MO MO - Ricky McCormick, 41, St Louis, 30 June 1999

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There are no obvious patterns or discernible systems at work in the way the messages were created, Mr Olson added, and solving them is made harder by the use of symbols and a lack of normal publication.

That is correct

"He (McCormick) wasn't someone who was trained as a professional in anything very technical, so it's probably not a super-complicated code, but it probably involves some sort of personal secret," said Neil Koblitz, a professor of mathematics at the University of Washington.

This is correct except for the secret.
 
He had 4 kids, and as many addresses. I say he was able to function at a likeable level on subject other than cars. Maybe not to my likens or to yours. I have met quiet a few baby daddies that are able to charm more than a handful. None of them were non functioning in the way your describe. More in the productive lifestyle kind of way.


The FBI wants the code broke why?
 
Soulmagent said:
He had 4 kids, and as many addresses. I say he was able to function at a likeable level on subject other than cars. Maybe not to my likens or to yours. I have met quiet a few baby daddies that are able to charm more than a handful. None of them were non functioning in the way your describe. More in the productive lifestyle kind of way.


The FBI wants the code broke why?
Click to expand...

They are not looking to break a code, I am not sure what they want to be honest. Anyone can make babies, he had no contact with his which could indicate and inability to form any kind of meaningful relationships which would work for this guy.
 
When and How are WE going to find out what the FBI thinks about the possibility that Ricky's 'Page 1' and 'NOTES' page is really just a listing of car parts/colors/exhaust systems, etc.....??? I will go crazy if they just let it go on and on without telling us what they think!
 
Reannan said:
When and How are WE going to find out what the FBI thinks about the possibility that Ricky's 'Page 1' and 'NOTES' page is really just a listing of car parts/colors/exhaust systems, etc.....??? I will go crazy if they just let it go on and on without telling us what they think!
Click to expand...

Reannan,

The F.B.I is really not in the business of telling people what they think and there is a reason for that. I doubt they will ever disclose what they think or what their looking at. You may see a news article down the road that may fit something that coincides with this deal in the form of an arrest or something but they do not really release details on investigations.

I would not hold your breath for that.

Best,

Kris
 
bessie said:
I've been thinking about where RM's body was found. The location was 20+ miles from his residence and the hospital where he was last seen five days earlier. After poking around on the map a bit, I got the idea that the casino might be the reason. In 1999, the Alton Belle was docked in Alton, IL, about 4 miles from the site of RM's body. Also during that time, the Casino Queen was in operation in East St. Louis only three miles from Chouteau Ave. (Coincidentally, the Mayfair Hotel where Maury Travis was employed 2000-2001 is practically within walking distance of Chouteau.)

An article from The Belleville News Democrat (June 8, 2003) talks about the problems related to the casinos, including the rise in "problem gambling"; crimes committed by addicted gamblers to acquire money to play, or to pay off debts; and money laundering by drug dealers since the Illinois casinos had no loss limits at the time.



"The explosive growth of casinos, especially in the Midwest, has provided drug traffickers and other criminals with a ready list of places to launder their cash. ..

'Casinos can play a significant role in money laundering,' said Miriam Miquelon, the U.S. attorney for Southern Illinois, who successfully prosecuted Belleville businessman Thomas Venezia and other defendants who operated an illegal gambling ring in the metro-east.

Illinois riverboat casinos are especially vulnerable because they have no loss limits, which means drug traffickers gamble away tens of thousands of dollars in a matter of minutes against their casino accounts.

[FONT=Times New Roman, Georgia, Times, serif]'When you're in St. Louis and you've got a choice between Missouri and Illinois, if you're trying to launder money, you might choose Illinois,' Holtshouser said."

http://webcache.googleusercontent.c...nk&gl=us&client=firefox&source=www.google.com

[/FONT]And then we have all of those bodies strewn around West Alton and East St. Louis.

Not to mention the major drug operations centered in the St. Louis area back then, like the Black Mafia Family (or whatever they were called at the time), whose Atlanta based drug syndicate had a Midwest distribution center in St. Louis. Those guys needed cars, right? Shady car dealerships, especially shady used car dealerships, are notorious for laundering money.
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Additional info from Apellate Court case....
"Initially, the Alton Belle operated as a gambling boat that took excursions on the Mississippi River pursuant to the Riverboat Gambling Act (Act) ( Ill.Rev.Stat.1991, ch. 120, par. 2402 et seq.).   Under the original Act, gambling could only be conducted on licensed “self-propelled excursion boats” during a “gambling excursion.”  Ill.Rev.Stat.1991, ch. 120, pars. 2404(d), (e).   The Act required excursion boats to leave their docks and cruise on “navigable streams” in order for gambling to be allowed.  Ill.Rev.Stat.1991, ch. 120, pars. 2403(c), 2411(a)(1).

The Act was amended, effective June 25, 1999, to allow gambling on a “permanently moored barge”, as well as a “self-propelled excursion boat.”   230 ILCS 10/4(d) (West Supp.1999).   Accordingly, riverboat gambling in Illinois can now be conducted on a boat, regardless of whether or not the boat takes an excursion.  230 ILCS 10/3(c) (West Supp.1999).   On June 26, 1999, the 1,500-passenger Alton Belle discontinued cruising.   According to Dennis Crank, defendant's facility manager, there are no plans for the Alton Belle to resume cruising."


So....at the time RM's body was found 6/30/99, it has just recently docked for "docked gambling." Might be why he was in area....trying to get money for rent/fine.

http://caselaw.findlaw.com/il-court-of-appeals/1417269.html
 
Hello everyone. Just some observations:

On the bottom of note 2 don't you think it looks a bit like 'D-W-M-Y'? I thought this might be day/week/month/year which could point to a possible key (written to himself)for decifering the code or give a clue to what the note actually is (like a letter to somebody or something)

Of course if it was to do with cars that could be something ending in Make/Year
Also, and I can't remember if anyone on WS has already said this but a google search shows that WLD is sometimes used as short hand for 'weld'.

The method I've been trying is to use a couple of online anagram solvers and feeding chunks into them then seeing if the words produced would follow a pattern if put back into the note (didn't explain that too well I know but here's an example):

(MUNSAISTENMUNARSE)

the second last letter 'S'
the second 'U'
the third last 'R'
the third 'N'
the fourth last 'A'
then first 'M'
And last 'E'

'SURNAME' Then of course, trying to work out what can be made with the rest. In this case 'INMATES' with a couple of letters 'US' and 'N' I think. Obviously there's quite a few words so it would rely on a definite formula, although I suppose this could change with each line if something hidden in there so something he knew changed the rule each time. Long shot I know. So easy to read into the results of an anagram search:
'MSN USERNAMES' is one that comes up from that line alone... (too early for those though right?)

The other thing I spent a while fruitlessly searching for was Stephanie KENOSOLE (the 'word' appears in the note) On a girls myspace page she mentions this person in the same line as symbology so I got all excited for a minute. Does anybody know who Stephanie Kenosole is anyway just out of interest? As for the betting line of thought, yes, the words TOTE WLD are both betting terms but also there are a few horses who's names start with KENO (e.g. KENOS OLE man - born in 2002 though). I think the most annoying thing of all is that there's something vaguely familiar about how the code looks.
Anyway I have to agree with the personal secret to unlock it thing as just messing about with the alphabet on a bit of paper you can use your own name or other relevant words to construct a code that nobody would understand unless they knew the 'keyword'. Thoughts? Are you all still pretty dead set on the car thing?

Oh yeah, could the 99's just simply be something to do with the year?
 
Although in that line if the second symbol is actually a 'U' and not a 'L' and the sixth is an 'I' and not an 'R' (which they do kind of look like they could be) then you could make

MSN USERNAME SAINT L.

Sorry, had to be said. :)
 
I am going to keep thinking about this code, but I must say that everything just seems like a stab in the dark unless the FBI throws us a bone in the form of more detailed info on this "cold case". They could at least publish a printed transcript of the pages that they are confident in. I have seen a number of transcripts that differ in the interpretation of certain letters. It's hard to try to break a code if you aren't even sure what the symbols are. Ya know?
 
Adrian Harbinger said:
I am going to keep thinking about this code, but I must say that everything just seems like a stab in the dark unless the FBI throws us a bone in the form of more detailed info on this "cold case". They could at least publish a printed transcript of the pages that they are confident in. I have seen a number of transcripts that differ in the interpretation of certain letters. It's hard to try to break a code if you aren't even sure what the symbols are. Ya know?
Click to expand...

Exactly! "WLD" is a perfect example.... is it really "WLD" or a hastily written "WCD"? If you study the text, the "L" could easily be a "C" that Ricky just did not waste a lot of time trying to write clearly... he didn't have to. He knew what it meant.
 
Reannan said:
Exactly! "WLD" is a perfect example.... is it really "WLD" or a hastily written "WCD"? If you study the text, the "L" could easily be a "C" that Ricky just did not waste a lot of time trying to write clearly... he didn't have to. He knew what it meant.
Click to expand...

Indeed. Surely, the FBI has a transcript they deem worthy, but we get the hand-scrawled gibberish. :banghead:
 
photographerbyday said:
I found it quite hard to decipher the original images the FBI provided.. So I pulled them into Photoshop converted them to Grey-scale and ran them through a Genuine Fractals routine and mathematically increase the resolution by 700% without losing any image quality, then I filtered them 3 times with some unsharp masking, to bring out some hidden details, finally I inverted the colors which makes several characters that were unrecognizable before appear.. especially on the 2nd page where the smudging is.
The files are 8 mb in size and I have it in both regular and inverted format.

Inverted View
http://www.mediafire.com/i/?f5zukpyfsjdct5s


Enlarged Regular View
http://www.mediafire.com/i/?84z1owcxf52ktmc
Click to expand...

Are y'all looking at the inverted copy Photographerbyday so kindly prepared for us. It is so much clearer in reverse grayscale. I downloaded a copy to my computer so that I can isolate certain areas and really zoom in on them. Of the eleven instances of WLD, the L is a bit curved in a few. In most cases, however, the L is quite angular. And then you have those eight instances where it is followed by NCBE, and that one very special WLD's NCBE which is really driving me bats. :crazy:
 
The thing that has got me most interested so far though is if you do the alphabet in a spiral outwards starting like this:

(it doesn't seem to make much sense in this font but do it on paper (funnily enough)
(the letter I messes it up being a short character)

KJIHGFE
LQPONMD
MREDCLC
NSFABKB
OTGHIJ A
PUVWXYZ

So frustrating doing it on here but if you write it out on paper you'll notices that certain three letter sequences in this 'grid' that are in line are in the code NCB MRE etc. It could well be that they indicate to use a letter at the end of where they appear in my grid. Try it.
 
Video1 said:
They are not looking to break a code, I am not sure what they want to be honest. Anyone can make babies, he had no contact with his which could indicate and inability to form any kind of meaningful relationships which would work for this guy.
Click to expand...
Or he could just be a deadbeat dad. A million of them running around. In another post, you characterize RM as one with "severe learning disabilities" and "a barely functional autistic". You've inferred quite a bit from the writings, and I'm curious how you came to these conclusions based on a bunch of automobile related scribblings.
 
Does anybody see it? NCB? MRE? Perhaps he used different grids for different lines or something? Or maybe did another grid in an anti clockwise spiral and switched on each alternate letter. in the little bit of the anticlockwise one NCB finishes at 'I' which could make sense as if it's a common word in a note. Possibly the E in NCBE is just something to cloud it or it's a punctuation or something. I'm sure you catch my drift. I think it's worth checking out anyway. It's a simplish code that you can imagine somebody just coming up with whilst messing about.
 
Sorry, I meant did another spiral of the alphabet clockwise. Give it a go anyway. I think it could be a combination of the anti-clockwise one and something else.
 
Or maybe if you just do one massive anticlockwise spiral other bits of it will eventually appear pointing to a letter of the 'original' alphabet inside (or something... lol). Will pop back tomorrow though anyway (late here in the UK).
 
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