Ricky McCormick
Ricky always stood out as different from his peers. His mother, Frankie Sparks, describes him as, and excuse me for using this word but his mother was quoted as saying this, "retarded."
His cousin Charles McCormick, who shared a brotherly relationship with Ricky for most of his life, says Ricky would often talk "like he was in another world" and suspects Ricky might have suffered from schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.
It's unclear whether McCormick ever received formal treatment for mental illness, but family members recall Ricky's penchant for concocting tall tales and his displays of unusual behavior.
As a boy he spent so much time at recess standing off by himself that his mother would receive calls from school administrators asking if anything was wrong.
Ricky worked a number of jobs floor mopper, dishwasher, busboy, service-station attendant and disability checks he collected due to chronic heart problems.
Ricky however landed in very hot water with police. In November 1992, St. Louis police arrested the 34-year-old McCormick for having fathered two children with a girl younger than fourteen years old. McCormick had been sleeping with the girl since she was eleven, according to court files, which protected the girl's identity. McCormick's mother and aunt knew the girl simply by her nickname, Pretty Baby.
While awaiting trial on the first-degree sexual-abuse charge, McCormick's public defender noted she had reasonable cause to believe McCormick was "suffering from some mental disease or defect" and requested that the judge order a mental-health exam. Dr. Michael Armour, a local psychologist, evaluated McCormick at the former St. Louis State Hospital. Following Armour's report and a hearing, however, the court certified McCormick was fit for trial.
Ricky always stood out as different from his peers. His mother, Frankie Sparks, describes him as, and excuse me for using this word but his mother was quoted as saying this, "retarded."
His cousin Charles McCormick, who shared a brotherly relationship with Ricky for most of his life, says Ricky would often talk "like he was in another world" and suspects Ricky might have suffered from schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.
It's unclear whether McCormick ever received formal treatment for mental illness, but family members recall Ricky's penchant for concocting tall tales and his displays of unusual behavior.
As a boy he spent so much time at recess standing off by himself that his mother would receive calls from school administrators asking if anything was wrong.
Ricky worked a number of jobs floor mopper, dishwasher, busboy, service-station attendant and disability checks he collected due to chronic heart problems.
Ricky however landed in very hot water with police. In November 1992, St. Louis police arrested the 34-year-old McCormick for having fathered two children with a girl younger than fourteen years old. McCormick had been sleeping with the girl since she was eleven, according to court files, which protected the girl's identity. McCormick's mother and aunt knew the girl simply by her nickname, Pretty Baby.
While awaiting trial on the first-degree sexual-abuse charge, McCormick's public defender noted she had reasonable cause to believe McCormick was "suffering from some mental disease or defect" and requested that the judge order a mental-health exam. Dr. Michael Armour, a local psychologist, evaluated McCormick at the former St. Louis State Hospital. Following Armour's report and a hearing, however, the court certified McCormick was fit for trial.
Six weeks later, on September 1, 1993, McCormick pleaded guilty to the crime. He spent thirteen months behind bars in the Farmington Correctional Center before being sent home a year early on conditional release. He was also said to have fathered a further two children.
Ricky reportedly worked as a gas station attendant but the gas station that he worked at had a very interesting and shady history along with the very dodgy owner who was also his boss at the time a guy by the name of Baha Hamdallah who from all accounts was a very dangerous individual, not one you want to mess around with.
The gas station in questions was the Amoco gas station at 1401 Chouteau Avenue south of downtown St. Louis. It turns out that Fawaz M. Hamdan, the original owner of the business, killed his neighbor with a butcher knife during a front-yard argument in May 1994. He later died in Missouri's Potosi Correctional Center while serving a life sentence for second-degree murder.
Juma Hamdallah, a Palestinian immigrant who until 2002 used the name David Radigan, took over as president of the business.
Juma employed his brother Baha "Bob" Hamdallah. Despite their familial ties, the two have had a rocky relationship.
It would seem that Baha has a very interesting very violent and very checkered history. It would also appear that Baha was also the suspect in another unsolved murder.
In August 1999, less than two months after McCormick's death, police from Maryland Heights investigated an incident in which Juma allegedly shot Baha. Baha Hamdallah survived and filed no charges, but, according to police records, detectives looking into the shooting gathered information allegedly linking Baha "to black gang members in St. Louis City and narcotics use" and noted "Baha is reported to be violent and in possession of several weapons which include handguns and knives."
among the Hamdallah brothers (another, Jameil Hamdallah, is a registered sex offender), Baha appears to be the most volatile. Police reports and witness statements spanning several years illustrate repeated episodes of violence that seemed to accompany him wherever he went.
Ricky reportedly worked as a gas station attendant but the gas station that he worked at had a very interesting and shady history along with the very dodgy owner who was also his boss at the time a guy by the name of Baha Hamdallah who from all accounts was a very dangerous individual, not one you want to mess around with.
The gas station in questions was the Amoco gas station at 1401 Chouteau Avenue south of downtown St. Louis. It turns out that Fawaz M. Hamdan, the original owner of the business, killed his neighbor with a butcher knife during a front-yard argument in May 1994. He later died in Missouri's Potosi Correctional Center while serving a life sentence for second-degree murder.
Juma Hamdallah, a Palestinian immigrant who until 2002 used the name David Radigan, took over as president of the business.
Juma employed his brother Baha "Bob" Hamdallah. Despite their familial ties, the two have had a rocky relationship.
It would seem that Baha has a very interesting very violent and very checkered history. It would also appear that Baha was also the suspect in another unsolved murder.
In August 1999, less than two months after McCormick's death, police from Maryland Heights investigated an incident in which Juma allegedly shot Baha. Baha Hamdallah survived and filed no charges, but, according to police records, detectives looking into the shooting gathered information allegedly linking Baha "to black gang members in St. Louis City and narcotics use" and noted "Baha is reported to be violent and in possession of several weapons which include handguns and knives."
among the Hamdallah brothers (another, Jameil Hamdallah, is a registered sex offender), Baha appears to be the most volatile. Police reports and witness statements spanning several years illustrate repeated episodes of violence that seemed to accompany him wherever he went.
Shortly after moving to St. Louis in 1997 from Cleveland, Ohio, then 22-year-old Baha Hamdallah was cruising the streets of St. Louis in a blue Mazda Protegé when a police detective saw him pull up alongside a man named Tarrence Clark, lean out his car window and fire a shot at him with a .38-caliber revolver, according to the police report of the incident and witness statements. Clark escaped unharmed. Baha was arrested but never prosecuted.
Nine months later, on the evening of March 4, 1998, Baha Hamdallah was visiting one of his older brothers, Bahjat Hamdallah, at his job at the Family Market, a small corner grocery store in the Tower Grove East neighborhood. They got into an argument, and Baha allegedly grabbed a gun and opened fire on Bahjat from across the street. A bullet tore into the left side of Bahjat's abdomen and knocked him to the ground. Baha jumped into his car and sped off.
The eyewitness reports, including that of the manager who knew Baha from frequent visits to the store, were consistent in the police report. But a bloodied Bahjat, either out of fear or a remaining shred of fraternal loyalty, told police he had never seen his assailant before and described him as a goateed Hispanic man rather than his five-foot-ten, 225-pound Middle Eastern brother.
Six days later Baha Hamdallah turned himself in and was arrested on a felony charge of first-degree assault, but Bahjat told police he did not wish to prosecute. State court files show no record of the case.
Later the same month, while working at the family's Amoco station, Baha Hamdallah was arrested again, this time on a felony charge of second-degree assault, for allegedly beating a man named Elroe Carr with a rusty hammer. Baha allegedly threatened to kill Carr, described by family and acquaintances as a sometimes-homeless drug addict, if he didn't get off the property. Baha told police, "I just figured I'd take care of this myself," according to the incident report.
On August 7, 1998, two weeks before Carr's case against Baha Hamdallah was slated to go to court, Carr was gunned down just blocks from the Amoco station on a residential street in the neighboring housing project. The pending assault charges against Baha died that night with Carr.
Carr's murder remains unsolved, and police made no arrests. But confidential informants told police Carr was killed "at the behest of Baha Hamdallah," according to St. Louis police reports obtained through a public-records request.
on June 15, 1999, about two weeks before his death, Ricky McCormick walked up to the counter at the Greyhound bus terminal downtown and purchased a one-way ticket to Orlando. It would turn out to be the last of at least two brief trips to Florida he made that year.
It's not clear whom McCormick met during his stay in Room 280 at the Econo Lodge in Orlando. But phone records show he or his girlfriend, Sandra Jones, made a flurry of calls to several people in central Florida a couple of weeks ahead of his arrival. Jones and McCormick exchanged a similar barrage of short phone calls during the two days McCormick spent in Orlando, and he made at least one call to the St. Louis gas station where he worked.
Jones would later tell police she suspected McCormick went to Florida to pick up marijuana.
According to a sheriff's department investigative report, Jones' explanation went like this:
McCormick would accept offers to pick up and deliver packages for money. He made trips to Florida before and on several occasions brought marijuana into the apartment he shared with Jones in the Clinton-Peabody housing project south of downtown. The drugs would usually be sealed in zip-lock bags rolled together into bundles the size of baseballs. McCormick told Jones he was holding the stashes of weed for Baha Hamdallah, the police report states.
McCormick never liked to talk about his excursions to Orlando, but he seemed different when he got back that last time, Jones told police. He seemed scared.
Indeed, McCormick's already unsettled lifestyle seemed to become more erratic after he came back, as if he sensed trouble around the corner but didn't know where to turn.
McCormick used much of his time during his last days to seek out medical care or, perhaps more accurately, a safe place to stay.
Around three o'clock the afternoon of June 22, 1999, McCormick walked alone into Barnes-Jewish Hospital's emergency room complaining of chest pains and shortness of breath. This was nothing new. McCormick had a history of ER visits and had suffered from asthma and chest pains since childhood.
He told his doctors he didn't abuse drugs or alcohol, a statement friends and family back up. It didn't help, however, that he smoked at least a pack of cigarettes a day since he was about ten years old and drank coffee by the gallon. By his own estimate, he told his doctors he downed more than twenty caffeinated beverages a day.
Doctors ruled out a heart attack but admitted McCormick for observation and kept him there for two days. Ricky left the hospital on June 24 with orders to return for follow-up visits in the coming week.
Death
On June 30, 1999, a woman was driving through a rural area near West Alton, Missouri, and noticed something unusual just off the side of a quiet road near Route 367. It was the decomposing body of Ricky McCormick lying face down in a cornfield. He was wearing Filthy Lee blue jeans and a stained white T-shirt.
Along with Ricky’s body were two hand-scribbled notes that were found in his pocket. The notes weren’t written in a language the police understood and appeared to have been written in thirty lines of coded text. The coded notes added another layer of mystery to Ricky’s death.
The Investigation
The eyewitness reports, including that of the manager who knew Baha from frequent visits to the store, were consistent in the police report. But a bloodied Bahjat, either out of fear or a remaining shred of fraternal loyalty, told police he had never seen his assailant before and described him as a goateed Hispanic man rather than his five-foot-ten, 225-pound Middle Eastern brother.
Six days later Baha Hamdallah turned himself in and was arrested on a felony charge of first-degree assault, but Bahjat told police he did not wish to prosecute. State court files show no record of the case.
Later the same month, while working at the family's Amoco station, Baha Hamdallah was arrested again, this time on a felony charge of second-degree assault, for allegedly beating a man named Elroe Carr with a rusty hammer. Baha allegedly threatened to kill Carr, described by family and acquaintances as a sometimes-homeless drug addict, if he didn't get off the property. Baha told police, "I just figured I'd take care of this myself," according to the incident report.
On August 7, 1998, two weeks before Carr's case against Baha Hamdallah was slated to go to court, Carr was gunned down just blocks from the Amoco station on a residential street in the neighboring housing project. The pending assault charges against Baha died that night with Carr.
Carr's murder remains unsolved, and police made no arrests. But confidential informants told police Carr was killed "at the behest of Baha Hamdallah," according to St. Louis police reports obtained through a public-records request.
on June 15, 1999, about two weeks before his death, Ricky McCormick walked up to the counter at the Greyhound bus terminal downtown and purchased a one-way ticket to Orlando. It would turn out to be the last of at least two brief trips to Florida he made that year.
It's not clear whom McCormick met during his stay in Room 280 at the Econo Lodge in Orlando. But phone records show he or his girlfriend, Sandra Jones, made a flurry of calls to several people in central Florida a couple of weeks ahead of his arrival. Jones and McCormick exchanged a similar barrage of short phone calls during the two days McCormick spent in Orlando, and he made at least one call to the St. Louis gas station where he worked.
Jones would later tell police she suspected McCormick went to Florida to pick up marijuana.
According to a sheriff's department investigative report, Jones' explanation went like this:
McCormick would accept offers to pick up and deliver packages for money. He made trips to Florida before and on several occasions brought marijuana into the apartment he shared with Jones in the Clinton-Peabody housing project south of downtown. The drugs would usually be sealed in zip-lock bags rolled together into bundles the size of baseballs. McCormick told Jones he was holding the stashes of weed for Baha Hamdallah, the police report states.
McCormick never liked to talk about his excursions to Orlando, but he seemed different when he got back that last time, Jones told police. He seemed scared.
Indeed, McCormick's already unsettled lifestyle seemed to become more erratic after he came back, as if he sensed trouble around the corner but didn't know where to turn.
McCormick used much of his time during his last days to seek out medical care or, perhaps more accurately, a safe place to stay.
Around three o'clock the afternoon of June 22, 1999, McCormick walked alone into Barnes-Jewish Hospital's emergency room complaining of chest pains and shortness of breath. This was nothing new. McCormick had a history of ER visits and had suffered from asthma and chest pains since childhood.
He told his doctors he didn't abuse drugs or alcohol, a statement friends and family back up. It didn't help, however, that he smoked at least a pack of cigarettes a day since he was about ten years old and drank coffee by the gallon. By his own estimate, he told his doctors he downed more than twenty caffeinated beverages a day.
Doctors ruled out a heart attack but admitted McCormick for observation and kept him there for two days. Ricky left the hospital on June 24 with orders to return for follow-up visits in the coming week.
Death
On June 30, 1999, a woman was driving through a rural area near West Alton, Missouri, and noticed something unusual just off the side of a quiet road near Route 367. It was the decomposing body of Ricky McCormick lying face down in a cornfield. He was wearing Filthy Lee blue jeans and a stained white T-shirt.
Along with Ricky’s body were two hand-scribbled notes that were found in his pocket. The notes weren’t written in a language the police understood and appeared to have been written in thirty lines of coded text. The coded notes added another layer of mystery to Ricky’s death.
The Investigation
When Ricky was found, he was already at a severe level of decomposition. However, his fingerprints were still intact, which allowed the police to identify him easily. Due to his previous interactions with the police, his information was already on file.
Ricky was twenty miles from his home, and the police couldn’t figure out why he was there or how he had gotten there. Ricky didn’t know anyone who lived in the sparse area. He didn’t have a car of his own, nor was there any public transportation in the area.
What was even more interesting is the area where he was dumped. The stretch of road he was found on was known as a dumping ground for criminals. In 1995 authorities discovered the bullet-ridden body of an alleged prostitute in an abandoned house along the same stretch of U.S. Route 67. Two years after McCormick's death, state road crews mowing grass some 300 yards away from where he lay found the nude bodies of two more women.
When police looked into Ricky’s last known whereabouts, they thought it was odd his body was so badly decomposed as he couldn’t have died more than three days prior but appeared to have died much earlier. The weather had been moderate and couldn’t account for the advanced decomposition. Hence, the police surmised he may have been killed elsewhere and then kept in a hot outbuilding or vehicle trunk before dumping his body.
However, the medical examiner was unable to determine a cause of death and initially ruled out homicide. While the police admitted they found no indication that anyone had a motive to kill him, nor any weapons or witnesses to support he had been murdered, they believed Ricky had been a victim of a homicide.
Coded Notes
By March 29, 2011, investigators hadn’t gotten any closer to solving Ricky’s death than the day they had started.
Ricky was twenty miles from his home, and the police couldn’t figure out why he was there or how he had gotten there. Ricky didn’t know anyone who lived in the sparse area. He didn’t have a car of his own, nor was there any public transportation in the area.
What was even more interesting is the area where he was dumped. The stretch of road he was found on was known as a dumping ground for criminals. In 1995 authorities discovered the bullet-ridden body of an alleged prostitute in an abandoned house along the same stretch of U.S. Route 67. Two years after McCormick's death, state road crews mowing grass some 300 yards away from where he lay found the nude bodies of two more women.
When police looked into Ricky’s last known whereabouts, they thought it was odd his body was so badly decomposed as he couldn’t have died more than three days prior but appeared to have died much earlier. The weather had been moderate and couldn’t account for the advanced decomposition. Hence, the police surmised he may have been killed elsewhere and then kept in a hot outbuilding or vehicle trunk before dumping his body.
However, the medical examiner was unable to determine a cause of death and initially ruled out homicide. While the police admitted they found no indication that anyone had a motive to kill him, nor any weapons or witnesses to support he had been murdered, they believed Ricky had been a victim of a homicide.
Coded Notes
By March 29, 2011, investigators hadn’t gotten any closer to solving Ricky’s death than the day they had started.
The FBI’s Cryptanalysis and Racketeering Records Unit (CRRU) and the American Cryptogram Association attempted to decipher the notes found in Ricky’s pocket but had no luck. After years of trying, they decided their best option would be to go to the public and ask for help decoding the notes.
Why on earth they decided it would be a good idea to sit on something this important for 12 years is beyond me. When a crime happens and you have information like this one could argue that you don’t want the offender to know what the police have as evidence I get that but in this case releasing this to the public would have possibly helped crack this code. Problem with leaving it so long is people die memories tend to fade over a 12 year period. So if they knew something 12 years ago and then got asked about it now they likely wouldn’t recall it correctly.
CRRU Chief Dan Olson believes breaking the code could help the police determine where Ricky was before his death. Olson feels as though they may be notes Ricky took for himself. He hopes the notes can at least give the police a clue as to what happened to Ricky and why. Authorities strongly feel the notes must mean something, but they have yet to figure out what it means.
Dan tried everything he could to break the code:
He brought in other analysts to take a look and brainstorm ideas and consulted experts for clues. He compared the letters and numbers in the notes to every street address in St. Louis and vetted them against maps from across the country, but no hits rose to a level beyond coincidence.
Then in September 2009 dan decided to release this to the public forum and presented the McCormick puzzle to a room of about 25 amateur code breakers gathered in Niagara Falls, Ontario, for the annual convention of the American Cryptogram Association. The challenge generated interest, but association members have been unable to make any breakthroughs.
The deluge that followed this renewed public prompted the FBI to establish a special Web page just to handle the more than 7,000 public comments and theories that have poured in so far.
Respondents have suggested the encrypted notes could mask information about everything from vehicle identification numbers, gambling books and drug-dealing transactions to addresses and directions, mental-health episodes or medications.
So even though people put some level of effort into cracking these codes, there has been some level or criticism levelled at the way this investigation was conducted into the coded notes found in Ricky’s pocket.
Back in St. Louis, McCormick's family members say they have never heard from police about the Hamdallahs, Knox or other details of the investigation into Ricky's death. They never heard about the encrypted notes found in his pocket until the local evening news broadcast a report on the codes.
"They told us the only thing in his pockets was the emergency-room ticket," McCormick's mother, Frankie Sparks, says. "Now, twelve years later, they come back with this chicken-scratch shit."
Contradicting the FBI's statements to the media, family members say they never knew of Ricky to write in code. They say they only told investigators he sometimes jotted down nonsense he called writing, and they seriously question McCormick's capacity to craft the notes found in his pockets.
"The only thing he could write was his name," Sparks says. "He didn't write in no code." Charles McCormick recalls Ricky "couldn't spell anything, just scribble."
Possible Suspects
St. Louis police were investigating a man named Gregory Lamar Knox, a major drug dealer who operated in and around the housing complex where McCormick had lived, as a suspect in several homicides, including "at least two murder-for-hire schemes." According to police records, a confidential informant also told police that Knox was responsible for the murder of a black man who worked at the gas station on Chouteau Avenue and whose body was dumped near West Alton. St. Louis police had also linked the Hamdallahs with alleged "criminal activity and the possible association with Gregory Knox."
No arrests ever materialized. Yarbrough says that despite ongoing suspicions, detectives never could substantiate claims from informants suggesting a connection between the Hamdallahs and Knox or prove either was responsible for McCormick's death.
Still, both Knox and Baha Hamdallah found their way to prison, at least for a time.
Knox was arrested on July 25, 2000, and pleaded guilty in January 2001 to charges of possession with intent to distribute crack cocaine and carrying a firearm during and in relation to a drug-trafficking crime. A March 2001 HUD report to Congress noted Knox "was a suspect in at least four homicides that occurred in 1998 and 1999 in the LaSalle Park Homes and Clinton-Peabody public housing developments (in St. Louis). He was also the number one supplier of narcotics to LaSalle Park Homes." Knox is currently serving his sentence at the Federal Medical Center in Lexington, Kentucky, and is scheduled to be released in November 2013.
On October 13, 2000, Baha Hamdallah was managing another store, Charlie's Food Market in Madison, Illinois, when he got into an argument with a customer named Robert Steptoe. Different versions of events were later presented in court, but ultimately a jury convicted Hamdallah of first-degree murder after he shot Steptoe in the face with a 9-mm Glock pistol outside the store. In September 2002 a Madison County judge sentenced Hamdallah to 38 years in prison for killing Steptoe.
Nearly four years later, however, in May 2006, an Illinois appellate court ruled Hamdallah's lawyer erred by not calling a gunshot-residue expert to testify in person in the shooting case. The appellate court granted a retrial. In the second go-round, the jury bought Hamdallah's claims of self-defense and his version of events in which the gun went off while he and Steptoe were struggling for control of the pistol. On May 15, 2008, Hamdallah walked out of court a free man.
Which brings us to Present Day
The police still have come no closer to figuring out what happened to Ricky McCormick or what his notes mean. Despite releasing his notes to the public in hopes someone would crack the code, they have yet to receive a lead that with hopefully allow them to solve the case.
And what of the main suspects? Brother Bahjat Hamdallah says Juma now lives in the Philippines and that Baha has married and relocated back to the Cleveland area in his attempt to start over following his Illinois murder trial.
Gregory Knox, responding by e-mail from prison to questions about McCormick and allegations he was involved in McCormick's murder, wrote: "At this moment this is all new information to me, and I have no information that could help your case.”
https://www.riverfronttimes.com/stlouis/code-dead-do-the-encrypted-writings-of-ricky-mccormick-hold-the-key-to-his-mysterious-death/Content?oid=2498959
https://ciphermysteries.com/2013/03/12/ricky-mccormicks-two-mysterious-notes
https://medium.com/the-candid-cuppa/the-unsolved-murder-of-ricky-mccormick-a6cb6a38a68c
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricky_McCormick%27s_encrypted_notes
Why on earth they decided it would be a good idea to sit on something this important for 12 years is beyond me. When a crime happens and you have information like this one could argue that you don’t want the offender to know what the police have as evidence I get that but in this case releasing this to the public would have possibly helped crack this code. Problem with leaving it so long is people die memories tend to fade over a 12 year period. So if they knew something 12 years ago and then got asked about it now they likely wouldn’t recall it correctly.
CRRU Chief Dan Olson believes breaking the code could help the police determine where Ricky was before his death. Olson feels as though they may be notes Ricky took for himself. He hopes the notes can at least give the police a clue as to what happened to Ricky and why. Authorities strongly feel the notes must mean something, but they have yet to figure out what it means.
Dan tried everything he could to break the code:
He brought in other analysts to take a look and brainstorm ideas and consulted experts for clues. He compared the letters and numbers in the notes to every street address in St. Louis and vetted them against maps from across the country, but no hits rose to a level beyond coincidence.
Then in September 2009 dan decided to release this to the public forum and presented the McCormick puzzle to a room of about 25 amateur code breakers gathered in Niagara Falls, Ontario, for the annual convention of the American Cryptogram Association. The challenge generated interest, but association members have been unable to make any breakthroughs.
The deluge that followed this renewed public prompted the FBI to establish a special Web page just to handle the more than 7,000 public comments and theories that have poured in so far.
Respondents have suggested the encrypted notes could mask information about everything from vehicle identification numbers, gambling books and drug-dealing transactions to addresses and directions, mental-health episodes or medications.
So even though people put some level of effort into cracking these codes, there has been some level or criticism levelled at the way this investigation was conducted into the coded notes found in Ricky’s pocket.
Back in St. Louis, McCormick's family members say they have never heard from police about the Hamdallahs, Knox or other details of the investigation into Ricky's death. They never heard about the encrypted notes found in his pocket until the local evening news broadcast a report on the codes.
"They told us the only thing in his pockets was the emergency-room ticket," McCormick's mother, Frankie Sparks, says. "Now, twelve years later, they come back with this chicken-scratch shit."
Contradicting the FBI's statements to the media, family members say they never knew of Ricky to write in code. They say they only told investigators he sometimes jotted down nonsense he called writing, and they seriously question McCormick's capacity to craft the notes found in his pockets.
"The only thing he could write was his name," Sparks says. "He didn't write in no code." Charles McCormick recalls Ricky "couldn't spell anything, just scribble."
Possible Suspects
St. Louis police were investigating a man named Gregory Lamar Knox, a major drug dealer who operated in and around the housing complex where McCormick had lived, as a suspect in several homicides, including "at least two murder-for-hire schemes." According to police records, a confidential informant also told police that Knox was responsible for the murder of a black man who worked at the gas station on Chouteau Avenue and whose body was dumped near West Alton. St. Louis police had also linked the Hamdallahs with alleged "criminal activity and the possible association with Gregory Knox."
No arrests ever materialized. Yarbrough says that despite ongoing suspicions, detectives never could substantiate claims from informants suggesting a connection between the Hamdallahs and Knox or prove either was responsible for McCormick's death.
Still, both Knox and Baha Hamdallah found their way to prison, at least for a time.
Knox was arrested on July 25, 2000, and pleaded guilty in January 2001 to charges of possession with intent to distribute crack cocaine and carrying a firearm during and in relation to a drug-trafficking crime. A March 2001 HUD report to Congress noted Knox "was a suspect in at least four homicides that occurred in 1998 and 1999 in the LaSalle Park Homes and Clinton-Peabody public housing developments (in St. Louis). He was also the number one supplier of narcotics to LaSalle Park Homes." Knox is currently serving his sentence at the Federal Medical Center in Lexington, Kentucky, and is scheduled to be released in November 2013.
On October 13, 2000, Baha Hamdallah was managing another store, Charlie's Food Market in Madison, Illinois, when he got into an argument with a customer named Robert Steptoe. Different versions of events were later presented in court, but ultimately a jury convicted Hamdallah of first-degree murder after he shot Steptoe in the face with a 9-mm Glock pistol outside the store. In September 2002 a Madison County judge sentenced Hamdallah to 38 years in prison for killing Steptoe.
Nearly four years later, however, in May 2006, an Illinois appellate court ruled Hamdallah's lawyer erred by not calling a gunshot-residue expert to testify in person in the shooting case. The appellate court granted a retrial. In the second go-round, the jury bought Hamdallah's claims of self-defense and his version of events in which the gun went off while he and Steptoe were struggling for control of the pistol. On May 15, 2008, Hamdallah walked out of court a free man.
Which brings us to Present Day
The police still have come no closer to figuring out what happened to Ricky McCormick or what his notes mean. Despite releasing his notes to the public in hopes someone would crack the code, they have yet to receive a lead that with hopefully allow them to solve the case.
And what of the main suspects? Brother Bahjat Hamdallah says Juma now lives in the Philippines and that Baha has married and relocated back to the Cleveland area in his attempt to start over following his Illinois murder trial.
Gregory Knox, responding by e-mail from prison to questions about McCormick and allegations he was involved in McCormick's murder, wrote: "At this moment this is all new information to me, and I have no information that could help your case.”
https://www.riverfronttimes.com/stlouis/code-dead-do-the-encrypted-writings-of-ricky-mccormick-hold-the-key-to-his-mysterious-death/Content?oid=2498959
https://ciphermysteries.com/2013/03/12/ricky-mccormicks-two-mysterious-notes
https://medium.com/the-candid-cuppa/the-unsolved-murder-of-ricky-mccormick-a6cb6a38a68c
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricky_McCormick%27s_encrypted_notes
No comments:
Post a Comment