- [Narrator] This video is brought to you by Raycon.
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And with that said, let's begin.
The first thing you have to understand
about the Ricky McCormick case
is that it's filled with contradicting information
and varying versions of events.
Even fundamental points regarding this case are unclear,
an we'll get to why in a second.
First though, let's talk about
what we absolutely do know for certain.
At the core of this story, obviously,
is Ricky McCormick, a 41-year-old resident
of St. Louis, Missouri,
who found himself in a pretty unfavorable circumstance.
Ricky was poor, suffering from health problems,
and had run into legal trouble more than once in his life.
On the surface, there really wasn't anything
about Ricky that made him stick out.
But on June 30th of 1999,
the man would become the center
of one of the FBI's greatest unsolved mysteries.
This was because of the discovery
of his body in a cornfield some 20 miles
away from where he lived.
Already there's a problem.
First off, Ricky did not own a car,
and the area wasn't serviced by public transport.
So how did he even get there?
This was already strange in and of itself,
but what was even more bizarre
was the state of Ricky's remains.
They were in an advnaced state
of decomposition despite both witness accounts
and medical examinations pointing to his death
being only three days prior.
And to make things even more complicated,
said state of decay made it impossible
for the manner and cause of death to be determined.
There were no obvious injuries
or items in the area that could explain
how Ricky ended up there.
But despite this the authorities were certain
that what they had on their hands was a homicide.
This in part because the area in which Ricky was found
had a pretty hefty track record
of being a criminal dumping ground.
By all accounts, all trails ran cold.
All aside from one that is.
The police did a standard search
to see if Ricky had anything on him
that might offer up a clue
as to why he was out in the middle of nowhere,
or maybe even point to who was responsible.
And while they did find something incredibly interesting,
what it means is still unclear.
Within Ricky's pockets were two pieces of paper,
both filled with seemingly random
letters and punctuation that local police
had no chance of being able to decipher.
Before too long the FBIs crypt analysis
and racketeering records unit,
or CRRU, had stepped in.
But then the unthinkable happened.
The FBI, even with its vast experience
and top expertise couldn't crack the code.
And that's basically the best law enforcement could do.
No one has ever been charged with Ricky's murder,
and by all accounts authorities aren't even close
to solving this case.
Now having said that, things may be at a legal standstill,
but this definitely is not the end of the story.
The police and FBI continued their efforts
for another 10 years.
And with results still managing to escape them,
they decided to look elsewhere for assistance.
In 2009, 10 years after Ricky's murder,
both of his notes were presented
to the American Cryptogram Association,
which is apparently a thing
and has been since 1930.
The point is they're probably the only other organization
next to the FBI who could probably crack Ricky's code.
But, of course, they too found themselves stumped.
This case would sit on the shelf
for another two years after that,
unfortunately still unsolved.
And that's wen the FBI finally broke,
and decided to ask the public
for hep deciphering the code.
Now I know we're all probably holding our breath here
for some kind of lead to come through,
but you're about to be in for more deja vu.
Once again, no one could crack the code with any certainty,
and that fact remains the same nearly a decade later.
To this very day, the page about Ricky's notes
remains live on FBI.gov.
In it, Dan Olson, the head of the CRRU
says "We are really good at what we do,
"but we could use some help with this one.
"Breaking the code could reveal the victim's whereabouts
"before his death,
"and could lead to the solution of a homicide.
"Not every cipher we got
"arrives at our door under those circumstances.
"Standard routes of cryptanalysis
"seem to have hit brick walls.
"Maybe someone with a fresh set of eyes
"might come up with a brilliant new idea."
So at the beginning of this video
I mentioned that this case has been subject to scrutiny
due to some inconsistent
or contradicting information.
Let's take a look at that,
along with what the internet
seems to think is going on here.
Some of you may be rightfully asking yourselves
if Ricky really was murdered.
One of the last times Ricky was seen alive
was five days before his body was found,
that being two days before his death.
This, when he checked into a local ER
complaining of issues related to his chronic
heart and lung conditions.
Now, even if Ricky didn't have a car,
there's every possibility that he hitchhiked
and simply had a heart attack.
After all, the medical examiner
couldn't identify how exactly the man died.
With all of this in mind,
it seems the FBI may be withholding information
about the crime scene since they're dead set
on this being a homicide.
That of course wouldn't be too out of the ordinary
since law enforcement does tend to keep
certain info away from the press
during ongoing cases.
And on top of all of that,
it seems highly unlikely
that the FBI would waste over two decades at this point
trying to solve this case
if it wasn't in fact a crime.
With all of that out of the way,
we've arrived at the crux of this story.
Did Ricky actually write the notes
found in his pocket?
And was he even capable of doing so?
Keep in mind these notes have stumped the entire world,
including the people who helped crack codes
in World War II.
Was Ricky some kind of unknown genius
who managed to fool even the world's best?
Two massively important parties in this story
clash on the answer.
The FBI is dead set on this being Ricky's,
while Ricky's own mother says otherwise.
But even that's complicated,
and here's why.
In a New York Times article from 2011,
Detective Michael Yarbro,
who worked directly on this case,
told reporters "McCormick's mother told investigators
"that her son had written in a secret language
"since he was a child,
"but that she had never understood it."
A year later, a local paper called The Riverfront Times
did a pretty extensive writeup on this case,
and what was said there threw a wrench
in the FBI's theories.
According to Ricky's mother,
the man was barely literate
and intellectually disabled.
Other relatives describe him as possibly
suffering from mental illness,
framing Ricky as being in his own world
and prone to telling tall tales.
They insisted that he couldn't have written the note
since all he could do was write his name,
while the rest they described as scribbling.
Now this doesn't necessarily guarantee anything.
Ricky's family might be convinced
he wasn't capable of writing the notes,
but who knows what he might have been up to in private.
I'm sure that every single one
of us has either a diary or something similar
that no one else has ever seen.
It's impossible to actually know
every single detail about someone,
no matter how close you think you are.
But regardless of that,
there's something else about this
that's just beyond perplexing.
The Riverfront Times article continues,
and eventually reveals that Ricky's family
was never notified by police
or the FBI about the notes.
They had only learned about them
after the 2011 public plea for assistance in solving them.
According to Ricky's mother,
she was told that he had nothing
but emergency room tickets on his person
at the time that his body was discovered.
This of course wasn't unexpected given his health.
So I'm sure you're as confused as I am right now.
On the FBI's website about this case,
they even mentioned needing
"Another sample of McCormick's coded system
"or a similar one that might offer context."
Again, this wording still implies
that they're sure Ricky wrote the notes.
But if so, then why did they never tell his family?
Why not just ask them if they recognized the code?
Again, a detective on the case told the New York Times
that they did ask the family,
and they did confirm that Ricky used code
since he was a child even.
So which one is it?
Is there somehow bad reporting involved
in one of these parties,
maybe even bad investigating
on the part of law enforcement?
Who knows.
Looking back at the Riverfront Times writeup once more,
Dan Olson, again, the head of the FBI's CRRU,
is confronted with Ricky's family's statements,
but he decides to stick to his guns,
stating "I have every confidence that Ricky wrote the notes.
"They are done in more of a format
"of something written to oneself
"than smoothening written to someone else."
Now it should be noted that back in 2011
the FBI's website also mentioned Ricky's family
saying that he wrote in code since he was a child.
But that part has since been removed.
Whether or not that's an admission
of a mistake, I'll leave up to you.
But for now, let's move on to some other points
that people have made.
Some people see the answer to this whole thing
as being somewhere in between.
For example, there are those that insist
that Ricky did write the notes,
but it's actually just the ramblings
of someone who was more than likely mentally ill,
and therefore the notes are meaningless,
nothing more than random scribbling,
like Ricky's mom said he was known for.
That of course is a possibility,
but, again, dozens of people
within the FBI and the American Cryptogram Association
have looked this over.
Their consensus being that this isn't random
if you're wondering how they can tell,
keep in mind all of these people have been trained
to weed out random combinations
of letters and numbers.
More than anyone, they can tell if something
has intent behind it or not,
and they all seem dead set on the idea that these notes
are in fact solvable.
Another perspective suggests that this might not
be code at all,
but perhaps a customized shorthand
that Ricky pulled together,
which again could be the so called scribbling.
And while this seems much more plausible,
it seems like something the FBI
or ACA would be able to pick up on.
With that in mind,
people have shifted to the possibility
that maybe the notes are in fact code
and solvable but Ricky didn't write them.
Some pause at the theory that maybe the notes
were planted by Ricky's attacker,
but if so, why?
Others say that maybe it wasn't Ricky,
and maybe it wasn't his attacker.
But for this to make sense
we'll have to take a few steps back.
In the weeks prior to his death,
Ricky took a few trips to Florida
and was suspected of trafficking illegal substances.
Although many sources claim Ricky was unemployed,
The Riverfront Times claims that he was employed
at a gas station,
one with a pair of owners who were known to be involved
in a number of shady dealings.
Some suspect that these two men may have been involved.
After all, criminals of all types
still use code and ciphers to this very day
in their correspondence.
So maybe Ricky really was just a carrier who got caught.
Towards the end of The Riverfront Times article,
thy claimed there was a point in this investigation
where an anonymous informant came into the picture.
Whoever they were, they told local authorities
that a well known dealer
and suspected murderer by the name of Gregory Knox
was responsible for Ricky's death.
But in the end investigators couldn't pin the crime
on any of the people I just mentioned.
Gregory Knox, in jail by the time
of the article's release,
claimed that Ricky story was new information to him,
and that he had no involvement in his death.
Whether or not that's true,
I have no idea.
And unfortunately neither do the cops
or the FBI for that matter. At the end of the day,
we might never know who, if anyone,
killed Ricky McCormick,
or what his notes actually say.
That is, if they really are his notes,
and really can be solved.
Today's video would not have been possible
without the help of every single one
of my supporters on Patreon,
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Again, everyone, thank you so much for listening,
and I apologize for the audio in this whole thing,
I've moved to a new recording area,
and it's still very echoey.
But anyway, I'll see you all soon.