If he wrote them as a kid his parents should have saved some.
What we know:
- He had heart problems
- He was receiving medical treatment of some sort
- He was accused of sexual assault
- He was considered very intelligent
- He was “known to use such cryptic” memos according to family
What I found is that there are alot of references to what could be railroad stations, carts or routes. There are references to what could be water ways too. I cant help but to think that the note, in all its cryptic glory was a suicide note of sorts.
I have been able to decipher some of this based upon my speculation above but because I dont want to skew others attempts.
What I wonder is:
How much did he travel/visit? Where did he travel/visit? did he travel internationally? What medical treatment was he receiving? What are the initials or names that he called he kids/loved ones?
Seems like if it was shorthand, even somewhat obscure shorthand…it would have been solved by the FBI. And wouldn’t family and friends be aware of this shorthand technique if that’s all it is? If he used such an addled shorthand, you’d think there’d be samples abound.
I keep coming back to the question of why he is writing in code to begin with. Under what circumstances do people write two pages of notes to themselves? If no other members of the family/friends have any other of his “work”, it seems logical to assume he didn’t want others to read his writing. Of course he might have been under the influence of some drugs, and it really all is just jibberish.
But on the other hand, if it’s a code, where’s the key to it? The very fact that the guy was carrying around the notes suggests that the key was in the guy’s head. One would have thought that his residence would have been searched after his death, and one assumes no key was found. I can’t see how even an intelligent person could remember a code so complex that the FBI couldn’t figure it out.
Or the head injury he suffered before death could have goofed him. But if he had a history of writing this stuff, I would think that explanation is unlikely.
I only can for sure say that the A at the first line is “St Louis” it’s the arch with a t inside. Other than that only hypotheses. Where it says 1st person I believe it is (died 17, died 47, died 57) Was he looking into some sort of medication or a trial program? I also think that the E that is everywhere signifies a previous letter is off by one other in the alphabet (i.e. if there is SE it could mean TE or RE) Where it says NBCE could be N&B or if you follow the E replacement would make it M&B. So many of the B’s may be Ampersands.
26MLSE74SPRKSE29KENOSOLE173RTRSE
26ML(SE) = “26 miles”
(7)4SPRK(SE) = “forest park”
KEN = “kentucky”?
Kentucky has a Route 173, but it’s tiny and on the east side of the state…
651MTLSEHTLSENCUTCTRS NMRE
WLDRCBRNSE NTSSHENTXSE-CRSLE-CTTRSEWLDNCBE
“CUTCTR(S)” in the first line, “CTTR(S)” in the second… possibly related?
“(194 WLD’S NCBE)” is also interesting because he was last seen at Forest Park Hospital in St Louis… the same area as the 1904 “World’s Fair”.
I believe by the directions that he was going to the Canadian border at the top of Michigan.
I think the idea that this is in anyway encrypted is totally off base. If the notes are for himself it wouldn’t make much sense to have a key and have to take your own message back to your room and use the key to decode your own words. Encryption doesn’t make much sense without a correspondent. Much more likely is some kind of personal shorthand. The repeated SE and wld and ncbe could be simple obfuscations that he has attempted to randomly pepper through his text. Most people can’t come close to an actual random dispersion of text or numbers in a sequence, our brains just aren’t made that way.
The grouping of the text might be something to look at. Ignoring the text altogether does the grouping of the parenthetical statements look like anything? I keep coming back to programming language of one kind or another, but I can’t think of anything that would generate strings like that.
Here’s what I’ve got so far (I’m not a code breaker by any means mind you lol):
It seems to me from what I’ve found so far that at least some of the words he’s using are from Anglo-Saxon/Old English words.
mxne- to read a book
An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary: Based on the Manuscript Collections of the Late ... - Joseph Bosworth - Google Books
tene- teen or trouble
ncbe- hatred, trouble, malice, affliction
se- see
So it’s possible that at least some of his words are sourced from Old English. And “wld ncbe” is used 6 times in the exact same sequence in P1 so if you assume “wld” means world and use Old English it translates to “worlds trouble, affliction, malice or hatred”
Good luck, hope I helped
Oh, come on, people. The last name is McCormick. The most well known McCormick in the country makes spices, and the second most well known is a child of Cthulu. Of course this text is just a recipe for squid pie, written in the bloodfester tongues.
14 karats of gold in a federal police department?
mind/read a book/
(MND NXNE A RSE-N-SPA UN ARE) (ALFMN)
/see/
TFRNE N8TNSE NPBSE RCBBNSE NPRSE INC
/see/ /world/ /trouble/
PRSE NMRSE 8PRE-WLD ENLDUCBE (TFXLF TCXL NCBE)
/trouble/ /world/
AL-PRPPIT XLY PPIY NCBE MGKSE WLD RCBE NSE PRSE
/world/ /not/ /see/ /see/world/trouble/
WLD RCB RNSE N T SGNENTRSE - CRSLE - CTTRSE WLD NCBE
/world/ /see/or else/your/ /as/in/world/trouble/
AL WLD NCRETEME LRSE RLSE UR GLSNE AS N WLD NCBE
/god damn sense?/
(NDPFSE NLSRE NCDG) NTE GDDMNSEN CUREREBRNE
/teen or trouble/ /to/see/trouble/
(TENE TFRNE NCRQ TSE NCBE ING)
/first pass on the 71 trouble?/
(FIRSE PASE ONDE 71 NCBE)
second?/see/ /on the 74 trouble?/
(CDNSE PRSE ONSDE 74 NCBE)
/on/ /75 trouble/
(PRTSG TRSE ON REDE 75 NCBE)
/murder/ /world./world trouble/
(TF NACMSP SOLE MRDE LUSE TOTE WLD. WLD NCBE)
/194 world’s trouble/
(194 WLD’s NCBE) (TRFXL)
:using Old English and my assumption of his short hand. Could be wrong but hey it does start to form sentences this way 
enjoy
I don’t think it’s a shorthand. I also think the bracketed text and the layout on the page are important, so throwing out positioning (it appears that everything is set in a grid) is a mistake.
Unfortunately, the FBI have not released enough information to even begin to work on this. Did he carry around a book with him? In which case, he could be using the contents of the book as a sort of one-time-pad. He’d been doing this since childhood. Could he encode and decode on the fly, or did he need to sit down and work on it? Very frustrating. I have no idea why they thought just releasing very poor quality scans with no additional information would be helpful.
Yea capt. definately need more background info on the guy to go further with this. For instance, if I am somewhat on the right track and he is african-american the last phrase on P1 (194 wld’s ncbe) could be a simple letter missing out (being 1999 when his body was found0 and be “1994 world is {in} trouble” possibly referring to the Rwanda massacre that was going on or some other related tragedy he was witnessing at the time. They should definately give us more info on his background, obviously not anything too personal or anything that would hinder/hurt the investigation but just throwing the notes out there (in a very poor photocopy) and asking for help is almost pointless
Well, going by your nick, if anybody is suited to crack this…
The problem with such notes is that there might not be any consistent ‘coding’, but rather, their correct deciphering may depend on the associations the writer has (or had, in this case). Personally, I sometimes jot down notes that are intended to simply serve as a kind of mnemonic aid – ‘Gedankenstütze’ in German, literally something like ‘thought scaffolding’: the notes don’t contain the thought, but merely help remembering it. Though my notes are never that elaborate or cryptic, if there’s something similar at play here, I can’t see how one would ‘crack’ something like that – there’s just not enough information there.
Has anyone got any thoughts on the very bottom line of the second note?
“D-W-M-Y MIL XDRLX”
Date-week-month-year? If this is correct, it just troubles me that’s it’s not coded, as there’s no numbers there. Could it be a template for something/someone??
Just a thought!
Anyone know this guys education
/Paranoid hijack/ Here’s a theory for you: the FBI clearly haven’t given out as much as they could to help us. Maybe they aren’t actually all that interested in solving this. Maybe they are really just after a group of amateur code breakers, and hoping they’ll collaborate on this publicly. Maybe they’re hoping to be able to search on the text of the McCormick notes and uncover a group of talented folks who have been wreaking havoc of their own. . . \paranoid hijack\
Please…know thy puzzle! Check the SSI death index, ther is no 1 this age, name, place and date. Good pzle though. FBI wants hard copy for DNA and/r handwriting? Page 1 is info The NOTES page is an outline of the conversation to have. Circled to keep focused. Not a code - mostly phonetic. Most likely street trained, dyslexic profile. Stealing cars for reason? Murder for hire?
nte - night
g - go
d - down
mkne - making /make me
nprse inc - in person and see
ne - any
mrse - mercedes
htlse - hotels
page 1
remind me, make a erason to scare him. (ask him)
wants to meet in person and see.
would be nice to see me, release the girls
not good since your
flrse prse - first person
cd se prse - second person
n cmsp sole mrder luse tote / first set sold set murderer loose to
note 2
I’ll put keys …glasses or glass
You must see
,on doors
and would clear any
They’ll empty 6 tons??? in ???exchange for cash
ns = ends
brexe = breaks
36 miles
651 mtcse htlse n cu tc tc tr nmre
Meet at 6:50 at Mitchell’s hotel and see you tonight to see if there is anymore
nmre = any more
nrse - nears
nears put in trailer cab and
all time for now - gotta go.