Posted on 04/05/2011 1:43:25 PM PDT by ButThreeLeftsDo
A lifelong fan of codes, Ricky McCormick wrote out two pages of letters, numbers and symbols and stuck them in his pocket. His body was found in a Missouri cornfield in the summer of 1999, those two sheets of paper still in his pants.
ALPONTE GLSE - SE ERTE, one line read. Is that a coded plea for help? A reminder to pick up the laundry from the cleaners? The beginnings of a commentary on the weather in St. Louis?
If you know, the FBI's top code-breaking unit wants your help in breaking McCormick's code — one that has baffled government cryptologists for more than a decade — and perhaps solving his murder.
(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...
why would you code a plea for help?
b-e-s-u-r-e-t-o-d-r-i-n-k-y-o-u-r-o-v-a-l-t-i-n-e.
If anyone needed help deciphering this code, it would help if they put it in regular text.
Cut spending, drastically
Throw the bums out and impose iron clad term limits
Iron clad balanced budget amendment
Tax the bankers and other freeloaders.
Don’t start a war in Iraq or Afghanistan. If you do, get out ASAP.
A Kenyan will be president.
I can’t read the last line but hopefully someone else will.
LOL
Odd. The letter sequence
NCBE is repeated 9 times, including 4 times after WLD and at the end of 6 lines.
The last three lines end with
71 NCBE
74 NCBE
75 NCBE
We also have a NCBEING to end a line
B4I4Q
RU/18!
A crummy commercial? Son of a bitch!
8 göter ok 22 norrmen po ??o opdagelsefard fro vinland of vest. vi hade läger ved 2 skelar en dags rise norr fro deno sten. vi var ok fiske en dagh, äptir vi kom hem fan 10 man røde af blod og ded. AVM frälse af illu. [side of stone]: här 10 mans ve havet at se äptir vore skip 14 dagh rise from deno öh. ahr 1362
Look glass-jar Southeast Crete.
I would search Koufonisi.
More - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricky_McCormick_murder_notes
Background
Ricky McCormick was a high school dropout, but was able to read and write and was said to be “street smart”. He had held multiple addresses in the Missouri/Illinois region in St. Louis, Belleville, and Fairview Heights, sometimes living off and on with his elderly mother.[5] According to a 1999 article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, McCormick suffered from chronic heart and lung problems. He was not married, but had fathered at least four children. He had a criminal record, and had previously served 11 months of a three-year sentence for statutory rape. At the time of his death, he was 41 years old, unemployed, and on disability welfare.[6]
His body was found in a cornfield in St. Charles County on June 30, 1999, by someone driving along a field road near Highway 367, near West Alton, Missouri.[7] The reason for his being 30 miles from his current address is another mystery, as McCormick did not own a car, and the area is not served by public transportation. The body had already decomposed somewhat, and no official cause of death was ever determined, though an identification was obtained via the body’s fingerprints. The death was not labeled a homicide, there was no indication that anyone had a motive to kill McCormick, and no one had reported him missing. The last place that McCormick had been seen alive was five days earlier, on June 25 at the St. Louis Forest Park Hospital, where he was getting a checkup.[5]
News stories in 1999 did not mention anything about cipher messages, which were not announced until 12 years later when the FBI listed the death as a murder, and posted a notice for help on the mainpage of their website. Investigators believe the notes in McCormick’s pants pockets were written up to three days before his death.[8] Attempts by both the FBI’s Cryptanalysis and Racketeering Records Unit (CRRU) and the American Cryptogram Association failed to decipher their meaning, and Ricky McCormick’s encrypted notes are currently listed as one of CRRU’s top unsolved cases, with McCormick’s killer yet to be identified.[1] According to members of McCormick’s family, McCormick had used encrypted notes since he was a boy, but apparently no one in his family knows how to decipher the codes, either.[9]
There is no reward being offered, just a challenge. “Breaking the code,” said CRRU chief Dan Olson, “could reveal the victim’s whereabouts before his death and could lead to the solution of a homicide. Not every cipher we get arrives at our door under those circumstances.”[3]
The code says:
Ask Nixon about the Hughes donation.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
(MNDMKNEARSE-N-S-M-KNARE) (A(SM))
TFRHENPINSENPBSERCBBNSE NPRSE INC
PRSE N MRSE DPRE HLDWLDNCBE(TFXLF TCXL N CBE)
AL-PRPPIT XLYPPIY N CBE MGKSEWCDRCBRNSEPRSE
WLDRCBRNSE N T SSHENTXSE-CRSLE-CLTRSEWLDNCBE
ALWLDNCBETSME LRSE RLSE URGLNE AS N WLD N CBE
(NOPFSE NLSRE NCBE) NTEGDDMNSENCURERCBRNE
(TENE TFRNE NCBRTSE N CBE INC)
(FLRSE PQSE ONDE71 NCBE)
(CDNSE PRSE ONSDE74 NCBE)
(PRTSE PRSE ON REDE 75 N CBE)
(TF NQCMSP SOLE MRDE LUSE TOTE WLD N WLDNCBE)
(194 WLD’S NCBE) (TRFXL)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Page 2 "Page 2", featuring what appear to be paragraphs that are circled and thus isolated from other paragraphs, was also written in ballpoint ink like Page 1. But this page's text was written on blank, unlined stationery marked "NOTES" at the top of the page. Page 2's stationery may have been old generic note paper (or a newer printing of a classic style), as evidenced by the "Art Deco" appearance of the font of "NOTES". This page's writing covers roughly the top 75% of the sheet. Here is the Page 2 manuscript, typed in similar format and spacing to the actual page:
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
AL PNTE GLSE-SE ERTE
VLSE MTSE-CTSE-WSE-FRTSE
PNRTRSE ONDRSEWLD NCBE
NWLDZLRCMSPNEWLDSTSMEXL
DULMT6TUNSE NCBEXC
(MUNSAISTENMUNARSE)
KLSE-LRSTE-TRSE-TRSE-MKSEN-MRSE
(SAE6NSE SE NMBSE)
NMNRCBRNSEPTE2PTEWSREBKNSE
26MLSE74SPRKSE29KENOSOLE173RTRSE
356LE CLGSEOUNUTKEDKRSE PSESHLE
651MTCSEHTLSENCUTCTRS NMRE
99.84.5 5UNEPLSENCRSEADLTSENSKSENBSE
NSREONSE PVTSEWLDNCBE (3XORL)
NMSENRSEIN2NTRLERCBRNSENTSRCRBNE
LSPNSENGSPSEMKSEKBSEPCBEAVXL’R
HMCRENMREFCBE 1/2MUNDPLSE
D-W-M-4HIL XDRLX
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
From: http://coldcasesleuth.blogspot.com/2011/04/ricky-mccormick-mysterious-death.html
Ebonics Jive phonetically?
GOTtoBUYmoCRACKfrumMUFUGGAupDAstreetTONIGHTbeeyatch!!
All joking aside, it wouldn't surprise me that the guy was suffering from some form of autism or severe learning ability and any attempt to decipher what is written would be a waste of time.......there certainly isn't any "code" involved.
She could have helped.
MR DUCKS
MR KNOT
OSMR CM WANGS
LIB! MR DUCKS!
What’s interesting to me are the corrections, around 15 of them, mostly on p. 1.
Remember he may have written it phonetically as he may well have been unable to spell very well. Looks like a simple Letter substitution code but with a progressing letter shift. Still, if it baffled the FBI it must have something that is a bit unique. He may well have copied it from somewhere else—or maybe he was an Idiot Savant of some sort. The Pajama Clad Freepers can break this code!
Looks like BO’s birth certificate.
It looks like to me there are page references. Notice the numbers before the “NCBE” which follows some of the words. Also, there are other ending letters which are also duplicated. These endings must be a reference to a page out of some obscure book he had. Then what he did was take a sentence and each letter was assigned a letter in the alphebet.
—Just my guess.
Rosebud.
The fbi should ask gang hangers or inmates for advice. Not average smart people.
There certainly is an abundance of the letter E, and few of the other vowels.
I think the reference to a book is the key. Find the book and the code will break Maybe NCBE is a book? What book has four words in the title with each word starting with NCBE? New Christian Bible ???
Both “NCBE” and “N CBE” appear frequently. Common word beginning with “A” or “I” since it can also stand alone as a one letter word itself. That’s assuming meaning wasn’t assigned to blank spaces and other symbols.
So, a four letter word beginning with A or I that can also be two words when A or I is separated. Abet - A bet? Ibid - I bid?
He was not well educated and likely developed something just a little more complex than the Cryptoquote puzzle in the newspaper. A “key” symbol, number or letter that shifts the letter substitution sequence might be a good guess, but “NCBE” is in there repeatedly.
It’s not pure gibberish, there is consistent order to it. Could be that some groupings retain the same substitution sequence and others shift. But, beyond that, I don’t know.
It was probably encoded with a one time pad and is essentially gibberish because unless they find the key, no one will be able to break it.
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