1
00:00:00,240 --> 00:00:03,600
Speaker 1: Hey guys, Steve, here, you are listening to one of

2
00:00:03,600 --> 00:00:06,600
Speaker 1: our original twenty six episodes. If you listen to any

3
00:00:06,640 --> 00:00:09,280
Speaker 1: of our new episodes, you're gonna notice that we're sounding

4
00:00:09,320 --> 00:00:11,639
Speaker 1: a little different in these ones. Yeah, there's a reason

5
00:00:11,680 --> 00:00:14,480
Speaker 1: for that. There is they've been remastered. They have been

6
00:00:14,520 --> 00:00:18,040
Speaker 1: remastered because they had a really annoying hum. Yeah, I

7
00:00:18,040 --> 00:00:21,480
Speaker 1: mean a huge thanks to listener James for doing almost

8
00:00:21,520 --> 00:00:23,880
Speaker 1: all of the legwork on this thing. They'll also notice

9
00:00:23,880 --> 00:00:25,880
Speaker 1: if you had listened to what we're calling the last

10
00:00:25,920 --> 00:00:29,639
Speaker 1: twenty six episodes before and you're re listening now, the

11
00:00:29,800 --> 00:00:33,160
Speaker 1: music and sound effects are gone. Yes, we've we've gone

12
00:00:33,159 --> 00:00:35,720
Speaker 1: back to straight audio, so be warned. We sound a

13
00:00:35,720 --> 00:00:38,000
Speaker 1: little different today than we do in what you're about

14
00:00:38,040 --> 00:00:46,880
Speaker 1: to listen to. Yeah, bye bye, thinking sideways. I don't

15
00:00:46,960 --> 00:00:57,280
Speaker 1: understand you never know stories of things. We simply don't

16
00:00:57,280 --> 00:01:06,280
Speaker 1: know the answer too. Thanks for coming back, Steve, and

17
00:01:06,360 --> 00:01:08,440
Speaker 1: we're going to give you a new story today, the

18
00:01:08,520 --> 00:01:14,039
Speaker 1: story about a murder most foul. Our story begins or ends,

19
00:01:14,160 --> 00:01:16,080
Speaker 1: if you want to look at it that way. On

20
00:01:16,280 --> 00:01:21,920
Speaker 1: June three, the body of Ricky McCormick was found face

21
00:01:22,040 --> 00:01:25,880
Speaker 1: down in a cornfield about twenty miles from his home

22
00:01:26,080 --> 00:01:31,480
Speaker 1: in St. Louis, Missouri. Ricky had officially been missing for

23
00:01:31,640 --> 00:01:35,080
Speaker 1: three days, though his family said they hadn't seen him

24
00:01:35,080 --> 00:01:38,399
Speaker 1: in five. But when his body was found, it was

25
00:01:38,480 --> 00:01:43,199
Speaker 1: in a pretty extreme state of decomposition, to the point

26
00:01:43,360 --> 00:01:47,360
Speaker 1: that the fingers out his hands were falling off. That's

27
00:01:47,400 --> 00:01:50,160
Speaker 1: more than five days worth, I think. Well, yeah, where

28
00:01:50,400 --> 00:01:54,320
Speaker 1: it was St. Louis, Missouri. It was in the summer.

29
00:01:55,240 --> 00:01:57,920
Speaker 1: Maybe that's pretty human back there. But how old was Rickie?

30
00:01:57,920 --> 00:02:02,000
Speaker 1: By the way, Ricky was forty one, Okay, okay, and

31
00:02:02,040 --> 00:02:06,000
Speaker 1: he wasn't in the primest of health. Wasn't a healthy guy.

32
00:02:06,080 --> 00:02:10,520
Speaker 1: But obviously they find him and he's pretty well decomposing,

33
00:02:11,160 --> 00:02:15,480
Speaker 1: which made it very difficult for an autopsy. The county

34
00:02:15,560 --> 00:02:19,160
Speaker 1: corner or pathologist, whichever it is, decided that they would

35
00:02:19,200 --> 00:02:21,600
Speaker 1: go ahead and do and do their best on his

36
00:02:21,680 --> 00:02:25,680
Speaker 1: seventy two pound body or seventy pounds that remained and

37
00:02:26,040 --> 00:02:30,919
Speaker 1: see what they could find. In the report, the pathologist

38
00:02:30,960 --> 00:02:36,920
Speaker 1: eventually said that the cause of death was undetermined. They

39
00:02:36,919 --> 00:02:39,720
Speaker 1: couldn't figure out why he died, so it wasn't anything

40
00:02:39,720 --> 00:02:42,720
Speaker 1: obvious like a giant bullet hole or something correct. No

41
00:02:42,880 --> 00:02:45,600
Speaker 1: obvious sign of death or cause of death. Excuse. Maybe

42
00:02:45,600 --> 00:02:47,799
Speaker 1: he just ate a little too much corn. He might

43
00:02:47,960 --> 00:02:51,200
Speaker 1: have sat in the sod and popped in his stomach.

44
00:02:51,240 --> 00:02:58,520
Speaker 1: Yeahst So that is the beginning, and then the mysteries begin.

45
00:02:59,240 --> 00:03:01,760
Speaker 1: The first of which is nobody knows how Ricky got there.

46
00:03:02,200 --> 00:03:05,600
Speaker 1: He didn't own a car. He's twenty miles away from

47
00:03:05,639 --> 00:03:08,520
Speaker 1: where he lived, in a corn field, basically in a

48
00:03:08,600 --> 00:03:11,880
Speaker 1: rural area, it sounds like, so we don't know how

49
00:03:11,919 --> 00:03:17,120
Speaker 1: he got there. Though the police investigated, no killer was

50
00:03:17,160 --> 00:03:20,440
Speaker 1: ever identified because there was never any solid leads in

51
00:03:20,440 --> 00:03:24,120
Speaker 1: the case. There just weren't any clues and the trail

52
00:03:24,200 --> 00:03:29,520
Speaker 1: went completely cold. So the cornfield was it like a

53
00:03:29,520 --> 00:03:32,520
Speaker 1: fully like a really developed cornfield with like six foot

54
00:03:32,560 --> 00:03:35,200
Speaker 1: high cornstocks and all that, or that kind of cornfield,

55
00:03:35,240 --> 00:03:37,480
Speaker 1: or I think it was next to a cornfield or

56
00:03:37,520 --> 00:03:40,200
Speaker 1: just on the edge of because right off the road. Okay,

57
00:03:40,240 --> 00:03:42,160
Speaker 1: So so there wasn't the farmer that found him. It

58
00:03:42,160 --> 00:03:44,040
Speaker 1: was just that somebody like just drove by and through

59
00:03:44,040 --> 00:03:46,760
Speaker 1: the body out that kind of thing. Well, yeah, we're

60
00:03:46,840 --> 00:03:49,280
Speaker 1: guessing that's what happened with the body. And we don't

61
00:03:49,320 --> 00:03:52,800
Speaker 1: know if I remember the details correct, and motorists found him.

62
00:03:53,960 --> 00:03:56,680
Speaker 1: But that's all that I can glean from exactly how

63
00:03:56,720 --> 00:03:59,760
Speaker 1: he was found. The other details in this story take

64
00:04:00,040 --> 00:04:02,280
Speaker 1: us an instance, So those little details seemed to get

65
00:04:02,360 --> 00:04:06,200
Speaker 1: left behind. And does anybody have any idea what we're

66
00:04:06,200 --> 00:04:11,680
Speaker 1: talking about this? It's got corn in it, that is

67
00:04:11,720 --> 00:04:14,920
Speaker 1: not it. The reason that we're talking about this is

68
00:04:15,000 --> 00:04:20,320
Speaker 1: that twelve years after he was murdered, the FBI began

69
00:04:20,440 --> 00:04:24,200
Speaker 1: to release information about the case and turned to the

70
00:04:24,240 --> 00:04:29,480
Speaker 1: public to ask for help. The FBI, the knower's evolved

71
00:04:29,720 --> 00:04:34,200
Speaker 1: plausible deniability. Don't know the answer to this case. Here's

72
00:04:34,240 --> 00:04:37,880
Speaker 1: what the problem is. When they found his body and

73
00:04:37,920 --> 00:04:40,320
Speaker 1: they searched his pockets and they went through all of

74
00:04:40,360 --> 00:04:43,640
Speaker 1: his belongings, the only thing they found on him were

75
00:04:43,800 --> 00:04:49,200
Speaker 1: two notes in his pockets that contained over thirty lines

76
00:04:49,720 --> 00:04:54,640
Speaker 1: of ciphered text encoded text. They've been working on it

77
00:04:54,720 --> 00:04:57,760
Speaker 1: for twelve years. This is considered one of their top

78
00:04:57,839 --> 00:05:01,800
Speaker 1: cases because it's so MYSTERI is for them that they

79
00:05:01,880 --> 00:05:05,680
Speaker 1: eventually turned around and they asked public for help. The

80
00:05:05,800 --> 00:05:08,160
Speaker 1: FBI actually went ahead and set up a page on

81
00:05:08,200 --> 00:05:11,279
Speaker 1: their website initially asking for information, but it got so

82
00:05:11,360 --> 00:05:14,880
Speaker 1: much traffic. Now they actually have a dedicated site or

83
00:05:15,000 --> 00:05:18,120
Speaker 1: dedicated page on their site where it has the copies

84
00:05:18,120 --> 00:05:20,760
Speaker 1: of the notes, and you can go ahead and download

85
00:05:20,800 --> 00:05:23,680
Speaker 1: them and read them and try to figure it out yourself.

86
00:05:24,080 --> 00:05:28,080
Speaker 1: But let's we're getting we're getting ahead of ourselves. Let's

87
00:05:28,080 --> 00:05:32,520
Speaker 1: step back a little and let's talk about Ricky, because

88
00:05:33,240 --> 00:05:35,640
Speaker 1: he wasn't the best guy in the world. And I'd

89
00:05:35,720 --> 00:05:37,240
Speaker 1: like to to give a little bit of history on

90
00:05:37,360 --> 00:05:40,720
Speaker 1: him because that might help shed some light on this

91
00:05:41,000 --> 00:05:44,719
Speaker 1: these weird notes, which then we'll go into. He had

92
00:05:44,880 --> 00:05:49,200
Speaker 1: spent some time in prison, Louis didn't He he did.

93
00:05:50,040 --> 00:05:54,240
Speaker 1: He'd spent some time in prison for sex abuse. Evidently

94
00:05:54,360 --> 00:05:57,640
Speaker 1: he'd fathered four children with three or four different women,

95
00:05:57,839 --> 00:06:01,880
Speaker 1: though he never really was evident involved with their lives,

96
00:06:01,920 --> 00:06:06,120
Speaker 1: the children's or the women's after impregnation. One of those

97
00:06:06,200 --> 00:06:09,560
Speaker 1: ladies was actually fourteen when the child was conceived. He

98
00:06:09,680 --> 00:06:13,760
Speaker 1: was an adult. What a classic. Yeah, he went from

99
00:06:13,760 --> 00:06:17,400
Speaker 1: being homeless to living at his mom's. He could barely

100
00:06:17,440 --> 00:06:21,000
Speaker 1: hold out a job. He wasn't the highest all of

101
00:06:21,040 --> 00:06:24,520
Speaker 1: the social ladder and ladies and gentlemen. I preface this

102
00:06:24,600 --> 00:06:27,919
Speaker 1: with this is a quote. This is directly what was said,

103
00:06:28,080 --> 00:06:33,640
Speaker 1: is that his mother referred to him as retarded, not

104
00:06:33,760 --> 00:06:37,360
Speaker 1: the sharpest stick of a dead His family, however, did

105
00:06:37,360 --> 00:06:40,040
Speaker 1: like to say that he was street smart, but they

106
00:06:40,240 --> 00:06:42,440
Speaker 1: agreed that he was troubled. So not a not a

107
00:06:42,440 --> 00:06:44,480
Speaker 1: guy that's really going to be able to compose an

108
00:06:44,520 --> 00:06:48,280
Speaker 1: unbreakable cipher, you would think. I feel like that's exactly

109
00:06:48,320 --> 00:06:50,600
Speaker 1: the kind of person he might have been a savant

110
00:06:51,040 --> 00:06:54,200
Speaker 1: if it's possible. Yeah, Well, people who aren't thinking totally

111
00:06:54,240 --> 00:06:57,280
Speaker 1: clearly often make mistakes and their ciphers making making them

112
00:06:57,360 --> 00:07:00,960
Speaker 1: really undecipherable. Right, and that's the that's true. That is

113
00:07:01,000 --> 00:07:04,480
Speaker 1: a problem. Well, and it can it can also be

114
00:07:04,520 --> 00:07:07,839
Speaker 1: to what the cipher was at letters numbers combination, both

115
00:07:08,240 --> 00:07:11,600
Speaker 1: both letters and numbers. It was both. It could have

116
00:07:11,760 --> 00:07:13,920
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's entirely possible it's not even a

117
00:07:13,960 --> 00:07:17,559
Speaker 1: cipher message at all. Well, we'll get into that, because

118
00:07:17,560 --> 00:07:20,840
Speaker 1: there is that possibility. And you, Devin bring up a

119
00:07:20,880 --> 00:07:24,760
Speaker 1: good point is maybe it's he makes it harder because

120
00:07:24,880 --> 00:07:28,360
Speaker 1: of his mental state. Uh, he could barely read or write,

121
00:07:28,440 --> 00:07:31,360
Speaker 1: or he was very poor at it his handwriting, which

122
00:07:31,400 --> 00:07:32,880
Speaker 1: I'll bring up the notes here in a minute, and

123
00:07:32,880 --> 00:07:34,920
Speaker 1: you guys can take a look at him, but his

124
00:07:35,040 --> 00:07:40,480
Speaker 1: handwriting is very, very poor. It's very difficult to read.

125
00:07:41,200 --> 00:07:45,840
Speaker 1: But he supposedly, and there's some conjecture on this, supposedly,

126
00:07:46,000 --> 00:07:50,000
Speaker 1: ever since he was a small child, had been making

127
00:07:50,200 --> 00:07:54,240
Speaker 1: up codes of his own all the time, So he

128
00:07:54,320 --> 00:07:56,080
Speaker 1: might have been doing this since he was a kid,

129
00:07:56,120 --> 00:07:58,600
Speaker 1: so he had some crazy key built into his head,

130
00:07:58,680 --> 00:08:01,840
Speaker 1: just a repetition, which make it even harder to crack,

131
00:08:01,920 --> 00:08:04,720
Speaker 1: because well, the only person who knows the answer is

132
00:08:04,760 --> 00:08:09,360
Speaker 1: now dead. It is believed that they figured out the

133
00:08:09,520 --> 00:08:12,840
Speaker 1: order of the notes because one of them does have

134
00:08:13,280 --> 00:08:16,920
Speaker 1: P one in the upper right hand corner, which for

135
00:08:17,000 --> 00:08:20,640
Speaker 1: you and I would indicate page one. It might not

136
00:08:20,720 --> 00:08:23,520
Speaker 1: be that. It might be something other in another piece

137
00:08:23,520 --> 00:08:26,400
Speaker 1: of code that we don't realize, but people have been

138
00:08:26,520 --> 00:08:29,960
Speaker 1: using that as the basis of This is page one,

139
00:08:30,440 --> 00:08:31,840
Speaker 1: and this is how we're going to go ahead and

140
00:08:31,840 --> 00:08:34,080
Speaker 1: try and figure out the cipher. And there were two pages,

141
00:08:34,440 --> 00:08:37,440
Speaker 1: two pages. That is correct. Like I said, the FBI

142
00:08:37,800 --> 00:08:39,959
Speaker 1: had been trying to crack this for a long time

143
00:08:40,000 --> 00:08:42,960
Speaker 1: and gave up. And I've got some quotes directly from them.

144
00:08:43,720 --> 00:08:46,280
Speaker 1: This is actually from Dan Olson. He's the chief of

145
00:08:46,320 --> 00:08:54,400
Speaker 1: the FBI's cryptanalysis and Racketeering Records Unit. Yeah really but

146
00:08:54,640 --> 00:08:57,320
Speaker 1: hard to get on a name tag. But you know,

147
00:08:57,600 --> 00:08:59,360
Speaker 1: it's it's kind of weird they lunged them together. Crypt

148
00:08:59,400 --> 00:09:02,400
Speaker 1: analysis and racketeering one. Well, you know the mob he's

149
00:09:02,800 --> 00:09:05,079
Speaker 1: ciphers all the time, they use codes. Well yeah, but

150
00:09:05,120 --> 00:09:07,880
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, you know, I know, but still racking. Mean,

151
00:09:07,920 --> 00:09:10,040
Speaker 1: cryptanalysis is kind of a thing, and the FBI does

152
00:09:10,080 --> 00:09:12,360
Speaker 1: a lot of counter spi and so you know, you

153
00:09:12,360 --> 00:09:14,600
Speaker 1: would think that they would be using cryptanalysis even more

154
00:09:14,640 --> 00:09:18,640
Speaker 1: heavily for that kind of thing. Anyway, that's that's that's

155
00:09:18,640 --> 00:09:21,040
Speaker 1: an aside. But yeah, anyway, who cares anyway, But here's

156
00:09:21,040 --> 00:09:24,960
Speaker 1: what Dan Olsen says. He says, and I quote, we're

157
00:09:24,960 --> 00:09:27,320
Speaker 1: really good at what we do, but we could use

158
00:09:27,360 --> 00:09:30,200
Speaker 1: some help on this one. Breaking this code could reveal

159
00:09:30,280 --> 00:09:33,600
Speaker 1: the victims whereabouts before his death and could lead to

160
00:09:33,640 --> 00:09:37,560
Speaker 1: the solution of a homicide. Not every cipher we get

161
00:09:37,679 --> 00:09:41,280
Speaker 1: arrives at our door under these circumstances. Even if we

162
00:09:41,400 --> 00:09:43,600
Speaker 1: found out that he was writing a grocery list or

163
00:09:43,600 --> 00:09:46,160
Speaker 1: a love letter, we would still want to see how

164
00:09:46,200 --> 00:09:48,960
Speaker 1: the code is solved. This is a cipher system we

165
00:09:49,080 --> 00:09:52,400
Speaker 1: know nothing about. Maybe someone with a fresh set of

166
00:09:52,400 --> 00:09:56,120
Speaker 1: eyes might come up with a brilliant new idea and

167
00:09:56,200 --> 00:09:59,600
Speaker 1: let me repeat that line. This is a cipher system

168
00:09:59,720 --> 00:10:05,800
Speaker 1: we know nothing about. Essentially, it's a brand new cipher

169
00:10:05,920 --> 00:10:09,599
Speaker 1: to the FBI. Based on the way it's organized and

170
00:10:10,440 --> 00:10:13,920
Speaker 1: put together. It could be as what if you had

171
00:10:13,960 --> 00:10:16,000
Speaker 1: said he could be a bit of a savant when

172
00:10:16,000 --> 00:10:19,760
Speaker 1: it came to coast, slow and everything else, but super

173
00:10:19,840 --> 00:10:23,480
Speaker 1: great at puzzles, he said. I was hearing the other

174
00:10:23,600 --> 00:10:29,839
Speaker 1: day that people with as Berger's and autism are typically

175
00:10:29,880 --> 00:10:32,440
Speaker 1: the ones that are savants with math. They're really good

176
00:10:32,440 --> 00:10:34,760
Speaker 1: with those. So there are relations in the brain of

177
00:10:35,160 --> 00:10:38,320
Speaker 1: chemistry and function. So it could be right along the

178
00:10:38,360 --> 00:10:42,520
Speaker 1: same line. So, um, I take it the FBI must

179
00:10:42,559 --> 00:10:44,480
Speaker 1: have turned this stuff over to the n s A.

180
00:10:45,480 --> 00:10:49,959
Speaker 1: I would imagine that a lot of inter inter governmental

181
00:10:49,960 --> 00:10:52,000
Speaker 1: support that they would take it to the n s

182
00:10:52,040 --> 00:10:54,319
Speaker 1: A before they would put it on the internet, you know,

183
00:10:55,480 --> 00:10:59,439
Speaker 1: in years. I imagine that they went ahead and they

184
00:10:59,480 --> 00:11:02,680
Speaker 1: pursued every avenue that is available to them. I don't

185
00:11:02,679 --> 00:11:04,800
Speaker 1: imagine that they said, oh no, we're not talking to

186
00:11:04,800 --> 00:11:06,760
Speaker 1: those guys. We don't like those high you know, you

187
00:11:06,800 --> 00:11:08,480
Speaker 1: never know about the gun man. You know, sometimes they

188
00:11:08,480 --> 00:11:10,960
Speaker 1: don't like. They don't like each other. I feel like

189
00:11:10,960 --> 00:11:13,000
Speaker 1: they like each other more than they like the public. Though.

190
00:11:13,240 --> 00:11:16,080
Speaker 1: That's a good points, that's a good point. But yeah,

191
00:11:16,080 --> 00:11:17,520
Speaker 1: I mean if if, if the if they sticked a

192
00:11:17,520 --> 00:11:19,760
Speaker 1: bunch of craze supercomputers on that thing, and they weren't

193
00:11:19,800 --> 00:11:22,040
Speaker 1: able to break it, then I don't know, man, it's

194
00:11:22,040 --> 00:11:24,920
Speaker 1: hard to say. But then again, a supercomputer only knows

195
00:11:24,960 --> 00:11:28,199
Speaker 1: how to follow a formulas, whereas you and I can

196
00:11:28,240 --> 00:11:31,600
Speaker 1: look at something and make that leap of not a

197
00:11:31,640 --> 00:11:35,760
Speaker 1: leap of faith, but that leads to and suddenly it

198
00:11:35,840 --> 00:11:38,480
Speaker 1: all falls into place, which computers aren't able to do.

199
00:11:38,559 --> 00:11:41,040
Speaker 1: With this, I I have a strong feeling we gotta

200
00:11:41,040 --> 00:11:44,400
Speaker 1: break it tonight. Actually, from what I've gleaned from reading

201
00:11:44,400 --> 00:11:48,040
Speaker 1: stuff from the FBI all these other news reports, it

202
00:11:48,280 --> 00:11:53,800
Speaker 1: appears to be what's known as a simple substitution cipher, which,

203
00:11:54,000 --> 00:11:56,160
Speaker 1: for those of you who don't know, is A is

204
00:11:56,240 --> 00:11:59,120
Speaker 1: replaced with the letter B and B is replacedable the

205
00:11:59,200 --> 00:12:04,560
Speaker 1: letter C or variant of that. It seems relatively basic

206
00:12:04,760 --> 00:12:09,160
Speaker 1: from the outside, but there is some information, based on

207
00:12:09,480 --> 00:12:11,480
Speaker 1: posts that I've read of people who are trying to

208
00:12:11,559 --> 00:12:16,480
Speaker 1: crack it, that it could be a polygraphic substitution cipher.

209
00:12:17,280 --> 00:12:22,000
Speaker 1: And for what I can understand, a polygraphic substitution cipher

210
00:12:22,280 --> 00:12:28,079
Speaker 1: is where it is actually letter pairs are taken and

211
00:12:28,200 --> 00:12:32,160
Speaker 1: they replace other letter pairs. So th H now becomes

212
00:12:32,520 --> 00:12:37,600
Speaker 1: b D, but t R would become c Q. If

213
00:12:37,600 --> 00:12:42,040
Speaker 1: you know where I'm going with this, it's in total

214
00:12:42,200 --> 00:12:46,840
Speaker 1: sequence two by two and that adds uh so much

215
00:12:46,880 --> 00:12:50,720
Speaker 1: more variability because it's not twenty six letters, it's all

216
00:12:50,920 --> 00:12:54,400
Speaker 1: these letter pairings. Plus you can from numbers in the mix,

217
00:12:54,440 --> 00:13:00,880
Speaker 1: which Ricky did, So there's this huge number of possibilities.

218
00:13:01,120 --> 00:13:03,679
Speaker 1: Or again, as we said, it could be just something

219
00:13:03,760 --> 00:13:07,080
Speaker 1: unique to him that only he understood. Then it could

220
00:13:07,120 --> 00:13:11,280
Speaker 1: also be that it's just gibberish. Absolutely could and that's

221
00:13:11,280 --> 00:13:13,960
Speaker 1: where the speculation comes in, Joe, and that's that's good

222
00:13:14,000 --> 00:13:18,079
Speaker 1: timing on your part, is that the speculation is it's gibberish.

223
00:13:18,480 --> 00:13:23,199
Speaker 1: It's this guy who was mentally unstable just writing garbage.

224
00:13:23,640 --> 00:13:26,080
Speaker 1: It doesn't make sense to anybody because it didn't make

225
00:13:26,160 --> 00:13:28,120
Speaker 1: sense to him in the state that he was when

226
00:13:28,160 --> 00:13:33,720
Speaker 1: he wrote it. There is also speculation that it could

227
00:13:33,760 --> 00:13:37,440
Speaker 1: be a note sent of notes that he wrote at

228
00:13:37,480 --> 00:13:40,880
Speaker 1: the time that he was with whoever killed him. So

229
00:13:40,960 --> 00:13:45,400
Speaker 1: there's the possibility that cracking this code would shed light

230
00:13:45,600 --> 00:13:48,720
Speaker 1: on how he died, or why he died, or who

231
00:13:48,800 --> 00:13:54,360
Speaker 1: killed him, basically helping solve the murder. It seems unlikely because, frankly,

232
00:13:54,400 --> 00:13:56,360
Speaker 1: I mean, if you've got to write a note knowing

233
00:13:56,400 --> 00:13:57,880
Speaker 1: that you're probably about to die, an you want to

234
00:13:57,880 --> 00:14:00,240
Speaker 1: write a note incriminating Mr X over here air to

235
00:14:00,280 --> 00:14:02,240
Speaker 1: your left, you got to really put it in an

236
00:14:02,280 --> 00:14:04,920
Speaker 1: unbreakable code. Are you just gonna write and play in English? Well,

237
00:14:04,960 --> 00:14:07,319
Speaker 1: if he'd been doing codes his whole life and this

238
00:14:07,440 --> 00:14:11,800
Speaker 1: was his code, it likely seemed incredibly simple to him

239
00:14:11,840 --> 00:14:13,800
Speaker 1: that he would think, well, anybody could break this if

240
00:14:13,840 --> 00:14:16,400
Speaker 1: they took the time, because I'm an idiot and I

241
00:14:16,520 --> 00:14:19,760
Speaker 1: know how to do it. Absolutely not. But again it's like,

242
00:14:19,800 --> 00:14:21,400
Speaker 1: why do you put it in code at all? Because

243
00:14:21,440 --> 00:14:25,440
Speaker 1: either guys watching or he just did that all the time.

244
00:14:25,600 --> 00:14:29,440
Speaker 1: That may have been his automatic way to write. He

245
00:14:29,560 --> 00:14:33,040
Speaker 1: may have just written down his grocery list. He wrote

246
00:14:33,040 --> 00:14:35,440
Speaker 1: his grocery list out and somebody said, what the heck is,

247
00:14:35,520 --> 00:14:37,520
Speaker 1: what's my grocery list? What do you mean can't you

248
00:14:37,520 --> 00:14:40,880
Speaker 1: read that? It just may have been second nature to him.

249
00:14:41,160 --> 00:14:43,880
Speaker 1: I said his English was bad, right then, maybe that

250
00:14:44,000 --> 00:14:47,000
Speaker 1: was that was the way he compensated. It might have

251
00:14:47,120 --> 00:14:51,520
Speaker 1: been some crazy phonetic in his brain, like a phonetic system.

252
00:14:52,040 --> 00:14:55,240
Speaker 1: I can if I piece these things together. We don't

253
00:14:55,240 --> 00:14:57,960
Speaker 1: know if maybe he was dyslexic, so maybe that's how

254
00:14:58,000 --> 00:15:00,520
Speaker 1: he wrote things, but then he broke it into a code.

255
00:15:01,000 --> 00:15:06,400
Speaker 1: There's all these variables that simply not a clue exists too,

256
00:15:07,440 --> 00:15:10,840
Speaker 1: not a single answer so far. Let me go ahead

257
00:15:10,960 --> 00:15:13,280
Speaker 1: and pull up the note for you or Balta notes

258
00:15:13,320 --> 00:15:14,760
Speaker 1: for you guys, so you can take a look at

259
00:15:14,840 --> 00:15:17,640
Speaker 1: him right. So obviously as you can tell when you're

260
00:15:17,680 --> 00:15:20,640
Speaker 1: looking at him, it's it's very scribbled, and it's it

261
00:15:20,760 --> 00:15:25,120
Speaker 1: is difficult to tell what's going on in there. It is, Yeah,

262
00:15:25,600 --> 00:15:27,840
Speaker 1: did you as you look at it? And I can

263
00:15:27,880 --> 00:15:29,320
Speaker 1: pull up if we want, but I don't know if

264
00:15:29,320 --> 00:15:31,040
Speaker 1: it'll help. I do have a version that has it

265
00:15:31,160 --> 00:15:35,080
Speaker 1: typed out in the actual text is type rather than handwritten.

266
00:15:35,120 --> 00:15:38,000
Speaker 1: But it seems like and I said this before, it

267
00:15:38,040 --> 00:15:40,320
Speaker 1: seems almost fonetic as you read it, it does a

268
00:15:40,400 --> 00:15:42,320
Speaker 1: little bit like I can kind of like my brain

269
00:15:42,400 --> 00:15:45,480
Speaker 1: can make sense of little snippets of it. Yeah, but

270
00:15:45,640 --> 00:15:48,480
Speaker 1: two three letter at a time. But the context, you

271
00:15:48,520 --> 00:15:50,920
Speaker 1: can't put the whole thing together, and like there's an

272
00:15:51,000 --> 00:15:54,600
Speaker 1: if there what appears to be a lose and also

273
00:15:54,720 --> 00:15:58,360
Speaker 1: so it starts with an R. Yeah, it's interesting, it's

274
00:15:58,440 --> 00:16:01,960
Speaker 1: very it seems so simple. But at the same when

275
00:16:02,000 --> 00:16:04,680
Speaker 1: you look at it, and I think the handwriting is

276
00:16:04,720 --> 00:16:08,120
Speaker 1: what makes it deceptive that way. Is it seems like

277
00:16:08,160 --> 00:16:10,920
Speaker 1: it's written in a child's handwriting. Should be easy to

278
00:16:10,960 --> 00:16:13,960
Speaker 1: figure out until it hits you in the head with

279
00:16:14,120 --> 00:16:17,120
Speaker 1: rock and stumps you, which is exactly what it did

280
00:16:17,160 --> 00:16:19,880
Speaker 1: to everybody. Yeah, but it's it's like down here it

281
00:16:19,920 --> 00:16:26,280
Speaker 1: says like half something please p L s E. Oh

282
00:16:26,360 --> 00:16:29,760
Speaker 1: it looks like a P to me exactly. This is

283
00:16:29,760 --> 00:16:32,960
Speaker 1: what makes this so difficult. And I mean, if we

284
00:16:33,040 --> 00:16:35,480
Speaker 1: are staring at it and already beginning to argue after

285
00:16:35,560 --> 00:16:38,640
Speaker 1: thirty seconds, imagine what these poor fools if the FBI

286
00:16:38,720 --> 00:16:45,040
Speaker 1: were doing M for XDU. Yeah, maybe this piped out

287
00:16:45,120 --> 00:16:47,680
Speaker 1: version would be more helpful. But I don't think there's

288
00:16:47,680 --> 00:16:51,800
Speaker 1: any chance of cracking us. I think it might. I

289
00:16:51,840 --> 00:16:55,160
Speaker 1: think that it is going to be uncrackable because obviously

290
00:16:55,240 --> 00:17:00,280
Speaker 1: the key went to went with Ricky two. His gray Uh.

291
00:17:00,560 --> 00:17:04,080
Speaker 1: As of today, the murder is still unsolved. We still

292
00:17:04,240 --> 00:17:07,240
Speaker 1: don't know exactly what happened. Yeah, it would be interesting,

293
00:17:07,400 --> 00:17:11,080
Speaker 1: So I take it the FBI probably did other investigations

294
00:17:11,119 --> 00:17:12,800
Speaker 1: beyond this. He must have talked to his family and

295
00:17:12,840 --> 00:17:15,960
Speaker 1: friends and found out who he was associating with. Yes,

296
00:17:16,040 --> 00:17:21,120
Speaker 1: and and he did not associate with the best folks. Again,

297
00:17:21,200 --> 00:17:24,840
Speaker 1: if he had a handicap of some kind, there's some

298
00:17:24,920 --> 00:17:28,160
Speaker 1: kind of mental issue. He may have just not thought

299
00:17:28,240 --> 00:17:31,000
Speaker 1: about it and didn't realize that he was getting himself

300
00:17:31,000 --> 00:17:33,640
Speaker 1: into a bad situation, and somebody might have taken advantage

301
00:17:33,640 --> 00:17:36,840
Speaker 1: of it. It's it's difficult to say. So my twist

302
00:17:36,840 --> 00:17:39,199
Speaker 1: on this is that his murderer was like, yeah, you

303
00:17:39,200 --> 00:17:40,720
Speaker 1: can write all the notes you want if you write

304
00:17:40,720 --> 00:17:45,080
Speaker 1: in the handwrite knees because he knew that that would

305
00:17:45,080 --> 00:17:48,120
Speaker 1: be the only person that Yeah, because I'm gonna write

306
00:17:48,160 --> 00:17:50,480
Speaker 1: a lot of her help And he's like, yeah, fine,

307
00:17:50,840 --> 00:17:54,400
Speaker 1: go for do whatever you want. Man. Yeah, very well

308
00:17:54,440 --> 00:17:57,000
Speaker 1: could have been it. I don't know. Well, right there

309
00:17:57,160 --> 00:18:00,439
Speaker 1: is that he had all this encrypted stuff round. You know,

310
00:18:00,560 --> 00:18:02,520
Speaker 1: some of the some of his scumeback friends saw this

311
00:18:02,680 --> 00:18:05,320
Speaker 1: names and said, what you know, they're like, you know,

312
00:18:05,359 --> 00:18:07,600
Speaker 1: why are you encrypting this stuff while you know it's

313
00:18:07,640 --> 00:18:10,639
Speaker 1: like this is like, you know, directions on how to

314
00:18:10,640 --> 00:18:13,479
Speaker 1: find this buried treasure. You know, that's like you know,

315
00:18:13,720 --> 00:18:16,080
Speaker 1: billions of dollars with a gold bullion, you know, and

316
00:18:16,080 --> 00:18:17,919
Speaker 1: everything like that. So they tortured him and tell you

317
00:18:18,160 --> 00:18:19,800
Speaker 1: until you finally just you know, even though it was

318
00:18:19,840 --> 00:18:22,120
Speaker 1: GIBBERISHU but I finally said, okay, you know you drive

319
00:18:22,119 --> 00:18:25,560
Speaker 1: out here here here, twenty pass this with dirty paces

320
00:18:25,640 --> 00:18:27,600
Speaker 1: this way. I was there, and they'd be like great,

321
00:18:27,640 --> 00:18:29,240
Speaker 1: and they kill him and they'd up the body in

322
00:18:29,240 --> 00:18:31,800
Speaker 1: the cornfield, and of course said when they when they

323
00:18:32,080 --> 00:18:34,200
Speaker 1: get to the where the buried treasure is, well, jokes

324
00:18:34,240 --> 00:18:38,200
Speaker 1: on them, and who knows that there's no answers. There is, however,

325
00:18:38,920 --> 00:18:41,600
Speaker 1: a bit of follow up mystery. Oh yeah, cool to

326
00:18:41,840 --> 00:18:45,159
Speaker 1: this whole thing. And we've en countered this on stories before.

327
00:18:45,720 --> 00:18:47,439
Speaker 1: And let me give you some of this follow up

328
00:18:47,480 --> 00:18:52,119
Speaker 1: mystery or twists. Four years before Ricky died, so this

329
00:18:52,160 --> 00:18:58,040
Speaker 1: is the police found the body of an alleged prostitute

330
00:18:58,119 --> 00:19:02,880
Speaker 1: who was shot to death in a house near where

331
00:19:02,960 --> 00:19:05,119
Speaker 1: Ricky was found, on the same stretch of road not

332
00:19:05,240 --> 00:19:10,280
Speaker 1: too far away. In two thousand and one, road crews

333
00:19:10,440 --> 00:19:15,040
Speaker 1: found the bodies of two nearly or two naked women

334
00:19:15,640 --> 00:19:19,800
Speaker 1: three hundred yards from where Ricky's body was found. It

335
00:19:19,880 --> 00:19:25,400
Speaker 1: could be that there potentially could be some psychopath that's

336
00:19:25,440 --> 00:19:27,639
Speaker 1: out there that's using that stretch of road to do

337
00:19:27,720 --> 00:19:31,560
Speaker 1: their business and dump their their evidence or their bodies

338
00:19:31,640 --> 00:19:35,160
Speaker 1: off of and Ricky might this. This may not have

339
00:19:35,280 --> 00:19:39,040
Speaker 1: anything to do again, it might be just incidents that

340
00:19:39,160 --> 00:19:41,240
Speaker 1: this happener. Might be a coincidence that he had these

341
00:19:41,280 --> 00:19:43,600
Speaker 1: notes in his pocket and he just got caught up

342
00:19:44,280 --> 00:19:47,120
Speaker 1: in something that somebody was doing that they had their

343
00:19:47,160 --> 00:19:51,640
Speaker 1: own compulsion for. But it could also mean that he

344
00:19:51,800 --> 00:19:54,720
Speaker 1: was identifying who's who the killer was. He might have

345
00:19:54,720 --> 00:19:57,040
Speaker 1: found out about it and they came after him and

346
00:19:57,080 --> 00:19:59,200
Speaker 1: he wrote it down and they couldn't figure that wasn't

347
00:19:59,400 --> 00:20:01,840
Speaker 1: they would have been. Yeah, to get back to what

348
00:20:01,880 --> 00:20:04,760
Speaker 1: I was saying, it's like, you know, everybody, including the FBI,

349
00:20:05,040 --> 00:20:07,000
Speaker 1: thinks that what is in this message is something of

350
00:20:07,040 --> 00:20:10,520
Speaker 1: supreme value, which is why they're devoting huge resources to it.

351
00:20:11,040 --> 00:20:13,919
Speaker 1: So if you want to Ricky scumbag friends and and

352
00:20:14,000 --> 00:20:16,600
Speaker 1: you find this coded message, you're gonna draw the same

353
00:20:16,600 --> 00:20:19,040
Speaker 1: conclusion as the FBI, you're gonna think there's something of

354
00:20:19,119 --> 00:20:21,720
Speaker 1: supreme value in here, and you're gonna torture Ricky until

355
00:20:21,720 --> 00:20:23,919
Speaker 1: he tells you what is in the message. Now, if

356
00:20:23,920 --> 00:20:29,960
Speaker 1: it's just gibberish, she'll just make something up. That's speculation.

357
00:20:30,400 --> 00:20:33,520
Speaker 1: And he could have been tortured. Ye, he could have

358
00:20:33,560 --> 00:20:36,320
Speaker 1: been suffocated. There's no there's no way to know because

359
00:20:36,440 --> 00:20:39,600
Speaker 1: of how the state of the body was very difficult

360
00:20:39,600 --> 00:20:42,520
Speaker 1: to know. Yeah, that's where it is. Yeah, that's where

361
00:20:42,520 --> 00:20:47,000
Speaker 1: the whole thing is. So there have been no good attempts.

362
00:20:48,000 --> 00:20:51,800
Speaker 1: There is. There are all kinds of sights and again

363
00:20:52,080 --> 00:20:54,359
Speaker 1: I've got the links to them and we'll be putting

364
00:20:54,359 --> 00:20:57,240
Speaker 1: those up on the page. There are links to people

365
00:20:57,240 --> 00:21:00,160
Speaker 1: who are trying to figure it out and there giveing

366
00:21:00,160 --> 00:21:02,879
Speaker 1: their theories and they're working it back and forth. But

367
00:21:03,000 --> 00:21:06,399
Speaker 1: as of yet, nothing that is even close to being

368
00:21:06,600 --> 00:21:11,040
Speaker 1: possibly viable. And so another story that I don't have

369
00:21:11,040 --> 00:21:13,639
Speaker 1: an answer to, another unsolved mystery. Yeah, that's that's the

370
00:21:13,640 --> 00:21:15,760
Speaker 1: thing about it is like you know, it's like you

371
00:21:15,800 --> 00:21:19,360
Speaker 1: don't really know that there is an answer to it

372
00:21:19,359 --> 00:21:21,840
Speaker 1: really may never be Well, if you folks want to

373
00:21:21,840 --> 00:21:23,960
Speaker 1: go ahead and you want to check out the links

374
00:21:24,040 --> 00:21:26,359
Speaker 1: you want to find these discussion boards in these places,

375
00:21:26,440 --> 00:21:28,840
Speaker 1: or just take a look at the notes themselves. You're

376
00:21:28,880 --> 00:21:31,720
Speaker 1: more than welcome to do that. All of those will

377
00:21:31,800 --> 00:21:36,040
Speaker 1: be available on the website. That website is thinking Sideways

378
00:21:36,040 --> 00:21:39,280
Speaker 1: podcast dot com. If you think that you have an

379
00:21:39,320 --> 00:21:41,440
Speaker 1: idea of how to break the cipher and you feel

380
00:21:41,440 --> 00:21:43,600
Speaker 1: like telling us instead of the FBI, well you're more

381
00:21:43,640 --> 00:21:45,639
Speaker 1: than welcome to do that. We promised to take credit

382
00:21:45,680 --> 00:21:48,560
Speaker 1: for it. You can send us an email at Thinking

383
00:21:48,600 --> 00:21:52,600
Speaker 1: Sideways podcast at gmail dot com and with that, we're

384
00:21:52,600 --> 00:21:55,000
Speaker 1: going to get out of here and we look forward

385
00:21:55,000 --> 00:21:58,879
Speaker 1: to talk to you next week. Yeah yeah, By everybody,

386
00:21:58,880 --> 00:21:59,960
Speaker 1: By