On June 30, 1999, the body of 41-year-old Ricky McCormick was discovered in a cornfield 20 miles outside of St. Louis, Missouri. Because he was poor and likely suffering from mental health issues, McCormicks death might have gone unnoticed except for the two pages of notes in his pockets.Written in intricate, unbreakable code, McCormicks notes have stumped elite and amateur codebreakers for years. Though his family insists that he could hardly spell, let alone develop a secret code, many are convinced that the notes found on McCormicks body hold the key to his mysterious death.Indeed, theres more to the case of Ricky McCormick than meets the eye. According to those who knew him, Ricky McCormick was possibly involved in drug trafficking, and he was known to work with several dangerous figures in St. Louis.But who killed him and why? This is the baffling story of Ricky McCormick.The Boy With A Brick Wall In His BrainSt. Louis Police DepartmentRicky McCormick seemed to struggle with mental health issues all his life.Born on June 14, 1958, Ricky McCormick seemed to struggle with mental health issues from a young age. The River Front Times reports that he stood alone at recess, acted strangely, and told odd stories. McCormicks mother, for her part, came to believe that her son was retarded.[A psychiatrist] said Ricky had a brick wall in his mind, his favorite aunt, Gloria Cookie McCormick explained to the River Front Times. He said Ricky refused to break that wall. He didnt like the life of living poor and had an active imagination.By the time McCormick dropped out of high school, he could barely read or write. His family later stated that McCormick couldnt spell, and instead would scribble according to KMOV. His cousin remembers that McCormick talked like he was in another world and may have been schizophrenic.Lacking a high school degree, McCormick worked a number of menial jobs, usually on the night shift. He subsisted on his meager paychecks as well as the disability payments he received for his chronic heart issues. But in 1992, McCormick got in trouble with the law.At the age of 34, McCormick was charged with statutory rape for having two children with a girl known to his family only as Pretty Baby younger than 14. Though his public defender believed that McCormick was suffering from some mental disease or defect, he was found fit to stand trial.Ricky McCormick plead guilty and spent thirteen months at the Farmington Correctional Center. But when he emerged, his troubles would only deepen.The Final Days Of Ricky McCormickFollowing his release from prison, Ricky McCormick found a graveyard shift job at an Amoco gas station in downtown St. Louis. There, he came across several shady figures who may have played a role in his mysterious demise.GoogleThe Amoco gas station in downtown St. Louis where Ricky McCormick worked.The Amoco was managed by two brothers from Palestine, Juma and Baha Bob Hamdallah. Both had violent reputations and, while in their employ, McCormick made a handful of mysterious trips to Florida. His girlfriend later told police that she believed he was smuggling marijuana for the Hamdallah brothers, and that he seemed scared.Indeed, shortly after his final trip to Florida in mid-June 1999, McCormick started acting erratically. Between June 22 and June 25, McCormick visited two different emergency rooms, according to KMOV, complaining of chest pains and shortness of breath. He was admitted once, and turned away once, and was last seen on June 27 at the Amoco gas station.Then, Ricky McCormick disappeared.But no one noticed at first. No one reported him missing. No one knew he was dead until McCormicks already decomposing body was discovered in a field on June 30, 20 miles where from where he lived and worked.Though a medical examiner couldnt determine McCormicks cause of death, detectives suspected that hed been a victim of foul play.Its kind of a puzzling case, Captain David Tiefenbrunn, the Bureau Commander of Criminal Investigations for the St. Charles County Police Department, said according to KMOV. If I was to rely on my police instincts, there probably is some foul play. We just havent been able to prove it.With no leads, Ricky McCormicks death might have faded into obscurity. But then the police found something strange in his pockets.The Mystery Of Ricky McCormicks NotesWhen the police examined Ricky McCormicks body, they found two pages of handwritten notes written in some kind of code. They sent the notes to the FBIs Cryptanalysis and Racketeering Records Unit (CRRU) but the elite codebreakers couldnt crack the cipher.FBITo this day, no one has been able to crack the code found on Ricky McCormicks notes.It doesnt happen often that we have an unsolved cipher of this length and significance, CRRU chief Dan Olson told the River Front Times. The characters are not random. There are many Es, for example, that could be used as a spacer. There are many characteristics that suggest it could be solved, many patterns. The problem is we dont know why it is not solvable.As the FBI explains on their site, cracking a code takes four steps: determining the language, the system, the key (i.e., shifting each letter to the right in the alphabet), and reconstructing the text.But with McCormicks notes, the FBI could only get to step two.So, in March 2011, the FBI revealed the existence of McCormicks notes to the public and asked amateur codebreakers for help. Tips soon flooded in. According to Fox News, codebreakers suggested that McCormicks notes included reminders to take medication, the name Seth, and hospital terminology. But McCormicks family wasnt convinced.They had learned about the codes alongside the rest of the public and expressed their doubts that McCormick was capable of writing in code. One family member said that McCormick didnt write in code. He couldnt spell anything, just scribble, according to Esquire. However, other family members remembered that McCormick had written in codes as a child.FBIThe FBI insists that Ricky McCormicks notes are not gibberish but no one has been able to crack them.The FBI, however, is insistent that McCormicks notes contain some kind of message.We look at a lot of things that are gibberish, arbitrary strikes on a keyboard, Olson explained. This is not that case.To date, Ricky McCormicks code remained uncracked. Its unclear if he wrote the code, or if the code was written by someone else perhaps by his killer.Who Killed Ricky McCormick?Though Ricky McCormicks death remains unsolved, police have looked at a number of suspects. McCormicks old boss, Baha Hamdallah, was known to be violent. And police also heard in December 1999 that a local drug dealer, Gregory Lamar Knox, had allegedly murdered a Black man who worked at the Amoco gas station.Despite surveillance of both men, however, investigators could not link either Hamdallah or Knox to McCormicks death.As such, Ricky McCormicks death remains a mystery as does the context of the coded notes found on his body.Were the notes a clue to his killing, or something else entirely? Perhaps they were simply a shorthand that McCormick had invented, decipherable only by him. Whatever they are, the FBI still wants to solve them.Even if we found out that he was writing a grocery list or a love letter, Olson explained, we would still want to see how the code is solved. This is a cipher system we know nothing about.After learning about Ricky McCormicks death and the mysterious notes found on his body, go inside the mystery of the Somerton Man who washed up on an Australian beach with a strange note in his pocket. Or, discover the eerie details surrounding the death of Elisa Lam, whose body was found in the water tank of an L.A. hotel.The post The Baffling Story Of Ricky McCormicks Unsolved Death And The Cryptic Notes Found On His Body appeared first on All That's Interesting.