Latest / The conspiracy / This Murdered Man's Riddle Still Stumps the FBI

Transcript

This Murdered Man's Riddle Still Stumps the FBI · The conspiracy

0:00
Speaker 1: On June thirtieth, nineteen ninety nine, in West Elton, Missouri,
0:03
Speaker 1: a woman was driving along a road near Route three
0:06
Speaker 1: sixty seven when she spotted something in a nearby cornfield.
0:09
Speaker 1: So she stopped, got out of her car, and approached
0:12
Speaker 1: the field, and to her horror, she would discover a body,
0:17
Speaker 1: face down in the dirt, wearing filthy jeans and a
0:20
Speaker 1: stained shirt. And the body would eventually be determined to
0:23
Speaker 1: be Ricky mccormicks. But it wasn't just the state of
0:26
Speaker 1: his body that would shock and puzzle investigators. It would
0:30
Speaker 1: be what they found in his pockets. Crime, conspiracy, cults,
0:34
Speaker 1: serial killers, and murder, all things that I love to consume,
0:37
Speaker 1: and I know you do too, you stick twisted, beautiful,
0:40
Speaker 1: intellectually minded back. And today we're talking about a very
0:43
Speaker 1: troubling and puzzling case with a lot of twists and
0:47
Speaker 1: turns and ciphers. So, without further ado, at unbuckler seatbelts,
0:51
Speaker 1: gone mackay to the highway, slam of the bricks, and
0:53
Speaker 1: muster the swindshield.
0:54
Speaker 2: Into this troubling case together. All right, Let's take a
1:11
Speaker 2: brief moment to talk about something I don't usually talk about,
1:14
Speaker 2: but I actually really love, and that's makeup. Honestly, I
1:17
Speaker 2: used to dread my morning routine, so many products, so
1:22
Speaker 2: many brushes, and somehow I'd still end up looking cakey
1:26
Speaker 2: or just not good. Then I discovered Jones Road Beauty
1:31
Speaker 2: and everything changed. First of all, their Miracle Bomb is
1:34
Speaker 2: honestly incredible. It's a highlighter, bronzer, blush, and lip tint
1:39
Speaker 2: all in one, so no brushes needed. Just dab it
1:43
Speaker 2: on with your finger, blend it for like ten seconds
1:46
Speaker 2: and you're done. And it gives you this natural, dewy
1:49
Speaker 2: glow that looks like you just just a little bit enhanced.
1:52
Speaker 2: But I can literally be out the door and under
1:55
Speaker 2: a minute looking put together. And here's what I really
1:58
Speaker 2: love is that all their formulas are clean and actually
2:01
Speaker 2: good for your skin, because I have really sensitive skin,
2:04
Speaker 2: so that matters to me a lot. No thalates, no sulfates,
2:08
Speaker 2: no junk. It nourishes your skin instead of clogging it.
2:11
Speaker 2: And for a limited time, my listeners get free shimmer
2:15
Speaker 2: face oil with your first purchase when.
2:17
Speaker 1: You use code KMK at checkout. So head to Jones
2:21
Speaker 1: Roadbauty dot com and use code KMK so let them
2:25
Speaker 1: know I sent you and enjoy your Jones Road Beauty.
2:29
Speaker 1: Thank you so much to Jon dr Beauty for sponsoring.
2:31
Speaker 2: This video, and let's get back to it.
2:33
Speaker 1: Ricky McCormick was born on June fourteenth, nineteen fifty eight,
2:37
Speaker 1: in Saint Louis, Missouri, to Charles McCormick and Frankie Sparks,
2:41
Speaker 1: and they were a working class family doing their best
2:44
Speaker 1: to get by, and not much as known about his
2:46
Speaker 1: siblings or the rest of his extended family. But what
2:49
Speaker 1: we do know is that Ricky was very close to
2:51
Speaker 1: his cousin, who shared his father's name, Charles McCormick, and
2:55
Speaker 1: the two weren't just cousins, they were practically brothers, spending
2:58
Speaker 1: so much time together that people often mistook them as siblings.
3:02
Speaker 1: But outside that bond, though Ricky's childhood was difficult. He
3:06
Speaker 1: attended Martin Luther King High School in Saint Louis, though
3:10
Speaker 1: attended might be too generous a word, because the school
3:14
Speaker 1: shuffled him from grade to grade despite his continuous struggles
3:18
Speaker 1: because he couldn't keep up and he couldn't learn the
3:21
Speaker 1: way the other kids did, and eventually he would actually
3:23
Speaker 1: drop out, and by the time he left, Ricky was
3:26
Speaker 1: functionally illiterate, and his father put it bluntly, saying he
3:30
Speaker 1: quote couldn't spell anything, just scribble unquote, and his mother
3:35
Speaker 1: was even more direct, saying, quote the only thing he
3:38
Speaker 1: could write was his name unquote. So these weren't proud
3:42
Speaker 1: parents by any means, and Ricky knew it, and he
3:45
Speaker 1: never felt particularly close to them.
3:47
Speaker 2: But there were.
3:48
Speaker 1: Signs even back then that something deeper was going on,
3:52
Speaker 1: And according to his mother, Ricky would spend his free
3:54
Speaker 1: time at recess by himself just standing there, kind of
3:58
Speaker 1: staring off into the disc and the school obviously would notice,
4:02
Speaker 1: and they would call home to ask if anything was
4:05
Speaker 1: going on out of the ordinary, but it would be
4:07
Speaker 1: determined that everything seemed fine. But at school and at home,
4:12
Speaker 1: Ricky would tell strange stories, kind of odd tales that
4:15
Speaker 1: made people uncomfortable, the kind that made everyone around him
4:19
Speaker 1: start to wonder if there was something wrong with this kid.
4:22
Speaker 1: But through all of it, there was one person Ricky
4:25
Speaker 1: could confide in, and that was his aunt, Gloria McCormick,
4:29
Speaker 1: or Cookie for sure, and she was the only one
4:31
Speaker 1: who seemed to really listen to Ricky. But the concerns
4:35
Speaker 1: about Ricky's mental state didn't go away as he got older.
4:39
Speaker 1: If anything, they got worse, and family members kept noticing
4:42
Speaker 1: the same troubling patterns, the way he'd stand alone at recess,
4:46
Speaker 1: staring at nothing, the way he'd drift off mid conversation
4:50
Speaker 1: like he wasn't even there. And eventually, whether from the
4:52
Speaker 1: school's recommendation or the family's own growing worries, they sent
4:56
Speaker 1: him to see a psychiatrist and the findings were and
5:00
Speaker 1: according to Aunt Gloria or Cookie, the psychiatrist described it
5:04
Speaker 1: like Ricky had hit a brick wall in his mind.
5:08
Speaker 1: He was trapped behind it. Didn't want to stay there,
5:11
Speaker 1: didn't want to live the life he was living, but
5:14
Speaker 1: he couldn't or wouldn't break through. And the psychiatrist's explanation
5:18
Speaker 1: was simple, quote he didn't like the life of living
5:22
Speaker 1: poor and had an active imagination unquote. So a kid
5:26
Speaker 1: growing up with nothing, dreaming of something better, like escaping
5:30
Speaker 1: into his own head because reality wasn't offering much. But
5:34
Speaker 1: his family saw it differently, wasn't just a kid dreaming.
5:38
Speaker 1: His own mother would regularly call Ricky quote unquote retarded,
5:43
Speaker 1: which yes, it was much different times back then, but
5:46
Speaker 1: I mean, imagine your.
5:47
Speaker 2: Own mother calling you that. I mean, yeah, that's that's
5:51
Speaker 2: not nice.
5:52
Speaker 1: And his cousin Charles noticed it too, though, saying Ricky
5:56
Speaker 1: would talk like he quote unquote was in another world,
6:00
Speaker 1: like he was somewhere else entirely, even when he was
6:03
Speaker 1: standing right in front of you. So maybe it was
6:06
Speaker 1: just childish imagination that never quite faded, the kind of
6:09
Speaker 1: daydreaming most kids grow out of, but Ricky never did.
6:13
Speaker 1: Or maybe it was something more serious, like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder,
6:18
Speaker 1: or something that was never diagnosed and never treated, never
6:22
Speaker 1: even properly explored, and no medical professional ever confirmed anything,
6:27
Speaker 1: but his own family had their suspicions, and those suspicions
6:30
Speaker 1: followed Ricky for the rest of his life. So Ricky
6:33
Speaker 1: McCormick was around thirty years old when he began a
6:36
Speaker 1: relationship with a young girl, not a woman, a girl,
6:41
Speaker 1: a girl his family only knew by one name, Pretty Baby.
6:46
Speaker 1: And like I said, she was not a woman, she
6:48
Speaker 1: was a child. And according to court documents, pretty Baby
6:53
Speaker 1: was younger than eleven years old when the relationship began.
6:58
Speaker 1: Eleven A thirty years year old man within eleven disgusting.
7:03
Speaker 1: So Ricky's disgusting, and he's a piece of shit, and
7:06
Speaker 1: this relationship continued for years, and by the time anyone
7:11
Speaker 1: did anything about it, she was fourteen years old and
7:15
Speaker 1: she had already given birth to two of Ricky's four children,
7:19
Speaker 1: and the court documents used the nickname pretty Baby to
7:22
Speaker 1: protect her identity since she was a miner at the time,
7:26
Speaker 1: but the damage was already done, so on November ninth,
7:29
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety two, Ricky McCormick was arrested and he was
7:33
Speaker 1: thirty four years old at the time and the charge
7:35
Speaker 1: was first degree, but it didn't stop there. He would
7:39
Speaker 1: also be charged of a child under the age of
7:43
Speaker 1: fourteen and his bond would be set at fifty thousand dollars.
7:46
Speaker 1: So for weeks he sat waiting for his hearing to
7:49
Speaker 1: be scheduled, and when things finally started moving, the defense
7:52
Speaker 1: threw a wrench into the process and they filed a
7:55
Speaker 1: motion for psychiatric evaluation, and the claim from his public
7:59
Speaker 1: defender was that VI was quote suffering from some mental
8:02
Speaker 1: disease or defect unquote, and on February eleventh, nineteen ninety three,
8:07
Speaker 1: the motion was denied and his hearing was pushed to
8:10
Speaker 1: April twenty second, but this time the judge granted the
8:13
Speaker 1: request and doctor Michael Armour, a local psychologist, was brought
8:17
Speaker 1: in to evaluate whether Ricky was fit for trial or not.
8:20
Speaker 1: So months would pass and finally, in July, the evaluation
8:24
Speaker 1: would come back that Ricky McCormick was fit to stand trial,
8:28
Speaker 1: and on September one, nineteen ninety three, standing before the court,
8:31
Speaker 1: Ricky pleaded guilty to first degree ESPY. So he would
8:35
Speaker 1: be sentenced to three years in prison at Farmington Correctional Center.
8:39
Speaker 1: And I think three years is way too flow, but
8:43
Speaker 1: what do I know, you know, for taking advantage of
8:46
Speaker 1: a kid, my god, And he wouldn't even serve that
8:49
Speaker 1: entire time, because Ricky McCormick walked out after just eleven
8:53
Speaker 1: to thirteen months and released on conditional terms, whatever the
8:58
Speaker 1: fuck that means. So now free, Ricky just fell back
9:02
Speaker 1: into the only life that he knew, which at this point,
9:05
Speaker 1: because you know, he got arrested, was low paying jobs
9:09
Speaker 1: like a floor mopper or a dishwasher, a bus boy,
9:12
Speaker 1: and eventually he landed a gig as a service station
9:14
Speaker 1: attendant at Amoco gas station on Chateau Avenue, and these
9:19
Speaker 1: jobs weren't meant to support him, entirely. They just filled
9:23
Speaker 1: in the gaps that his disability checks couldn't cover. See,
9:26
Speaker 1: Ricky had chronic heart problems that had plugged him since childhood,
9:31
Speaker 1: and bad enough to qualify for government assistance, but not
9:34
Speaker 1: bad enough to stop him from working the graveyard shift,
9:37
Speaker 1: and his aunt Gloria called him a vampire and said
9:40
Speaker 1: he preferred the night, heading out at dusk and dragging
9:44
Speaker 1: himself home at dawn, and those late nights would come
9:47
Speaker 1: with habits such as chainsmoking, which he started at.
9:51
Speaker 2: Ten years old.
9:52
Speaker 1: By the way, that's just different time again, but he
9:54
Speaker 1: would smoke over a pack a day, accompanied by around
9:58
Speaker 1: twenty caffeinated beverages a day, so between the cigarettes and
10:02
Speaker 1: the caffeine and the heart condition he'd had since birth,
10:05
Speaker 1: it was a miracle he was still standing. But his
10:08
Speaker 1: health would send him to the emergency room more times
10:11
Speaker 1: than anyone could count. And it didn't help that he
10:14
Speaker 1: didn't have a stable home either, because Ricky was known
10:17
Speaker 1: to be a wanderer or no mad with no permanent address,
10:21
Speaker 1: and he bounced around the Saint Louis area, crashing wherever
10:24
Speaker 1: he could, and sometimes at his elderly mother's house, and
10:28
Speaker 1: sometimes somewhere else entirely, and eventually at the apartment of
10:31
Speaker 1: a woman named Sandra Jones. Now Sandra Jones lived in
10:35
Speaker 1: the Clinton Peabody Housing projects, just outside of downtown Saint
10:39
Speaker 1: Louis and built in nineteen forty two, Clinton Peabody was
10:43
Speaker 1: the oldest public housing complex in the city, and three
10:46
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty eight units spread across thirty one buildings,
10:50
Speaker 1: and none of it was maintained well at all, with
10:53
Speaker 1: gaping holes in the walls and mice living in every corner,
10:57
Speaker 1: and the radiators and refrigerators were filled with mold, roaches
11:00
Speaker 1: and bedbugs. The smell alone could drive you out, but
11:03
Speaker 1: for Sandra and eventually Ricky, it was home, and she
11:07
Speaker 1: became an important person in his life, important enough that
11:11
Speaker 1: she'd be one of the last people to speak with
11:13
Speaker 1: him before his death, and important enough that investigators would
11:17
Speaker 1: spend hours picking apart every detail of their final conversations,
11:22
Speaker 1: trying to understand what Ricky was doing in those last
11:25
Speaker 1: days and trying to figure out who might have wanted
11:28
Speaker 1: him dead. And Sandra would have answers, but not the
11:32
Speaker 1: ones anyone expected. So on June fifteenth, nineteen ninety nine,
11:37
Speaker 1: Ricky McCormick woke up at the krack of dawn and
11:40
Speaker 1: made his way to the Greyhound bus terminal in downtown
11:43
Speaker 1: Saint Louis, where he purchased a one way ticket to Orlando, Florida.
11:48
Speaker 1: And this wasn't his first trip down south. In fact,
11:50
Speaker 1: he'd already made the journey at least twice that same year.
11:54
Speaker 1: But it's not completely clear who Ricky was meeting in Florida,
11:57
Speaker 1: but phone records painted an interesting picture. So in the
12:01
Speaker 1: weeks leading up to his departure, either he or his girlfriend,
12:05
Speaker 1: Sandra Jones had made a flurry of calls to people
12:08
Speaker 1: in the central Florida area, and some of those calls
12:11
Speaker 1: supposedly weren't just to Ricky. So while in Orlando, he
12:15
Speaker 1: checked into room twoint eighty at the Econo Lodge and
12:19
Speaker 1: stayed for two days, and during that time he placed
12:22
Speaker 1: a call to the Saint Louis gas station where he worked,
12:25
Speaker 1: a call supposedly to his boss. But the question lingered
12:29
Speaker 1: why was Ricky McCormick making these trips because he wasn't
12:33
Speaker 1: the vacation type and he certainly wasn't dragging Sandra down
12:37
Speaker 1: to Disney World. And according to her, The answer was simple.
12:41
Speaker 1: Ricky would frequently make excursions to Florida to deliver packages,
12:45
Speaker 1: accepting offers to pick up and drop off goods in
12:48
Speaker 1: exchange for cash, and he'd done it several times before.
12:52
Speaker 1: But what was in those packages?
12:55
Speaker 2: What marijuana?
12:56
Speaker 1: Sandra would say, because he'd occasionally bring some of it
12:59
Speaker 1: back to their apartment and stored in ziploc bags and
13:03
Speaker 1: roll it together into bundles as big as a baseball.
13:05
Speaker 1: But when she was asked who the weed belonged to,
13:08
Speaker 1: Ricky told her it was for Baja Hamdullah, his boss
13:12
Speaker 1: at the Amocho station. But after this most recent trip,
13:16
Speaker 1: something was different, and Ricky never talked much about his
13:20
Speaker 1: Orlando runs, but this time he wasn't just quiet, he
13:23
Speaker 1: seemed almost scared.
13:25
Speaker 2: So about a week.
13:26
Speaker 1: After returning, on the afternoon of June twenty second, nineteen
13:30
Speaker 1: ninety nine, Ricky walked into the emergency room at Barnes
13:33
Speaker 1: Jewish Hospital around three o'clock, complaining of chest pains and
13:38
Speaker 1: shortness of breath. And given his history the years of
13:41
Speaker 1: chainsmoking a packa day and enough caffeine to keep a
13:44
Speaker 1: bear awake through hibernation, this wasn't exactly shocking, but doctors
13:49
Speaker 1: would rule out a heart attack, but admitted him anyway,
13:52
Speaker 1: keeping him under observation for a couple of days just
13:54
Speaker 1: to be safe, and then on June twenty fourth, they
13:57
Speaker 1: released him with instructions to return later in the week
13:59
Speaker 1: for a follow up visit, just to make sure nothing
14:02
Speaker 1: was missed. But he would never make those appointments, and
14:05
Speaker 1: instead of heading home, Ricky hopped on a bus to
14:08
Speaker 1: his aunt Gloria's apartment, which happened to be just across
14:11
Speaker 1: the street from the hospital, and he was always closer
14:14
Speaker 1: to Gloria than to his mother anyway, and given everything
14:17
Speaker 1: we know about how his parents talked about him, that
14:20
Speaker 1: makes sense.
14:21
Speaker 2: So he would stay at his.
14:22
Speaker 1: Aunt Gloria's for about an hour, but something was off.
14:26
Speaker 1: He seemed rushed and anxious, like he needed to be
14:29
Speaker 1: somewhere else, and Gloria offered to drive him wherever he
14:32
Speaker 1: needed to go, but he would decline, and then he
14:35
Speaker 1: left and that would be the last time Aunt Gloria
14:38
Speaker 1: would ever see him. So the very next day, June
14:41
Speaker 1: twenty fifth, Ricky was back in another emergency room, and
14:44
Speaker 1: this time it was Forest Park Hospital, and once again
14:48
Speaker 1: he complained about shortness of breath and wheezing, which he
14:51
Speaker 1: blamed on mowing grass, and the doctors chalked it up
14:54
Speaker 1: to an asthma flare up and treated him and sent
14:57
Speaker 1: him on his way. But according to Gloria Ricky, he
15:00
Speaker 1: didn't actually leave, and he stayed in the hospital waiting
15:03
Speaker 1: room until late into the night, just sitting there long
15:07
Speaker 1: after he'd been discharged. And looking back, Gloria had a
15:10
Speaker 1: theory about all those hospital visits. She didn't think Ricky
15:14
Speaker 1: was just sick. She thought he was scared, because, if
15:18
Speaker 1: you think about it, in the span of four days,
15:20
Speaker 1: he checked himself into two different emergency rooms, one of
15:24
Speaker 1: which she would stay at well into the night.
15:26
Speaker 2: After he got discharged.
15:28
Speaker 1: Where would you go if you were afraid for your life,
15:31
Speaker 1: if you knew someone was looking for you, you'd go
15:34
Speaker 1: somewhere public, somewhere safe, somewhere with security guards and cameras
15:38
Speaker 1: and witnesses. A hospital, And if your health was already
15:42
Speaker 1: fragile from a lifetime of cigarettes and caffeine, walking in
15:46
Speaker 1: with chest pains wouldn't seem unusual at all. So maybe
15:49
Speaker 1: Ricky wasn't running to the hospitals. Maybe he was hiding
15:52
Speaker 1: in them, and when he finally left that waiting room
15:55
Speaker 1: on June twenty fifth, he had nowhere left to hide.
15:58
Speaker 1: And on June twenty six teen, ninety nine, Ricky called
16:01
Speaker 1: Sandra Jones around eleven thirty in the morning and he
16:05
Speaker 1: told her he was out of the hospital and on
16:07
Speaker 1: his way to a Moco gas station to grab some food,
16:10
Speaker 1: which is a detail later confirmed by an employee who
16:13
Speaker 1: saw him there. And that phone call would be the
16:15
Speaker 1: last conversation Ricky McCormick ever had with anyone that we
16:19
Speaker 1: know of, So no more calls, no more sightings, and
16:22
Speaker 1: no more witnesses, And according to medical examiners, Ricky died
16:27
Speaker 1: just hours later, but his body wouldn't be found for days.
16:31
Speaker 1: So on June thirtieth, nineteen ninety nine, a woman was
16:34
Speaker 1: driving along a stretch of road near Route three sixty
16:37
Speaker 1: seven in rural Saint Charles County when something in a
16:41
Speaker 1: nearby cornfield caught her eye, so she pulled over, got
16:44
Speaker 1: out of the car, and walked closer to get a
16:46
Speaker 1: better look. And what she found horrified her because it
16:50
Speaker 1: was a man lying face down in the dirt, his
16:53
Speaker 1: body already decomposing in the summer heat. So she called
16:56
Speaker 1: authorities immediately, and just like that, the cornfield.
17:00
Speaker 2: Would become a crime scene.
17:01
Speaker 1: And when investigators arrived, they found a scrawny figure dressed
17:05
Speaker 1: in filthy lee blue jeans and a stained white T
17:08
Speaker 1: shirt and a five foot six frame that had clearly
17:11
Speaker 1: been there for a while. Because his face was too
17:14
Speaker 1: deteriorated to even identify, so they'd have to rely on fingerprints,
17:19
Speaker 1: and that's how they confirmed it to be Ricky McCormick,
17:22
Speaker 1: dead at forty one years old. But the state of
17:25
Speaker 1: his body raised immediate questions because although he'd only been
17:29
Speaker 1: dead for an estimated three to four days, the decomposition
17:32
Speaker 1: was far too advanced. His fingertips, for example, had completely
17:36
Speaker 1: rotted off just below the top knuckles and were lying
17:39
Speaker 1: in the weeds beside him, and medical examiners reported that
17:43
Speaker 1: only seventy two pounds of bone and flesh remained, and
17:47
Speaker 1: that's not normal, not even for June in Missouri, not
17:51
Speaker 1: even with.
17:51
Speaker 2: The heat and the insects.
17:53
Speaker 1: So some investigators began to suspect this wasn't natural decay,
17:58
Speaker 1: and they theorized that whoever killed old Ricky might have
18:01
Speaker 1: deliberately kept his body in a high temperature environment before
18:05
Speaker 1: dumping him, accelerating the decomposition and destroying evidence and covering
18:10
Speaker 1: their tracks.
18:11
Speaker 2: And if that's.
18:12
Speaker 1: True, this wasn't just murder. It was calculated and premeditated.
18:16
Speaker 1: It was murder in the first degree, because it seemed
18:19
Speaker 1: someone wanted to make sure the cause of death could
18:22
Speaker 1: never be determined, and it worked. And the location itself
18:26
Speaker 1: was significant because this desolate stretch of land between Mississippi
18:30
Speaker 1: and the Missouri Rivers had been a dumping ground for
18:33
Speaker 1: bodies for years, which is horrifying to think about.
18:36
Speaker 2: Remind me never to go there.
18:37
Speaker 1: But multiple murder victims over the years had been dropped
18:40
Speaker 1: off in this exact field, so this wasn't a place
18:43
Speaker 1: where people died by accident. And there was another problem.
18:48
Speaker 1: Ricky McCormick didn't own a car, and as you can recall,
18:52
Speaker 1: he relied on public transportation his entire life, constantly going
18:56
Speaker 1: on to Greyhound buses. Yet there was no bus stop
18:59
Speaker 1: anywhere near where his body was discovered, so someone had
19:02
Speaker 1: definitely driven him there or driven his body there, and
19:07
Speaker 1: the Saint Charles County Medical Examiner's Office ruled the cause
19:10
Speaker 1: of death as undetermined, but the story got stranger from there,
19:15
Speaker 1: and some investigators initially claimed Ricky had an injury to
19:18
Speaker 1: his head, only to walk it back the next day,
19:21
Speaker 1: saying the body was too decomposed to make that determination.
19:25
Speaker 1: And they said they couldn't find a motive, and they
19:27
Speaker 1: weren't even sure it was a homicide, yet they were
19:30
Speaker 1: treating it like one anyway. And here's the thing that
19:34
Speaker 1: still gets me after reading this case is that during
19:37
Speaker 1: the entire time Ricky was missing, not a single person
19:40
Speaker 1: reported him gone. Not his family, not his job, no one.
19:45
Speaker 1: So maybe they were used to him disappearing for days
19:47
Speaker 1: of time, or maybe they just didn't think to worry,
19:51
Speaker 1: But I don't think any of them expected him to
19:53
Speaker 1: turn up dead in a cornfield. But the strangest part
19:57
Speaker 1: of his death wasn't how he got there, or or
20:00
Speaker 1: even the state of his body. It was what investigators
20:03
Speaker 1: found when they searched his pockets, And what they found
20:06
Speaker 1: were two crumpled handwritten notes covered in incomprehensible, jumbled letters,
20:13
Speaker 1: and those notes were taken into FBI custody and in
20:17
Speaker 1: July nineteen ninety nine, Tom O'Connor, the commander of the
20:21
Speaker 1: Major Case Squad, made a statement that would define this
20:24
Speaker 1: case for decades, saying, quote, we worked every lead, and
20:28
Speaker 1: not only can we not prove it is a homicide,
20:31
Speaker 1: we can't even come up with a motive for this
20:33
Speaker 1: guy to be dead unquote. So what did these notes
20:38
Speaker 1: look like? They were strange, to say the least. Written
20:42
Speaker 1: on two sheets of lined paper, it totals more than
20:45
Speaker 1: thirty lines, and they were composed of cryptic blocks and
20:49
Speaker 1: capital letters, numbers, dashes, and parentheses, and the notes were
20:54
Speaker 1: then folded and tucked into Ricky McCormick's pockets. And it
20:57
Speaker 1: was very strange to the untrained eye. However, to a cryptanalyst,
21:02
Speaker 1: it was code. The letter combinations would appear multiple times
21:06
Speaker 1: throughout the note. The n grams, if you will, they
21:09
Speaker 1: are sequences of words or characters that go in a
21:12
Speaker 1: particular order, and a two gram from the sentence this
21:16
Speaker 1: is a sentence would go this is is a sentence,
21:21
Speaker 1: which is a bit confusing. I know we're not code
21:24
Speaker 1: crackers here, so I'm not going to like it to
21:26
Speaker 1: fully explain it to you, I don't even understand it fully,
21:28
Speaker 1: to be honest, but the n grams in the code
21:31
Speaker 1: se pr, r, s E, and NCB are the most
21:37
Speaker 1: common and repeated patterns in these notes, and there were
21:40
Speaker 1: lots of letter e'se scattered in both notes, and some
21:44
Speaker 1: segments are circled as well, leading some to believe that
21:47
Speaker 1: it could be a to do list, with the circled
21:50
Speaker 1: portions being marked as a completed task, and looking at
21:53
Speaker 1: the notes, it doesn't feel like it would be left
21:55
Speaker 1: for investigators to find or left as a code to
21:58
Speaker 1: solve a murder, but instead it seemed like Ricky McCormick
22:02
Speaker 1: wrote it himself as a reminder, and Dan Olsen, the
22:06
Speaker 1: chief of the FBI's Cryptanalysts and Racketeering Records Unit, would
22:10
Speaker 1: later state that with the amounts of ease in the code,
22:13
Speaker 1: they could be used as a spacer instead of a word.
22:16
Speaker 1: But for nearly twelve years, the case would go cold,
22:21
Speaker 1: with the strange notes hidden from the public eye and
22:23
Speaker 1: sealed away in the FBI archives. But finally the FBI
22:27
Speaker 1: would feel overwhelmed and hit a dead end, even with
22:31
Speaker 1: their best men on the case completely unable to crack
22:34
Speaker 1: the code, So before turning to the public, a secret
22:37
Speaker 1: meeting at Niagara Falls would take place, and the FBI
22:40
Speaker 1: wanted their help. And the FBI wanted their help. Let's
22:44
Speaker 1: take a brief moment from the video to confess something,
22:48
Speaker 1: and by something, I mean not making an appointment when
22:51
Speaker 1: you should. You know, that doctor's appointment you've been putting
22:54
Speaker 1: off for four or five, six, seven months a year.
22:57
Speaker 1: While we're not doing that anymore. Okay, we're using ZocDoc.
23:01
Speaker 1: Thank you as octoc for sponsoring this video now. ZocDoc
23:04
Speaker 1: is a free app and website that helps you find
23:07
Speaker 1: in book, high quality in network doctors so you can
23:09
Speaker 1: find someone that you actually love. We're talking over one
23:13
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty thousand providers across all fifty states, from dermatology, dentistry,
23:19
Speaker 1: primary care, you name it, and you could read thousands
23:22
Speaker 1: of verified patient reviews, see real in time availability, and
23:26
Speaker 1: book instantly, so no playing phone tag with the doctor's office,
23:30
Speaker 1: and appointments typically happen within twenty four to seventy two
23:34
Speaker 1: hours and sometimes even the same day. And I've personally
23:36
Speaker 1: been using ZocDoc, as you guys know, for over a
23:39
Speaker 1: year now, and it's been a game changer because finding
23:42
Speaker 1: a doctor I actually like used to feel impossible, but
23:45
Speaker 1: now it just takes me minutes. So stop putting off
23:48
Speaker 1: those doctor's appointments and go to zdoc dot com slash
23:51
Speaker 1: CCCM to find an instantly book a doctor you love today.
23:56
Speaker 1: That's zeocdoc dot com slash CCCM. Thank you so much
24:00
Speaker 1: to ZocDoc for sponsoring this video and supporting the channel,
24:03
Speaker 1: and let's get back to it. So in two thousand
24:05
Speaker 1: and nine, the American Cryptogram Association gathered for their annual
24:09
Speaker 1: convention in Niagara Falls, Ontario. However, this meeting would be
24:14
Speaker 1: unusual as the encrypted notes were from a dead man
24:17
Speaker 1: named Ricky McCormick, and when the FBI called the McCormick
24:20
Speaker 1: notes one of the hardest cases they've ever dealt with
24:23
Speaker 1: up there with the Zodiac Killer, they were not exaggerating.
24:27
Speaker 1: And for reference, the Zodiac sent four cipher messages to
24:31
Speaker 1: newspapers in nineteen sixty nine, and one was cracked within
24:34
Speaker 1: a week by a husband and wife team in California,
24:37
Speaker 1: but three of them remained unsolved for over fifty years,
24:41
Speaker 1: and it wasn't until December of twenty twenty that a
24:43
Speaker 1: team finally cracked the three point forty character cipher using
24:47
Speaker 1: modern computing power and over six hundred and fifty thousand
24:50
Speaker 1: hours of calculation, and the other two Zodiac ciphers are
24:54
Speaker 1: still unsolved, and the McCormick notes sit right alongside them
24:58
Speaker 1: on the FBI's list of top unsolved ciphers. But the
25:01
Speaker 1: difference is the Zodiac wanted people to try to crack
25:05
Speaker 1: the codes. He was taunting them, whereas Ricky's notes seemed
25:10
Speaker 1: like they were never meant to be found at all.
25:12
Speaker 1: They were personal and private and possibly meaningless to anyone
25:17
Speaker 1: but him, which might make them even harder to solve.
25:20
Speaker 1: Because these experts were known for solving cracked codes for fun,
25:24
Speaker 1: solving historical ciphers quicker than some code breakers in history,
25:28
Speaker 1: and from ages ten to ninety. They don't discriminate by age,
25:32
Speaker 1: only by skill, and they read through the McCormick notes
25:35
Speaker 1: using computers and state of the art software to find
25:38
Speaker 1: any patterns. And fifteen to twenty investigators were brought in
25:42
Speaker 1: to crack the code, but all of them failed, and
25:45
Speaker 1: the FBI was right along there with them, turning to
25:48
Speaker 1: them for help due to their own experts stumped because
25:51
Speaker 1: it was a cipher they knew nothing about, and they
25:53
Speaker 1: had nowhere to go, not a single step in the
25:56
Speaker 1: right direction.
25:57
Speaker 2: So if it was Ricky, was it a code?
26:00
Speaker 1: That he came up with himself, he may have created
26:03
Speaker 1: his own language in grammar and vocabulary, and on top
26:07
Speaker 1: of that, he could have then turned it into a
26:09
Speaker 1: cipher to further disguise it. So like two layers of protection,
26:14
Speaker 1: and that's what makes this code potentially unbreakable. See, most
26:18
Speaker 1: ciphers can be cracked because they follow rules, patterns that
26:23
Speaker 1: repeat and substitutions that stay consistent, and given enough text,
26:27
Speaker 1: enough time, and enough computing power, patterns start to emerge.
26:31
Speaker 1: But if Ricky created his own personal language, first assigning
26:35
Speaker 1: meaning to letters and symbols that only he understood, and
26:39
Speaker 1: then encrypted that with another layer of coding, you need
26:43
Speaker 1: two keys to unlock it, the cipher key and the
26:47
Speaker 1: personal language key. So without knowing what the underlying language
26:51
Speaker 1: even is, you can't begin to crack the code. It's
26:54
Speaker 1: like trying to translate a foreign language you've never heard
26:57
Speaker 1: of into another foreign language you've also never heard of,
27:00
Speaker 1: if that makes sense. And cryptographers call this an idiosyncratic cipher,
27:06
Speaker 1: a code that exists only in one person's mind. So
27:10
Speaker 1: if Ricky took that knowledge to his grave, the notes
27:13
Speaker 1: might be truly unsolvable. Not because they're brilliantly designed, necessarily
27:18
Speaker 1: but because the only decoder is dead. But this seemed
27:22
Speaker 1: so advanced, because how could a man like Ricky McCormick,
27:26
Speaker 1: a functionally illiterate man who could barely write his own name,
27:30
Speaker 1: create a code so powerful and secretive that it was
27:33
Speaker 1: stumping investigators and the FBI and even professional code breakers.
27:38
Speaker 1: How was that possible? So, with the FBI having nowhere
27:41
Speaker 1: left to turn, it was time to ask the public
27:44
Speaker 1: for help. Because for twelve years, the FBI's Cryptanalysis and
27:48
Speaker 1: Racketeering Records Unit had been studying these notes hoping to
27:51
Speaker 1: crack the code, but the team was stuck learning nothing
27:55
Speaker 1: after years and years of analysis, and for those twelve years,
27:58
Speaker 1: the public knew nothing thing about these notes and the
28:01
Speaker 1: FBI was just sitting on the code. But these notes
28:04
Speaker 1: could be the key to his mysterious death. And according
28:08
Speaker 1: to FBI laboratory examination documents, items and documents were exchanged
28:12
Speaker 1: frequently about the case, and new evidence was submitted and
28:16
Speaker 1: added to the folder of documents, but seemingly they were
28:19
Speaker 1: hitting bumps and names aren't shown, but new people were
28:23
Speaker 1: taking a crack at the code yearly, and an attempt
28:26
Speaker 1: in December of twenty ten, stated that all attempts to
28:29
Speaker 1: decipher the symbols were unsuccessful and one message was when
28:33
Speaker 1: evidence was exchanged in November of two thousand and one,
28:36
Speaker 1: and they delayed it indefinitely, stating that due to the
28:39
Speaker 1: terrorist incidents in New York City, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, they
28:43
Speaker 1: would not be examining this new evidence. And finally, on
28:47
Speaker 1: March twenty ninth, twenty eleven, the FBI did something very strange.
28:53
Speaker 1: They asked for help, and Dan Olsen, chief of the
28:56
Speaker 1: bureau's Cryptanalysis and Racketeering Records Unit, disclosed the exist in
29:00
Speaker 1: distance of the two pages of written encrypted notes found
29:03
Speaker 1: in the pocket of Ricky McCormick's genes. And finally, since
29:06
Speaker 1: the case had gone cold, the FBI officially stated that
29:10
Speaker 1: Ricky McCormick had been murdered, and according to documents, examiners
29:14
Speaker 1: surmised that he was killed by a cut to his throat.
29:18
Speaker 1: But here's where things get a little bit murky. The
29:22
Speaker 1: FBI documents that were eventually released through the freedom of
29:25
Speaker 1: information requests paint a complicated picture because on one hand,
29:30
Speaker 1: they maintained the cause of death was undetermined, but on
29:34
Speaker 1: the other internal documents suggest examiners believed Ricky was killed
29:38
Speaker 1: by a cut to his throat. So these two things
29:41
Speaker 1: seemed contradictory. How can you determine the cause of death
29:44
Speaker 1: but also suspect he was killed by a throat wound?
29:48
Speaker 1: It that's one plus one done equal three. You know
29:51
Speaker 1: what I mean? Well, the answer probably lies in the decomposition,
29:54
Speaker 1: because medical examiners might have seen evidence suggesting trauma to
29:58
Speaker 1: the neck, but with the body so badly decayed, they
30:01
Speaker 1: couldn't definitively prove it wasn't caused by something else like
30:05
Speaker 1: decomposition or animals, the fall when his body was dumped,
30:10
Speaker 1: et cetera, so officially undetermined. Unofficially they had their suspicions,
30:16
Speaker 1: and when the FBI finally went public in twenty eleven,
30:19
Speaker 1: they made one thing clear. Ricky McCormick had to been murdered,
30:24
Speaker 1: and the undetermined cause of death didn't mean natural causes,
30:28
Speaker 1: So it meant someone had successfully hidden how they did it,
30:31
Speaker 1: And according to Olsen, the experts had used a variety
30:34
Speaker 1: of advanced techniques. But despite that, standard roots of cryptanalysis
30:39
Speaker 1: seems to have hit a brick wall. So to cover
30:43
Speaker 1: the FBI's tail just in case some super genius figured
30:46
Speaker 1: out the code in weeks. He stated that his team
30:49
Speaker 1: are really good at what we do, but we could
30:53
Speaker 1: use some help with this. One can't admit to just
30:56
Speaker 1: being like, hey, guys, we need help, like we probably
30:58
Speaker 1: already are super close to cracking it, but like I
31:01
Speaker 1: guess we'll let you guys look at it too, just
31:03
Speaker 1: in case. But if you crack it, like we probably
31:05
Speaker 1: we were already closer. We actually this guy solved it.
31:07
Speaker 1: This guy in the FBI's held it.
31:10
Speaker 2: Swallow your pride, FBI.
31:11
Speaker 1: But he would and he would ask the public to
31:13
Speaker 1: look at these notes with a fresh pair of eyes,
31:17
Speaker 1: and that any details concerning cracking the case would be
31:19
Speaker 1: very helpful because his coding system, as we know, was
31:22
Speaker 1: so hard to crack. So if anyone could just crack
31:26
Speaker 1: a small piece of it, the FBI would greatly appreciate
31:29
Speaker 1: the help. But there was no promise of reward or glory.
31:33
Speaker 1: They hoped that the challenge would suffice enough. FBI's a
31:36
Speaker 1: bunch of cheap skates, basically, is what I'm hearing. But
31:38
Speaker 1: no matter what the note says, according to Dan Olsen, quote,
31:42
Speaker 1: even if we found out that he was writing a
31:44
Speaker 1: grocery list or a love letter. We would still want
31:47
Speaker 1: to see how the code is solved. This is a
31:49
Speaker 1: cipher system we.
31:50
Speaker 2: Know nothing about, unquote.
31:52
Speaker 1: And the responses were overwhelming, so much so that the
31:57
Speaker 1: FBI had asked people not to call by phone or
31:59
Speaker 1: send any emails, and they instead created a separate page
32:03
Speaker 1: for the public to have access to in order to
32:06
Speaker 1: upload their evidence or theories, and over seven thousand public
32:10
Speaker 1: comments and theories had poured in, with tons of theories
32:13
Speaker 1: of what the notes could mean. However, there was one
32:16
Speaker 1: woman who was known for code breaking, someone who was
32:21
Speaker 1: very famous. Enter Alonka Dunin. Now Alanka Dunin is an
32:26
Speaker 1: expert amateur cryptographer, the person who has consulted Dan Brown.
32:32
Speaker 1: Dan Brown who wrote the Lost Symbol and the Da
32:35
Speaker 1: Vinci Code. Yeah, but despite this, she was like everyone
32:39
Speaker 1: else and would only learn after the FBI brought this
32:42
Speaker 1: forward publicly. But Alanka Dunin has some experience with ciphers,
32:47
Speaker 1: having co authored a book called Code Breaking a Practical Guide.
32:51
Speaker 1: And best of all, she had a bit of interest
32:54
Speaker 1: in the Ricky McCormick case to start with, especially since
32:57
Speaker 1: his body was found pretty close to where she lived,
33:00
Speaker 1: and she described the note as something that wasn't random
33:03
Speaker 1: chicken scratch, but methodical and throughout saying, quote, it feels
33:07
Speaker 1: to me that there is an actual rhythm to it,
33:10
Speaker 1: that there's something that's being communicated, that it's not just
33:13
Speaker 1: random letters being written by someone who is schizophrenic and
33:17
Speaker 1: writing odd characters unquote.
33:20
Speaker 2: She however, agreed.
33:22
Speaker 1: With the findings of others, stating that it wasn't meant
33:25
Speaker 1: for others to see it was a personal note, so
33:29
Speaker 1: her theory was good, and other people had commonly agreed
33:32
Speaker 1: on at least two basic theories as to who wrote
33:34
Speaker 1: the note, theory one being Ricky wrote the notes, and
33:39
Speaker 1: according to FBI cryptanalyst Dan Olsen, he had stated he
33:42
Speaker 1: believed Ricky wrote the notes, inquiring that they are quote
33:46
Speaker 1: done in more of a format of something written to
33:49
Speaker 1: oneself than something written to someone else unquote, and the
33:52
Speaker 1: fact that there were circles on the page could imply
33:55
Speaker 1: that Ricky was checking off or selecting things in the
33:58
Speaker 1: list a to do list of places he was meant
34:01
Speaker 1: to visit and items he was supposed to pick up.
34:03
Speaker 1: Maybe and according to some sources who talked to his family,
34:07
Speaker 1: they described that he would sometimes write in code, and
34:10
Speaker 1: the investigator came to the conclusion that it was probably
34:13
Speaker 1: some personal diary writing, so maybe he just did it
34:17
Speaker 1: for fun, and the FBI is just like ripping their
34:20
Speaker 1: hair out for twelve years, being like, what the fuck
34:23
Speaker 1: is it? And he's just like twelve cans of beans,
34:27
Speaker 1: one jug of milk, twelve pack of doctor pepper, visit
34:31
Speaker 1: Aunt Gloria and infuriate the FBI. You know, I don't know,
34:35
Speaker 1: but like kids, for example, you know, they make up
34:38
Speaker 1: code names or code things, or like secret languages all
34:41
Speaker 1: the time. But for a man who could barely read
34:44
Speaker 1: or write for that matter, maybe this made it easier
34:47
Speaker 1: for him to write things when it's stuff he made up,
34:51
Speaker 1: you know. And also he was in his forties, I
34:53
Speaker 1: wouldn't be surprised that he was abbreviating words that he
34:57
Speaker 1: didn't know how to spell. Other than the first two
34:59
Speaker 1: lives and theory two seems less possible in my personal opinion,
35:04
Speaker 1: but it is still plausible. And in twenty twelve, which
35:08
Speaker 1: was thirteen years after Ricky had passed, his family stated
35:12
Speaker 1: there was no chance Ricky wrote those notes. His mother
35:15
Speaker 1: could not believe in any world that Ricky, the son
35:19
Speaker 1: who could barely read or write, nearly illiterate, had written
35:22
Speaker 1: a code so difficult the FBI couldn't figure it out,
35:26
Speaker 1: which I mean that I feel like it could just be,
35:29
Speaker 1: you know, gibberish that he just made up to make
35:32
Speaker 1: sense in his own head because he didn't know how
35:34
Speaker 1: to write properly.
35:34
Speaker 2: I don't think that does out of the realm of possibility.
35:37
Speaker 2: I think she needs to broaden her mind a little bit.
35:39
Speaker 2: But I digress.
35:40
Speaker 1: The only thing she knew he could write was his
35:42
Speaker 1: own name, saying that after twelve years, they came back
35:46
Speaker 1: with quote unquote this chicken scratch and even his cousin
35:50
Speaker 1: Charles stated, quote he didn't write in no code unquote,
35:54
Speaker 1: and that he quote couldn't spell anything, just scribble unquote,
35:58
Speaker 1: and his mother was upset, stating quote they told us
36:01
Speaker 1: the only thing in his pockets was the emergency room ticket. Now,
36:04
Speaker 1: twelve years later they come back with this chicken scratch
36:07
Speaker 1: shit unquote, which yeah, I mean it's I feel like
36:10
Speaker 1: the family would have been the people you absolutely tell
36:14
Speaker 1: like why are you waiting twelve years to tell them
36:17
Speaker 1: what's happening? And like they could have said, oh, yeah,
36:19
Speaker 1: that's this, that doesn't make any sense to me, but
36:23
Speaker 1: I digress again. But worst of all, not only did
36:25
Speaker 1: they have to wait twelve years to hear about it,
36:27
Speaker 1: they didn't even hear it from the FBI. They had
36:30
Speaker 1: to hear it on a local evening news broadcast report.
36:33
Speaker 1: I can't even imagine learning news about your son's death
36:36
Speaker 1: twelve years later and not even hearing it from the
36:39
Speaker 1: government or the authorities, but from a late night news broadcast.
36:43
Speaker 2: It's just that's sickening.
36:44
Speaker 1: But then again, his mother did not seem to have
36:47
Speaker 1: the best relationship with him, But still, I.
36:49
Speaker 2: Mean, they're next of kins, so it's just odd to me.
36:52
Speaker 1: So there are multiple theories, but Ricky couldn't be a mastermind,
36:56
Speaker 1: codemaker and illiterate at the same time. Lanka Dunnan, the
37:01
Speaker 1: master code breaker, also stated that knowing more about his background,
37:06
Speaker 1: she believed that he wasn't the mastermind behind the note,
37:09
Speaker 1: but quote, perhaps he was the courier unquote. But why
37:14
Speaker 1: would Ricky McCormick be delivering a coded letter? And what
37:17
Speaker 1: type of trouble did Ricky put himself into and who
37:21
Speaker 1: could the letter be for? Well, there are a few
37:24
Speaker 1: alleged suspects. People have brainstormed over the years, but just
37:28
Speaker 1: to set the scene, set the tone, get all the
37:31
Speaker 1: facts out there. None of this information I'm about to
37:34
Speaker 1: state was linked legally to the death of Ricky McCormick.
37:39
Speaker 1: Just in case anyone was looking to sue. All right,
37:43
Speaker 1: I'm covered anyway. Gregory Lamar Knox was a major drug
37:48
Speaker 1: dealer who operated in the area in and around Clinton
37:52
Speaker 1: Peabody Housing Complex, where McCormick and his girlfriend Sandra Jones lived.
37:57
Speaker 1: People either knew who he was, or they worked for him,
38:00
Speaker 1: or they ignored him, or they feared him. And according
38:04
Speaker 1: to a March two thousand and one HUD report which
38:07
Speaker 1: made it to Congress, evidently enough, Knox was a suspect
38:11
Speaker 1: in quote at least two murder for higher schemes unquote,
38:15
Speaker 1: and according to police records, in the Las Ale Park Holmes,
38:19
Speaker 1: another area he operated out of, he was the number
38:22
Speaker 1: one supplier of narcotics. So this guy was known to
38:25
Speaker 1: deal in these areas and was friends with Ricky McCormick
38:29
Speaker 1: or at least acquaintances, And according to police records, a
38:32
Speaker 1: confidential informant told police that Knox was responsible for the
38:36
Speaker 1: murder of a black man who worked at a gas
38:38
Speaker 1: station on Chateau Avenue, very similar to Ricky McCormick, and
38:43
Speaker 1: supposedly he dumped the body near West Alton. Now, this
38:48
Speaker 1: could totally be a coincidence. Gregory was not a good man,
38:52
Speaker 1: so it could be anyone's body that was dumped. However,
38:56
Speaker 1: Ricky McCormick was a black man who worked at a
38:59
Speaker 1: gas station on show Toe Avenue and his body was
39:02
Speaker 1: found there too. Coincidence maybe, or at least the police
39:06
Speaker 1: assume so. But somehow investigators couldn't make the connection stick.
39:11
Speaker 1: A Detective Yarbrough would later say the claims quote unquote,
39:15
Speaker 1: could not be substantiated, and Knox, for his part, claimed
39:19
Speaker 1: total ignorance. Quote this is all new information to me unquote,
39:23
Speaker 1: he would write from prison and quote, I have no
39:25
Speaker 1: information that could help your case unquote.
39:28
Speaker 2: The perfect non answer, you know.
39:31
Speaker 1: So, Detective Yarborough stated that despite ongoing suspicions, these claims
39:35
Speaker 1: could not be substantiated and link a connection between Knox
39:38
Speaker 1: and McCormick's death despite the confidential informants claims. And I'm
39:43
Speaker 1: no expert in the justice system, but to really say,
39:47
Speaker 1: there isn't a hard link between the informants claims and
39:50
Speaker 1: his suspicious response. I just feel like that shouldn't have
39:53
Speaker 1: been a dead end, you know, But what do I know.
39:55
Speaker 1: I'm just a youtur, But.
39:56
Speaker 2: It wasn't exactly a dead end.
39:59
Speaker 1: There were other people involved in the case that could
40:02
Speaker 1: be linked to McCormick's death, and one of them was
40:04
Speaker 1: named Bahahmdala. Let's take a moment to talk about something
40:08
Speaker 1: I've learned about breaking bad habits. Trying to just stop
40:12
Speaker 1: doing something doesn't necessarily work. Sometimes you need to replace
40:16
Speaker 1: it to help with it, you know. And that's exactly
40:19
Speaker 1: why Fume exists. Because Fume spelled FUM is a flavored
40:23
Speaker 1: air device designed to help people quit vaping and smoking
40:27
Speaker 1: by replacing the hand to mouth habit. So no nicotine,
40:30
Speaker 1: no vapor, and no batteries, just a weighted, fidget friendly
40:33
Speaker 1: tool with natural flavors that gives your hands something better
40:36
Speaker 1: to reach for when your craving's hit. I personally keep
40:39
Speaker 1: mine on my desk, and honestly, I reach for it
40:42
Speaker 1: constantly because I'm just a fidget person, honestly, and.
40:45
Speaker 2: The crisp mint has always will.
40:47
Speaker 1: Be my favorite flavor, I think, but it's just become
40:50
Speaker 1: a part of my regular routine and my family members
40:53
Speaker 1: that use fume now instead of smoking, and I'm very
40:55
Speaker 1: happy about that because I want them to be around
40:57
Speaker 1: for a very long time, happy and healthy and has
41:00
Speaker 1: already helped over seven hundred thousand people take steps toward
41:03
Speaker 1: better habits. And now it's your turn, So head to
41:06
Speaker 1: try fume dot com. That's t ry f um dot
41:09
Speaker 1: com and use code CCCM to get your free gift
41:13
Speaker 1: with your journey pack that's trifume dot com with code
41:17
Speaker 1: CCCM to claim your free gift today.
41:20
Speaker 2: Thank you so much to Fume.
41:21
Speaker 1: For sponsoring this video and supporting the channel, and let's
41:24
Speaker 1: get back to it. Jumahamdala was the owner of the
41:27
Speaker 1: Amalco gas station of which Ricky worked at, and he
41:31
Speaker 1: took over the store when the previous owner, fa Wa
41:34
Speaker 1: was Hamdan killed a neighbor with a butcher knife in
41:37
Speaker 1: May of nineteen ninety four. What's going on in this town,
41:40
Speaker 1: you know? But he would later die in prison. But
41:42
Speaker 1: I digress. So an incident would happen between Juma the
41:46
Speaker 1: store owner, and his brother Baja. So Juma employed his
41:50
Speaker 1: brother Baja, and you'd think that with the familial ties
41:53
Speaker 1: they wouldn't fight, but this family's fights with each other
41:57
Speaker 1: sometimes led to death. It turns out because there was
42:00
Speaker 1: an incident in August of nineteen ninety nine, only two
42:03
Speaker 1: months after the death of Ricky McCormick, and police from
42:07
Speaker 1: Maryland Heights were investigating an incident involving Juma, who allegedly
42:11
Speaker 1: claimed Juma had shot his brother Baja, and Baja survived
42:16
Speaker 1: the attack and filed no charges. However, they linked the
42:20
Speaker 1: incident to possibly being attributed to Baja's involvement with black
42:24
Speaker 1: gang members in Saint Louis City and narcotics use. And
42:29
Speaker 1: this means they were involved with criminal activity and the
42:32
Speaker 1: police knew, especially with Baja's extensive violence and possession of
42:36
Speaker 1: firearms and knives. And now that you know the family,
42:40
Speaker 1: or at least Juma, you're now ready for Baja his brother. Okay, Now,
42:45
Speaker 1: the information here is a bit murky, but I'm going
42:48
Speaker 1: to reference the most reliable sources. So Bajahandala was employed
42:52
Speaker 1: at the same Amoco gas station on Chateau Avenue and
42:56
Speaker 1: had a history of violence, and tons of other sources
42:59
Speaker 1: say that he was rich, he's boss, but I'm not
43:01
Speaker 1: one hundred percent positive on that, but regardless, they worked
43:06
Speaker 1: together for sure. But anyway, Baja Hamdalla had moved to
43:09
Speaker 1: Saint Louis in nineteen ninety seven from Cleveland, Ohio, and
43:13
Speaker 1: at twenty two years old, he was cruising around in
43:15
Speaker 1: his blue Mazda Protege when a police detective watched him
43:19
Speaker 1: pull alongside another man. And this man was named Terence Clark,
43:23
Speaker 1: and he watched Baja lean out of his car window
43:26
Speaker 1: and fire or shot at him with a thirty eight
43:28
Speaker 1: caliber revolver and missing, he drove off Clark escaping unarmed,
43:33
Speaker 1: and Baja would be arrested but somehow was never charged.
43:37
Speaker 1: So a violent man who attempted murder was still walking
43:40
Speaker 1: the streets completely fine. And I'm not sure what the
43:44
Speaker 1: hell is going on with the police in the nineties
43:46
Speaker 1: in Missouri, but my god, But only nine months later,
43:50
Speaker 1: on March fourth, nineteen ninety eight, Baja would get into
43:53
Speaker 1: an argument with one of his brothers named Bajat Hamdalla.
43:56
Speaker 1: Now Bajat worked at the Family Market, a small corner
43:59
Speaker 1: growth restore in the Tower Grove East neighborhood, and the
44:02
Speaker 1: argument would then lead to an alleged gunshot from Baja,
44:06
Speaker 1: who allegedly shot at Bajote from across the street and
44:10
Speaker 1: the bullet tore through the left side of Bajatte's abdomen
44:13
Speaker 1: and knocked him to the ground, with Baja speeding off
44:16
Speaker 1: in his car once again, and for some odd reason,
44:20
Speaker 1: Bajatt also did not press charges.
44:23
Speaker 2: This family doesn't hold grudges or something. It's kind of crazy.
44:26
Speaker 1: But it doesn't matter if someone presses charges or not.
44:29
Speaker 1: This is still a corime, you know. However, Bajat completely
44:33
Speaker 1: flipped the investigation because Bajat described to the police and
44:36
Speaker 1: that he had never seen the man who shot him
44:38
Speaker 1: before and instead described a goateed Hispanic man instead of
44:43
Speaker 1: his five ten, two hundred and twenty five pounds middle
44:45
Speaker 1: Eastern brother. And six days later, Baja Haamdallah turned himself
44:50
Speaker 1: in and was arrested on a felony charge of first
44:52
Speaker 1: degree assault. But because Bajad did not press charges, there
44:56
Speaker 1: are no records of this case. It's make it make
45:02
Speaker 1: sense because how can you shoot a gun at another
45:06
Speaker 1: person twice and still not see the inside of a
45:09
Speaker 1: prison cell? I don't understand. And also, even if you
45:13
Speaker 1: shoot someone and they don't press charges, it's legal now?
45:16
Speaker 1: Is that we can do that. I don't want to,
45:18
Speaker 1: but you know what, what but none of this lines
45:21
Speaker 1: up with the law. But according to the sources, it
45:23
Speaker 1: just states that this incident never happened since there was
45:27
Speaker 1: no charges. But this wouldn't be the only incident because
45:30
Speaker 1: Baja would do it again in the same month and
45:34
Speaker 1: while working at the Amoko station, the same station where
45:37
Speaker 1: Ricky worked to Baja would be arrested on a felony
45:39
Speaker 1: charge of second degree assault. Why you ask, well, he
45:43
Speaker 1: tried to kill someone.
45:45
Speaker 2: With a hammer.
45:46
Speaker 1: This time he downgraded from a gun to a hammer,
45:49
Speaker 1: and the man he supposedly tried to kill was named
45:52
Speaker 1: El ro Car and he allegedly did it with a
45:55
Speaker 1: rusty hammer. And he then told police quote, I just
45:58
Speaker 1: figured I'd take care of this myself. However, to no surprise,
46:03
Speaker 1: on August seventh, nineteen ninety eight, just two weeks before
46:06
Speaker 1: the court case with Carr was going to go to court,
46:09
Speaker 1: Carr was killed and he was gotten down just a
46:11
Speaker 1: few blocks from the Amoko station, and those assault charges
46:15
Speaker 1: went out the window with them. So Carr's murder was
46:17
Speaker 1: never solved and the police made no arrest, despite informants
46:21
Speaker 1: stating that Carr was killed at the behest of Baja
46:24
Speaker 1: Hamdalla unquote, but I digress to repeat myself. Ricky McCormick
46:30
Speaker 1: then died on June twenty seventh, nineteen ninety nine. So
46:34
Speaker 1: with this connection, Sandra Jones, Ricky's girlfriend, told police and
46:39
Speaker 1: investigators that Ricky had mentioned he was holding marijuana for
46:44
Speaker 1: Baja Hamdalla and even believed that the trip down to
46:47
Speaker 1: Florida was for Baja. So obviously police looked into this
46:52
Speaker 1: matter and watched Baja Hamdalla stakeout surveillance investigations, but nothing
46:57
Speaker 1: stuck and they couldn't prove that Bajada was involved. But
47:02
Speaker 1: Baja would slip up and would finally have justice served
47:06
Speaker 1: against him, finally, because on October thirteenth, two thousand, about
47:11
Speaker 1: a year later, Baja was working at Charlie's Food Market
47:14
Speaker 1: in Madison, Illinois, and he then got into an argument
47:18
Speaker 1: with a customer named Robert Steptoe. And details are a
47:21
Speaker 1: little bit fuzzy here, but the one we'll go with
47:24
Speaker 1: was that there was a fight for the pistol outside
47:28
Speaker 1: of the store, where Baja then shot Steptoe in the
47:31
Speaker 1: face and with luckily there being a bunch of witnesses.
47:34
Speaker 1: He would be arrested, charged and found guilty in front
47:37
Speaker 1: of a jury and sentenced to thirty eight years in
47:39
Speaker 1: prison in September of two thousand and two. Now that
47:42
Speaker 1: murder was obviously Baja, he shot a man point blank
47:46
Speaker 1: in the face. However, in May of two thousand and six,
47:49
Speaker 1: in the Illinois court, Hamdella's lawyer made a mistake and
47:52
Speaker 1: didn't call a gun shot residue expert to testify in prison,
47:56
Speaker 1: and because of this, the court offered a retrial of
47:59
Speaker 1: the cake. So with the second go round, the jury
48:02
Speaker 1: somehow bought the claim of self defense, stating his version
48:06
Speaker 1: that the gun went off during the struggle for control
48:08
Speaker 1: over the pistol between the two. This is the luckiest
48:11
Speaker 1: human being I've ever heard of. So on May fifteenth,
48:15
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight, Hamdullah walked out of the court
48:19
Speaker 1: a free man. And now that he is a free man,
48:22
Speaker 1: and no one really knows details about him anymore. But
48:25
Speaker 1: I'm telling you now watch out for Baja Hamdala. With
48:29
Speaker 1: attempts to contact them being unsuccessful by reporters, he lives
48:32
Speaker 1: out his life, supposedly in the Cleveland area, attempting to
48:35
Speaker 1: restart his life again. So just to recap, men who
48:38
Speaker 1: are possibly involved in the murder of Ricky McCormick now
48:42
Speaker 1: walk free or have no input in his death. And
48:46
Speaker 1: there are still no answers for these men. And although
48:49
Speaker 1: the involvement may seem obvious, the law turns a blind
48:52
Speaker 1: eye and has no connection with them. So with theories
48:56
Speaker 1: is still swarming around. People believe to have found connections
48:59
Speaker 1: or even solutions to his murder. And even better, some
49:03
Speaker 1: people think they know what the notes say. And people
49:06
Speaker 1: had tons of theories about the notes, with different ideas
49:09
Speaker 1: and situations that could have caused the note to be created.
49:12
Speaker 1: And we're going to go over a few that I
49:14
Speaker 1: think are the most important and most plausible. And first
49:18
Speaker 1: is the courier theory. And this was the theory that
49:20
Speaker 1: was under Alonka Dunans hypothesis where she stated that the
49:24
Speaker 1: note was either written by Ricky or someone else meant
49:27
Speaker 1: to carry a message related to his drug running. So
49:30
Speaker 1: let's say it wasn't Ricky. This would be a code
49:32
Speaker 1: that was used to inform fellow people in the drug trade,
49:35
Speaker 1: while Ricky was only meant to deliver the message alongside
49:38
Speaker 1: the drugs. And this code is called idioglossia, which is
49:42
Speaker 1: just a language spoken by two people. And the language
49:45
Speaker 1: could be so basic if you have the notes to
49:47
Speaker 1: translate them. For example, if I say read is the
49:51
Speaker 1: word parallelogram, you have no idea if that is the translation,
49:56
Speaker 1: you know, unless you knew the code ahead of time.
49:59
Speaker 2: It's just cole made up and completely random.
50:01
Speaker 1: Basically, but basically, without the cheat sheet you cannot solve it.
50:04
Speaker 2: It's impossible.
50:05
Speaker 1: But this could be the case with the drug dealers
50:07
Speaker 1: pretending they were James Bond with secret codes, being among
50:11
Speaker 1: the few who knew the codes, and if this is true,
50:14
Speaker 1: we will never ever know the translation. However, if this
50:18
Speaker 1: is Ricky's own version as well, we'll never know either.
50:22
Speaker 1: And this, unfortunately is the most tragic theory, and I
50:25
Speaker 1: hope it's not the actual answer, because then there's no
50:29
Speaker 1: way anyone will ever be able to solve this and
50:31
Speaker 1: solve the way Ricky died. But the next theory is
50:35
Speaker 1: medical records, and this theory plays both sides, stating that
50:39
Speaker 1: it was either written by Ricky or a nurse, and
50:42
Speaker 1: the theory is that the note is about medical records
50:44
Speaker 1: from the hospital he visited, specifically the Barnes Jewish hospital. Firstly,
50:49
Speaker 1: if a nurse wrote this, people thought they could be
50:52
Speaker 1: abbreviating or using a version of their own shorthand, and
50:55
Speaker 1: doctors have a shorthand that is very confusing. But a
50:58
Speaker 1: nurse learning might instead abbreviate to help them remember what
51:01
Speaker 1: to inform other nurses or the doctor of And one
51:04
Speaker 1: reddit user's theory suggested what each word or combination of
51:07
Speaker 1: letters could be describing, and it's very convincing and honestly
51:11
Speaker 1: really well throughout. Like Al's dash, pr pp T x L,
51:17
Speaker 1: y PPI, y n CBE and so on. Are all
51:21
Speaker 1: procedures patient priority intake, an X ray priority not covered
51:26
Speaker 1: by insurance, and magnesium within limits defined to receive nurse procedure,
51:31
Speaker 1: So when you really look at it, you can kind
51:33
Speaker 1: of see where their thought process was, especially if it
51:37
Speaker 1: has to do with the checkup at the hospital and
51:39
Speaker 1: theory surrounding the shorthand. But something possibly even more believable
51:43
Speaker 1: is Ricky using shorthand instead because he knew letters and
51:47
Speaker 1: could spell his name at the very least, so maybe
51:49
Speaker 1: he knew enough to abbreviate words with letters instead. And
51:53
Speaker 1: the Reddit user covers the entire thing and I'll show
51:56
Speaker 1: it on screen obviously, but this seems like a very
51:59
Speaker 1: plausible outcome for his notes because he struggled badly with
52:03
Speaker 1: dyslexia and was borderline illiterate. And in the notes the
52:07
Speaker 1: words are completely jumbled, and the one of the lines
52:10
Speaker 1: looks like it could be a phone number even and
52:12
Speaker 1: this portion of the words when you turn your head
52:15
Speaker 1: to the left side, look like they read three six two.
52:18
Speaker 1: And when people search this number with the three six
52:21
Speaker 1: to two prefix, they found it attributed to the Barnes
52:24
Speaker 1: Jewish Hospital which treated him, which is very interesting. And
52:28
Speaker 1: there are some other quick fire theories that also exist
52:30
Speaker 1: on the Internet that were just short little ideas, like
52:34
Speaker 1: then numbers for cars that Ricky would work on at
52:36
Speaker 1: the gas stations and electrical component serial numbers and medication
52:40
Speaker 1: reminders and addresses and directions of street names are abbreviated
52:44
Speaker 1: beyond recognition and gambling books and debts for bookies, and lastly,
52:50
Speaker 1: the worst Guests in my opinion, written by aliens but
52:53
Speaker 1: maybe not. I don't know. Anything goes at this point.
52:56
Speaker 1: But unfortunately, with all of these ideas and all of
52:59
Speaker 1: these theories, over decades of guesses and suggestions of code cracking,
53:04
Speaker 1: no one is closer and no one has solved it,
53:07
Speaker 1: and the notes to this day are unsolved, and Ricky's
53:11
Speaker 1: cause of death is still undetermined, although the FBI has
53:14
Speaker 1: confirmed it was murder, but they can't begin to point
53:18
Speaker 1: fingers at who is truly responsible.
53:20
Speaker 2: But he would be.
53:21
Speaker 1: Found fifteen miles from where he lived, in a remote
53:24
Speaker 1: cornfield with no bus stops, no public transit, nothing, because
53:28
Speaker 1: Ricky didn't own a car and couldn't drive, so how
53:31
Speaker 1: did he get there? Someone had to have driven him
53:34
Speaker 1: or driven his body. And I doubt authorities are searching
53:37
Speaker 1: as hard as they were in the early two thousands,
53:40
Speaker 1: but they're still open to suggestions if anyone ever gets close,
53:44
Speaker 1: so feel free to.
53:46
Speaker 2: Try to crack the code.
53:47
Speaker 1: But Ricky McCormick's death continues to confuse investigators and internet
53:51
Speaker 1: theorists to this day, with a cipher that could be
53:54
Speaker 1: so advanced it rivals the Zodiac, a grocery list for
53:59
Speaker 1: picking up drugs, or a nurse's shorthand we'll never know,
54:03
Speaker 1: but I'm curious to know your thoughts. That is the
54:06
Speaker 1: case of Ricky McCormick. It's very puzzling and troubling and confusing,
54:12
Speaker 1: and I did not forget that he did what he
54:15
Speaker 1: did to that kid. So do I hope the family
54:24
Speaker 1: at least gets justice.
54:25
Speaker 2: Yes? Do I think he should have been walking free?
54:28
Speaker 1: No? You know, but I'm here to just tell you
54:32
Speaker 1: the facts of this case because the whole cipher thing
54:34
Speaker 1: is very intriguing and very very puzzling. So let me
54:38
Speaker 1: know what you guys think down below, Let me know
54:40
Speaker 1: what other cases you want me to deep dive into,
54:43
Speaker 1: and I.
54:43
Speaker 2: Will see you in the next one. Okay, stay safe
54:45
Speaker 2: out there. Bye.