other dedicated experts were unable to decipher the contents of the notes, they went public in 2011. Numerous amateur and professional cryptographers have since tried their hand at the notes, so far without success. The notes remain unresolved.
It is not clear whether Ricky McCormick even wrote the notes himself, since, according to his mother, he was just able to write his own name, but in his childhood he occasionally put encrypted texts on paper similar to those on the pieces of paper found . Ricky McCormick's family doubts he took the notes himself. The notes could contain messages related to McCormick's drug delivery assignments.
The found notes looked like this:
| # | original | In typed form |
| 1st note |  |
P1 (MND MKNE M RSE-NSM-KNARE) (ACSM) TFRNE NPINSE NPBSE RCB RNSE NPRSE INC PRSE N MRSE OPRE HLD WLD NCBE (TFXLF TCXLF NCBE) AL-PR PPI T XLY PPIY NCBE MGKSE WLD RCB RNSE PRSE WLD. RCB RNSE NT SSNE NTKSE-CRSLE-CITRSE WLD NCBE AL WLD NCBE TSME LRSE RLSE UR GLSNE AS N WLD NCBE (NOPFSE NLSRE NCBE) NTE GD DMN SENCURE RCBRNE (TENE TFRNE NCBRTSE NCBE INC) (FLRSE PRSE ON DE 71 NCBE) (CDNSE PRSE 74 NCBE) (PR + SE PRSE ON REDE 75 NCBE) (TF NRCMSP SOLE MRDE LUSE TOTE WLD N WLD NCBE) (194 WLD'S NCBE) (TRFXL) |
| 2. Note |  |
ALPNTE GLSE - SE ER + E VLSE MTSE-CTSE-WSE-FRTSE PNRTRSE ONDRSE WLD NCBE N WLD XLRCMSP NE WLD S TS MEXL DULMT 6 TUNSE NCBEXC |
| (MUNSARSTEN MU NARSE) KLSE-LRSTE-TRSE-TRSE-MKSEN-MRSE (SAEG NSE SE N MRSE) |
||
| NMNRCBRNSEP + E 2PTEWSRCBKNSE 26 MLSE 74 SPRKSE 29KCNOS OLE 175 RTRSE 35 SLE CLGSE UUNUTKEDKRSE PSESHLE 651 MTCSE HTLSE NCUTC TRS NMRE 99.84.52 UNEPLSENCRSEAOLTSENSKSENRSE 3 NSWORONSE PUT |
||
| DNMSE NRSE 1N2 NTRLERC BRNSE NTSRCRSNE LSPNSE N GSPSE MKSE RBSE NEBE AU XL'R HM CRE N MRE NCBE 1/2 MUNDDLSE |
||
| DWM-4 HPL XDRLX |
Web links
- Help Solve an Open Murder Case, Part 2. Federal Bureau of Investigation , March 29, 2011, accessed August 13, 2015 .
- Ricky McCormick murder case: FBI asks code breakers for help. In: datensicherheit.de. March 30, 2011, accessed August 13, 2015 .
- Ansgar Graw: How the FBI fails on a dead person's secret code. In: The world . April 8, 2011, accessed August 13, 2015 .
- Frank Thadeusz: Message in your pocket . In: Der Spiegel . No. 9 , 2012, p. 118-119 ( Online - Feb. 27, 2012 ).
- The dead man in the cornfield: Ricky McCormick. In: luftgangster.de. June 22, 2014, accessed August 13, 2015 .
- Klaus Schmeh: The Ricky McCormick case: Can you crack the code on the cornfield corpse? In: Focus Online . October 24, 2014, accessed August 13, 2015 .
literature
- FBI: 2011 The FBI Story (Black and White) . CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform (January 12, 2015), ISBN 978-1506191393
- Mike Riley: Murders Unsolved: Cases That Have Baffled The Authorities For Years (Murder, Scandals and Mayhem) . Maica International LLC (July 22, 2014), ISBN 978-0692261460