July 31, 2025 • 38 mins
There is so much going on in this episode, we almost needed a playbook. First, we visit Arthur's Corner to find out he's feeling sick and he recently lost his kitten. After that we dig in the Death of Ricky C. McCormick, a man one psychiatrist diagnosed with having "a brick wall in his mind", We cover his mother, his potential father (we have no real idea who that might be) his unsuccessful attempts at becoming educated, his aunt, hjis cousin, his many girlfriends, his children, and his jobs. We discover his short stint as a drug mule and his violent bosses at the local BP station (Amoco at the time) and how he was found, deceased, on a road he could not get to with public transportation (which is the only way he travelled) with two strange sheets of paper in his pocket containing what might be a coded message in this local true crime episode of the Family Plot Podcast!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Yeah, I'm Dee, I'm the.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Dad, I'm Laura, I'm the mom.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
And I'm Arthur, I'm the son, and together we are.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Mali Platt.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
But so nice, so nice, so nice. Thank you you
two for kicking in there and making it awesome. Let's
get the housekeeping out of the way. We got an
amazing show lined up for you. So if you want
to help us out, there are so many ways you
can do that. Perhaps you'd like a little bit of
(01:20):
our merch say, oh, I don't know, coffy mug t shirts,
stickers or hoodie all with Arthur's own original artwork. You
can get that at our t Spring Merchandise store if
you cannot afford the merchandise. And I'll admit it's a
(01:40):
touch pricey, but it's very nice. Betty, Betty nice. There's
another thing you can do. For just a dollar or
three dollars a month, you can join our Patreon and
both levels get ad free versions of the show, and
the three dollars level gets the special where Arthur loses
(02:03):
his little mind and says things that you really want
to hear. But we're a PG. Thirteen thirteen show, so
you can't hear that on the main feed. You just
can't but a Patreon member at the level of three dollars, Oh,
they can hear it, and some of them, some of
them greatly appreciate Arthur's candor. And if you cannot afford
(02:25):
the monthly donation, which again not judging, you can always
do a dollar or two through buy me a coffee.
If you enjoy the show, one thing that anyone and
everyone can do that doesn't cost anime is please share
it on social media.
Speaker 4 (02:41):
Share it with friends, share it with family, with everyone,
and you could also leave us a five star review.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
If you don't enjoy the show, please keep it to yourself.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
I have no idea what that'll be this week.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Well we'll see. Yeah, Oh honey, what are we talking
about today?
Speaker 3 (03:21):
On June thirtieth, nineteen ninety nine, a man's decomposing body
was discovered in a cornfield in West Alton, Missouri, and
his pockets were discovered garbled, possibly coded notes, and his
name was Ricky C. McCormick. His murder is still unsolved,
and we dig into all the details surrounding this strange
(03:44):
and unusual case. On this the latest Weirdest episode of
the Family Plot podcast.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
The Weird Episodes. That's really pushing it to say that
this is the weirdest.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
It's up there. Okay, it's up there. So he was
born June fourteenth, nineteen fifty eight, somewhere in the Greater
Saint Louis area. Specific in neighborhoods are not denoted. He
was born to a woman named Frankie Sparks, and his
father has never been publicly identified, though he may be
(04:25):
a man named Charles McCormick. We don't know much about
his early life. We know we had no siblings to
speak of. He may have had half siblings on his
father's side, but without knowing who the father is, we'd
never be able to identify those half siblings. He certainly
was raised as an only child and doted on by
his mother. Ricky had a cousin named Charles McCormick, clearly
(04:50):
a different Charles than the potential father, we hope, who
he at least saw on a regular basis while growing up.
Ricky's aunt and Frankie would often travel together, and often
Ricky's aunt would take Ricky to see a psychiatrist who
described the boy as having a brick wall. Let me
(05:12):
say that again, a brick wall in his mind.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Huh.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
Weird thing for psychiatrists to say. I'm not sure if
that's a standard diagnosis, and in the MS five, I'm
just saying not a clue. Ricky's aunt was Gloria Hookey McCormick,
and she was described as his favorite aunt. We do
not know if Gloria and Frankie were siblings, or if
(05:40):
Gloria was a paternal aunt. His mother doted on him,
but school was difficult for Ricky. He would often stand
alone at recess. If he did speak with other children,
he told them strange stories. In hindsight, many think Ricky
showed symptoms of schizophrenia. Still, Frankie doated on her child
(06:01):
and did her best for him. She did not seem
to have much of a connection to Ricky's mental and
emotional life, which is why Cookie was the one to
take him to psychiatry appointments. I see, and after all that,
Arthur would are you ready to jump into your corner?
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Arthur might kind of we're haul into his corner today?
Speaker 3 (06:41):
Here ye, here ye, allow me to present Arthur's corner. Yes,
I know, Arthur is not feeling well, so he's not
his usual self. And I know you may not have
much prepared, but I know there's one thing we need
to talk about in your corner.
Speaker 4 (06:56):
Oh yeah, I'm doing another voice acting yay or are
beloved Edward October.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Yes, super exciting.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
He who runs the Elevator of History. Yes, yeah that
I still you're sick.
Speaker 4 (07:14):
I'm very sick. I don't feel good.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
I am sorry you are sick.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
We hate for our Arthur to be ill. Yes, as
being a baby.
Speaker 4 (07:29):
Another sad thing that happened recently. Unfortunately, my baby passed
away on Friday, Yes, early morning.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Very very hard. We lost our thunder buddy. We miss
him very much.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
Yeah I do. I still still miss coming out in
here at night and not seeing his his little pretty
face just looking at me like mean grandpa.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
That baby always wanted attention, Yes you did.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
He was a sweet boy.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
He is missed, just like young Arthur. Young Arthur always
liked attention.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
Still like extension most of the time.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
Most of the time you're doing cats. He's cleaning himself
and he's not real careful where he puts his tongue
when he does.
Speaker 5 (08:24):
Killing me cat, you're killing me. Then stop. I can't
please good the Lord because of your father.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
I can't do this with you.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
Here we go, come on back.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Okay, we love a wall of the damn. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
Apollo has always got to be a little extra, he does.
He like to be divergence. Is we all are something?
He's a something? All right?
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Well, so good thing. You're going to get to do
some more voice acting. Sad thing. We lost thunder and
you were sick.
Speaker 4 (09:07):
I'm very sick.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
What is oh never mind, I see it now or
the way I couldn't see that it was your partner.
It looked like some kind of strange art from upside
down over here. So he is a piece of art,
(09:31):
is well, I'm sure he's as So.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
Is that all you want to do in your corner?
I know you don't feel well, so you anything you
missed you can catch next week. But we've done enough
of a corner to call it a corner. And if
you're not done, that's fine. I'm just asking a.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Corner, Nolk.
Speaker 4 (09:46):
It's just thinking. But I don't know if I have
anybody else talking about.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Okay, well, you want to do this next section so
you can relax for a little bit.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
It's weird. It's almost like I knew he he wasn't
going to have a good week, because I think all
of his parts are fairly short or fairly short.
Speaker 4 (10:06):
This week, well, that's good.
Speaker 6 (10:15):
It was time to get back to the show.
Speaker 4 (10:17):
Growing up, Ricky did not do well in school. Sometimes
he passed with little effort actually educating him. His social
issues and unwillingness to put forth much effort in his
schooling frustrated frustrated his teachers. Socially he was okay, but
(10:39):
his mother was convinced that Ricky was mentally impaired, and
would often tell those around her that this was the case.
The word she used was deplorable, but unfortunately in common
usage in the sixties and seventies. Because he was not
(11:02):
doing well and enjoying the experience of education, he left
school functionally illiterate. He had been in high school by
that point, but according to his mother, the only thing
that Ricky could write at that point was his name.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
All right, So now that we've got some history on mister.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
Ricky, Yeah, and I want to point out that his
case is particularly sad because, and I don't know if
you picked it up the way I wrote it, he
was passed. He was passed along. Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Which happened a lot. That's why they came up with
the No Child Left Behind Act, because they saw that
happening over and over again, that people would graduate from
high school because they got passed all the way through
and still couldn't read or write functionally. So great point though.
All right, So now that we've got that history on Ricky,
(12:05):
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Speaker 6 (13:36):
It was time to get back to the show.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
He so.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Once he left high school, Ricky would join the workforce,
where he would hold low wage jobs like mopping floors,
doing dishes, and similar custodial or service jobs. Ricky was
still considered odd by many who knew or met him.
Some claimed Riggy would act like he was in another world.
(14:01):
Due to heart and lung issues, Ricky would get put
on disability, though he would still look for and find work.
When Ricky was flesh with hash, he would get a
place of his own somewhere in the Greater Saint Louis area.
When he could no longer manage living on his own,
(14:23):
he would move back in with his elderly mother. Sometimes
he was something he was always allowed to do. We
do know that he did manage to date around that time,
though several of his girlfriends reported he had that he
had odd mannerisms and often didn't seem to entirely understand
(14:49):
the interpersonal dynamics of dating. We know that Cookie around
this time would insist he continued visiting mental health professionals
the oh he would not thinking that there was little
or nothing they could do for him. He worked mostly
medial jobs throughout the nineteen seventies and eighties, but by
(15:11):
the nineteen nineties he would work the graveyard shift at
the local Amaco. This would be the job he worked
for the rest of his life. It should be noted
that Ricky relied on public transportation, being unable to drive.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
And now how about a word from our sponsors.
Speaker 6 (15:42):
It was time to get back to the show.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
Hey, arper, why don't I just jump back into this narrative.
That's a good idea, Yeah, especially since Apollo feels sponsored.
Speaker 4 (15:53):
Solo sponsor that is hiding his face.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Yes, he feels sponsored and cuddled.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
Excuse me, I shoved a cracker in my face. Let's
talk about pretty Baby, and this is going to be
a bit rough for me. In nineteen ninety four, when
Ricky was thirty four, he began a relationship with a
girl who wasn't even fourteen, Oh goodness, that his family
only knew as Pretty Baby. Their relationship was apparently consensual,
(16:24):
or as at least as consensual as any relationship between
a thirty year old and a young teen can be.
Ricky would father two children with children with Pretty Baby,
Oh I could. But in an attempt to get the
older man away from their child, her parents would have
Ricky charged with statutory rape, as they should. When tried
for the case, Ricky's attorney, a public defender, argued that
(16:47):
Ricky wasn't guilty by reason of mental disease or defect. However,
when tested by the court's mental health professionals. They found
him capable of determining right from wrong, and he was
ordered to stand try. He pled guilty and was sentenced
to three years at the Farmington Correctional Facility in Farmington, Missouri.
Bend to Farmington, Missouri, didn't know they had a correctional
(17:09):
facility there.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Now you know.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
He was considered a model inmate and served thirteen months
of his sentence before being released. We know that Ricky
fathered at least two other children as well, though there
is little to identify the mothers of these children. We
do know that both Ricky and his cousin Charles both
claim to have fathered the same child with a woman
named Vicky Young, a woman who is also tried and
(17:33):
convicted on charges of passing bad checks and unemployment fraud.
He knows so many nice people, h Yeah. We also
know that he was tied to a woman named Sandra Jones,
because they are both listed in court records on the
same rent dispute. However, it is unknown if either of
these women were the mothers of the other two children
(17:54):
he foresure fathered. Also in some sources, Sandra is listed
as his girlfriend and and others she is not so
I don't. I just wasn't confident enough about it to
include that detail, gotcha.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
So let's take a moment now for another word from
our sponsors, And don't forget that. If you don't like
to take these sponsor breaks, you can always sign up
as either a one dollar or three dollars Patreon member
and that will get you an ad free version of
the show. You also get that ad free version before
(18:30):
anybody else has access to the show.
Speaker 6 (18:40):
It was time to get back to the show.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
Roth, Are you want to take this little next part
for us?
Speaker 4 (18:45):
This next part also will feel sponsored me.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
We all feel sponsored, very sponsored all right.
Speaker 4 (18:55):
After getting released from the Farming ten Correction Correctional Family
Facility facility, sorry, mad he began working overnight ship overnight
shifts at the Amacco station owned by Jumo and Baja
Bob Amdla. These to these two men both served time
(19:23):
for repeated violent acts and were rumored to traffic drugs.
I mean yeah, that makes sense. In fact, in nineteen
ninety nine, Ricky McCormick would take Greyhound bus trips to
Florida some from time to time. According to roommate and
(19:45):
possible love interest Sandra Jones, he would return from these
trips with baseball sized bundles of marijuana in plastic zip blockbags.
According to her, he made these trips to Orlando on
behalf of his boss Bob.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
His boss Bob, yeb Bob the boss. All right, Well,
sounds like they've got quite a set of going. So
in June of nineteen ninety nine, he made what would
be his last trip to Orlando. According to Sandra and Gloria,
(20:25):
when he came home from that trip, he seemed haunted
and erratic. Between June twenty second and the twenty fifth,
he went to the now closed Forest Park Hospital twice,
complaining of chest pains, attempting to get admitted. Cookie claimed
she thought that he was attempting to use hospitals as
(20:48):
a place to hide. He never explained why he was
afraid or what led to his erratic behavior. On June
twenty seventh, he was seen at the Amiko station. On
June fortieth, he was found in a cornfield by a
woman driving by fifteen miles from his home, a place
(21:14):
that was not on any line of public transportation. And
if you remember from a little while ago, we mentioned
that he only had the ability to get around using
public transportation. His body was visible decomposed, which is rare
for bodies that are only three days old. Found on
(21:37):
f person were two pages of scribbled, strange writing that
most investigators believed was coded information. However, the police gave
it to the FBI, who were never able to break
the code. In twenty and eleven, they turned the code
(21:57):
over to the public in hopes that the public might
be able to decipher it. When interviewed about this later,
his mother claimed the only thing he could write was
his name, and he certainly wasn't capable of writing in code.
Charles McCormick, his cousin, agreed with this assessment. The police
(22:19):
didn't tell the family about the code until twelve years later,
when the FBI asked the public how asked for the
public's help in breaking the code. No one reported Ricky missing,
so his being found decomposed was surprising to almost everyone
(22:41):
within his family.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
And now another word from our sponsors.
Speaker 6 (22:50):
It was time to get back to the show.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
So what was Ricky afraid of? We don't know. Some
suspect that the deal on his final trip to Orlando
went bad or wrong somehow, that Ricky perhaps was scammed
out of his boss's money or something similar. Others think
his schizophrenia like symptoms may have begun spiraling out of control,
leading to rampant paranoia. Still others think the cipher he
(23:16):
was carrying may have contained details of the drug pickup,
and the fact that he was doing this work began
to make him fear criminal punishment. Others think he might
have witnessed something on the trip and he knew the
perpetrators of whatever he witnessed would likely be after him.
The two pages of coded writing fascinate some, but his
(23:36):
family insists of creating that he wouldn't be capable of
creating a code other His own mother even stated that
he often scribbled instead of wrote. His mother regularly and
publicly referred to him as a word that rhymes with regarded.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
But and that's the word that you were referring to earlier.
Speaker 3 (24:01):
That yes, yeah, so yeah, she would publicly say that
about him, so and I.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
Know, having a mental difference deficit, but a inappropriate slang
term for a saiden.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
And I know that word was all over the seventies
and eighties.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
But we don't use it now and we refused to.
So there you go.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
Some point to the fact that this is that this
is in the code, by the fact that it still
remains unbroken. Who murdered Ricky again, we don't know. Some
likely suspects are Baha Bob Hamdallah, and if Bob is
the culprit, then it was done because Ricky somehow screwed
up the last drug exchange. However, the police could find
(24:49):
no evidence to tie him to the murder. Another suspect
was Gregory Lamar Knox, a known drug dealer who lived
in Ricky's housing complex. Police suspected Knocks being guilty of
several murders for higher schemes and knew he had ties
to the Hamdalla brothers. However, after investigating and surveilling him,
(25:09):
police could not tie him to the crime either.
Speaker 4 (25:12):
And now we promise the final word from our sponsors.
Speaker 6 (25:22):
It was time to get back to the show.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
It's important to keep your promises. Arthur. Also, I feel
sponsored awesome.
Speaker 4 (25:29):
This case has been covered by a few podcasts, on YouTube,
documentaries and wherever amateur sleuths and code breakers gather, and
in fact it is the latter, this last element that
has kept the case alive with the public as these
(25:50):
amateurs each try their hand at cracking this unsolved case.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
Like you know, because if you're into code, you're always
looking for that next puzzle, right.
Speaker 3 (26:02):
And that brings us to summary and final thoughts. I
think this would be Arthur's week to start.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
Just lived a messed up life.
Speaker 3 (26:10):
Yeah, yeah, he did, And it's such a weird case.
Speaker 4 (26:15):
It is very.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
I mean, when you stuck, when you get tied up
in drugs, And it sounds like he was dating a
lot of different people through the course of his life.
He had several kids. He probably wasn't doing the best
of taking care of him. Plus Saint Louis's historically been
kind of a rough area for crime anyway, so I
(26:38):
mean there were a lot of areas where he could
get himself into trouble. It was obviously hanging out with
some people who weren't necessarily doing the right thing. I
imagine he just got caught up in something ugly, whether
it was the drug running that he was doing or
something else that he was doing to make ends me,
made the wrong person that and ended up in a
(26:59):
corn field.
Speaker 3 (27:01):
I wonder if it was pretty baby's parents, I.
Speaker 6 (27:03):
Wouldn't blame them for that.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
I'm I'm surprised he was still alive after the parents
got her away from him.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
And the thing is is it doesn't matter to the
story except he's a black man. And the only reason
that might matter is redlining in Saint Louis is still
kind of a thing. There's a lot of bad neighborhoods,
and those are the neighborhoods that most, sorry, most African
(27:38):
Americans have been pushed into. Now that is beginning to change,
or at least it was, but and that could have
a lot to do with it when all you know
on the street are our gangsters. And that's not a
(27:58):
condemnation of black neighborhoods. Just every time in this country
some black neighborhood gets a reputation for crime, well, yeah,
you haven't given them anything else. There's no place for
him to gather after school. There's no you know, four age,
there's no boy Scouts in those neighborhoods. There is just
(28:21):
literally nothing for them to do. What do you want
them to do?
Speaker 1 (28:24):
Right?
Speaker 3 (28:25):
You know? So, yeah, this is not a condemnation of
African American neighborhoods. If anything, it is a condemnation of
the white businessmen who create those neighborhoods. And then don't
provide anything good in them.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
Lack of positive outlets.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
Yeah, yeah, you don't have anything positive to put your
hand to what's left.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Well, and we've talked about before when you when you
don't have any other ways to make your livelihood. He
was working a job and the people he was working
for supposedly had him running drugs. Even when he was
trying to do the right thing, he was still getting
(29:10):
deeper into the wrong thing.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
Yeah, and well, I mean, I'm not sure he could
have said no even if he wanted to.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
Because see, you, when you're in that, when you're in
that type of position, it's like you don't have a
lot of options.
Speaker 3 (29:25):
Well, and his mental deficit makes him seem like he
was not a real complex individual, right. I don't know
that he had the depth of thought to be able
to go and and with his schizophrenia like symptoms to
be able to go, huh taking their money to do this, Eh,
(29:50):
that could lead to some bad things. I'm going to say. No,
I'm sure he heard his bosses go, hey, we'll give
you one hundred dollars in a free rip to Florida
to go pick this up or whatever. I'm sure that
he didn't do this free, right, and so it I
just don't think he had the capability wherewithal, Yeah, the
(30:14):
wherewithal to see how bad things could go by doing this.
And he just saw it as, Oh, I'm going to
make more money, and at least he understood money and
how it worked.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
Right, Harper, He already talked, I know, he already talked.
Speaker 3 (30:32):
I just was going to say, did he want to
add anything. I mean, we covered a lot since he spoke.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
See the other side, it's scarce, just a just a
classic scenario. The guy had a booger of a life,
he got dealt some tough hands and wasn't necessarily taking
care of it, even if he was trying to take
care of it. Schizophrenia is one of those things that
(30:59):
it's like it's hard to get people to become pliant
on the meds that are available. In the late nineties,
it's like there was enough going on that people knew
more about mental illnesses, but we hadn't come into where
we are now, to where mental illnesses were actually addressed
and it wasn't frowned upon to get help for those
(31:25):
mental illnesses, where in the nineties it definitely still was
more of a thing where people look down at you.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
Yeah, and there certainly wasn't much throughout the seventies and
eighties as far as as helped for schizophrenia. Right, But
that brings up something else. Is the code. If you
look at the picture I sent you, uh huh, what
I sent was a copy of the code he used.
(31:54):
And just a cursory examination, there are like, in one section,
there are three times he repeats the same three letters together,
and that could be a word like the or ann
and in my head, I'm tempted to cast it as such.
(32:22):
But how if one is given to scribbling instead of writing,
does one develop their own words?
Speaker 2 (32:32):
But he was the one who wrote this, I mean,
we don't know how he came to be in control
of those papers either. It's absolutely possible that it could
have been something that somebody gave to him. It could
have been something that he found on the ground and
put in his pocket. I mean, there are gazillion ways
(32:53):
that you can come into ownership of something like that too.
So that's just guessing that he's one who wrote that,
or he had it for a personal reason.
Speaker 3 (33:06):
Okay, I will admit that it would be pretty funny
if they finally cracked the code, and it's just hey,
go to the store and get me some milk and
tomatoes and cigarettes, suggesting that.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
Back, just saying we don't know for sure that whatever
that code is for, that it was something that he
was intentionally using, that he didn't just have it to
take from one place to another. There are a lot
or that he didn't just come in contact with it
and pick it up and stick it in his bucket.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
Yeah, yeah, I guess you're right, Arthur. What are your
thoughts on the code? And I can't do it real
well because I've got a fatty laying on me. But
when I say code, I mean it in quotes, because
we don't know that it actually was a code. Like
I said, his own mother's like, he doesn't write, he scribbles.
(34:04):
The only thing he knows how to write is his name.
So it could have just been his own mental defect.
And like I said, does just the fact that that
three character sequence is repeated doesn't mean it's a word.
Speaker 4 (34:23):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
And it's that code that keeps his case alit because
it is still bandied about online, traded among code breakers
who are sure it's an actual code. No matter what
his family says, fair enough, but.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
That's still even if it is an actual code, we
still don't know why he had it, whether he was
taking it to someone, whether what the actual reason was
that he had it. So unless someone can figure out
what that code was supposed to be, it doesn't really matter.
(35:02):
I mean, it still matters, but it doesn't necessarily figure
into why he died. I guess this is the best
way I can put that.
Speaker 3 (35:15):
Yeah, and it makes me wonder, Like it occurs to
me that it could be his, like something he's supposed
to give to the pickup guys, right, like maybe they
gave he gave coded messages from his bosses to the
guys he was picking up the drugs from, sure, and
he just forgot to give that And maybe that's what
(35:36):
had him so flustered.
Speaker 2 (35:37):
Who knows, it's crazy.
Speaker 3 (35:40):
Yeah, it's it's it's.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
Something with a lot of questions left. That is that
the end of our show.
Speaker 3 (35:46):
I believe that is the end of our show. Come
to the end of our show, and that's our show.
Thanks for listening, Thanks for keeping us in the good
Pods top one hundred, and for being memory of the fam.
We love you all. Thanks to Blue Lexi, Laura and
(36:07):
Arthur H Arthur, especially today. I know how that you're sick,
and I know how rough this was for you, so
I really appreciate it. Let's see. Thanks to Bill Page
and Aaron. Bill Is Bill Barrant b E h R
E N d T. Bill is a musician who just
(36:29):
got out of the hospital and is doing very well.
So yay Bill. But he's a musician who does our
theme music. But he's also available for You can hire
him to do music, or you can hire him perform
at an event. If you're interested, you can reach him
at Bill Barrett at SBC global dot net. Thanks to
(36:49):
Paige Elmore of the Reverie Crime podcast for creating some
logo art with her Canva addiction and Arthur's artwork. Thank you, Paige,
Thank you. Thanks to Aaron GNNERK of The Big Dumb
Fun Show, who continues to promote us locally. Join us
next week as we look into the life and times
(37:10):
of a very interesting person. Holy gods, I did not
know this woman was so interesting.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
To scribble Clara Barton, Yes, the amazing nurse Clara Barton.
Speaker 4 (37:23):
Bye,
Yeah, I'm Dee, I'm the.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Dad, I'm Laura, I'm the mom.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
And I'm Arthur, I'm the son, and together we are.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Mali Platt.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
But so nice, so nice, so nice. Thank you you
two for kicking in there and making it awesome. Let's
get the housekeeping out of the way. We got an
amazing show lined up for you. So if you want
to help us out, there are so many ways you
can do that. Perhaps you'd like a little bit of
(01:20):
our merch say, oh, I don't know, coffy mug t shirts,
stickers or hoodie all with Arthur's own original artwork. You
can get that at our t Spring Merchandise store if
you cannot afford the merchandise. And I'll admit it's a
(01:40):
touch pricey, but it's very nice. Betty, Betty nice. There's
another thing you can do. For just a dollar or
three dollars a month, you can join our Patreon and
both levels get ad free versions of the show, and
the three dollars level gets the special where Arthur loses
(02:03):
his little mind and says things that you really want
to hear. But we're a PG. Thirteen thirteen show, so
you can't hear that on the main feed. You just
can't but a Patreon member at the level of three dollars, Oh,
they can hear it, and some of them, some of
them greatly appreciate Arthur's candor. And if you cannot afford
(02:25):
the monthly donation, which again not judging, you can always
do a dollar or two through buy me a coffee.
If you enjoy the show, one thing that anyone and
everyone can do that doesn't cost anime is please share
it on social media.
Speaker 4 (02:41):
Share it with friends, share it with family, with everyone,
and you could also leave us a five star review.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
If you don't enjoy the show, please keep it to yourself.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
I have no idea what that'll be this week.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Well we'll see. Yeah, Oh honey, what are we talking
about today?
Speaker 3 (03:21):
On June thirtieth, nineteen ninety nine, a man's decomposing body
was discovered in a cornfield in West Alton, Missouri, and
his pockets were discovered garbled, possibly coded notes, and his
name was Ricky C. McCormick. His murder is still unsolved,
and we dig into all the details surrounding this strange
(03:44):
and unusual case. On this the latest Weirdest episode of
the Family Plot podcast.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
The Weird Episodes. That's really pushing it to say that
this is the weirdest.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
It's up there. Okay, it's up there. So he was
born June fourteenth, nineteen fifty eight, somewhere in the Greater
Saint Louis area. Specific in neighborhoods are not denoted. He
was born to a woman named Frankie Sparks, and his
father has never been publicly identified, though he may be
(04:25):
a man named Charles McCormick. We don't know much about
his early life. We know we had no siblings to
speak of. He may have had half siblings on his
father's side, but without knowing who the father is, we'd
never be able to identify those half siblings. He certainly
was raised as an only child and doted on by
his mother. Ricky had a cousin named Charles McCormick, clearly
(04:50):
a different Charles than the potential father, we hope, who
he at least saw on a regular basis while growing up.
Ricky's aunt and Frankie would often travel together, and often
Ricky's aunt would take Ricky to see a psychiatrist who
described the boy as having a brick wall. Let me
(05:12):
say that again, a brick wall in his mind.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Huh.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
Weird thing for psychiatrists to say. I'm not sure if
that's a standard diagnosis, and in the MS five, I'm
just saying not a clue. Ricky's aunt was Gloria Hookey McCormick,
and she was described as his favorite aunt. We do
not know if Gloria and Frankie were siblings, or if
(05:40):
Gloria was a paternal aunt. His mother doted on him,
but school was difficult for Ricky. He would often stand
alone at recess. If he did speak with other children,
he told them strange stories. In hindsight, many think Ricky
showed symptoms of schizophrenia. Still, Frankie doated on her child
(06:01):
and did her best for him. She did not seem
to have much of a connection to Ricky's mental and
emotional life, which is why Cookie was the one to
take him to psychiatry appointments. I see, and after all that,
Arthur would are you ready to jump into your corner?
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Arthur might kind of we're haul into his corner today?
Speaker 3 (06:41):
Here ye, here ye, allow me to present Arthur's corner. Yes,
I know, Arthur is not feeling well, so he's not
his usual self. And I know you may not have
much prepared, but I know there's one thing we need
to talk about in your corner.
Speaker 4 (06:56):
Oh yeah, I'm doing another voice acting yay or are
beloved Edward October.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Yes, super exciting.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
He who runs the Elevator of History. Yes, yeah that
I still you're sick.
Speaker 4 (07:14):
I'm very sick. I don't feel good.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
I am sorry you are sick.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
We hate for our Arthur to be ill. Yes, as
being a baby.
Speaker 4 (07:29):
Another sad thing that happened recently. Unfortunately, my baby passed
away on Friday, Yes, early morning.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Very very hard. We lost our thunder buddy. We miss
him very much.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
Yeah I do. I still still miss coming out in
here at night and not seeing his his little pretty
face just looking at me like mean grandpa.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
That baby always wanted attention, Yes you did.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
He was a sweet boy.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
He is missed, just like young Arthur. Young Arthur always
liked attention.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
Still like extension most of the time.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
Most of the time you're doing cats. He's cleaning himself
and he's not real careful where he puts his tongue
when he does.
Speaker 5 (08:24):
Killing me cat, you're killing me. Then stop. I can't
please good the Lord because of your father.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
I can't do this with you.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
Here we go, come on back.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Okay, we love a wall of the damn. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
Apollo has always got to be a little extra, he does.
He like to be divergence. Is we all are something?
He's a something? All right?
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Well, so good thing. You're going to get to do
some more voice acting. Sad thing. We lost thunder and
you were sick.
Speaker 4 (09:07):
I'm very sick.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
What is oh never mind, I see it now or
the way I couldn't see that it was your partner.
It looked like some kind of strange art from upside
down over here. So he is a piece of art,
(09:31):
is well, I'm sure he's as So.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
Is that all you want to do in your corner?
I know you don't feel well, so you anything you
missed you can catch next week. But we've done enough
of a corner to call it a corner. And if
you're not done, that's fine. I'm just asking a.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Corner, Nolk.
Speaker 4 (09:46):
It's just thinking. But I don't know if I have
anybody else talking about.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Okay, well, you want to do this next section so
you can relax for a little bit.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
It's weird. It's almost like I knew he he wasn't
going to have a good week, because I think all
of his parts are fairly short or fairly short.
Speaker 4 (10:06):
This week, well, that's good.
Speaker 6 (10:15):
It was time to get back to the show.
Speaker 4 (10:17):
Growing up, Ricky did not do well in school. Sometimes
he passed with little effort actually educating him. His social
issues and unwillingness to put forth much effort in his
schooling frustrated frustrated his teachers. Socially he was okay, but
(10:39):
his mother was convinced that Ricky was mentally impaired, and
would often tell those around her that this was the case.
The word she used was deplorable, but unfortunately in common
usage in the sixties and seventies. Because he was not
(11:02):
doing well and enjoying the experience of education, he left
school functionally illiterate. He had been in high school by
that point, but according to his mother, the only thing
that Ricky could write at that point was his name.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
All right, So now that we've got some history on mister.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
Ricky, Yeah, and I want to point out that his
case is particularly sad because, and I don't know if
you picked it up the way I wrote it, he
was passed. He was passed along. Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Which happened a lot. That's why they came up with
the No Child Left Behind Act, because they saw that
happening over and over again, that people would graduate from
high school because they got passed all the way through
and still couldn't read or write functionally. So great point though.
All right, So now that we've got that history on Ricky,
(12:05):
we are going to take a moment and hear from
some of our fellow content creators.
Speaker 4 (12:11):
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Speaker 4 (12:22):
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Speaker 7 (12:26):
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Speaker 4 (12:33):
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Speaker 4 (12:41):
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You guys, don't do it.
Speaker 7 (12:45):
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Speaker 2 (12:49):
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Speaker 7 (12:53):
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Speaker 2 (13:28):
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Speaker 6 (13:36):
It was time to get back to the show.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
He so.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Once he left high school, Ricky would join the workforce,
where he would hold low wage jobs like mopping floors,
doing dishes, and similar custodial or service jobs. Ricky was
still considered odd by many who knew or met him.
Some claimed Riggy would act like he was in another world.
(14:01):
Due to heart and lung issues, Ricky would get put
on disability, though he would still look for and find work.
When Ricky was flesh with hash, he would get a
place of his own somewhere in the Greater Saint Louis area.
When he could no longer manage living on his own,
(14:23):
he would move back in with his elderly mother. Sometimes
he was something he was always allowed to do. We
do know that he did manage to date around that time,
though several of his girlfriends reported he had that he
had odd mannerisms and often didn't seem to entirely understand
(14:49):
the interpersonal dynamics of dating. We know that Cookie around
this time would insist he continued visiting mental health professionals
the oh he would not thinking that there was little
or nothing they could do for him. He worked mostly
medial jobs throughout the nineteen seventies and eighties, but by
(15:11):
the nineteen nineties he would work the graveyard shift at
the local Amaco. This would be the job he worked
for the rest of his life. It should be noted
that Ricky relied on public transportation, being unable to drive.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
And now how about a word from our sponsors.
Speaker 6 (15:42):
It was time to get back to the show.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
Hey, arper, why don't I just jump back into this narrative.
That's a good idea, Yeah, especially since Apollo feels sponsored.
Speaker 4 (15:53):
Solo sponsor that is hiding his face.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Yes, he feels sponsored and cuddled.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
Excuse me, I shoved a cracker in my face. Let's
talk about pretty Baby, and this is going to be
a bit rough for me. In nineteen ninety four, when
Ricky was thirty four, he began a relationship with a
girl who wasn't even fourteen, Oh goodness, that his family
only knew as Pretty Baby. Their relationship was apparently consensual,
(16:24):
or as at least as consensual as any relationship between
a thirty year old and a young teen can be.
Ricky would father two children with children with Pretty Baby,
Oh I could. But in an attempt to get the
older man away from their child, her parents would have
Ricky charged with statutory rape, as they should. When tried
for the case, Ricky's attorney, a public defender, argued that
(16:47):
Ricky wasn't guilty by reason of mental disease or defect. However,
when tested by the court's mental health professionals. They found
him capable of determining right from wrong, and he was
ordered to stand try. He pled guilty and was sentenced
to three years at the Farmington Correctional Facility in Farmington, Missouri.
Bend to Farmington, Missouri, didn't know they had a correctional
(17:09):
facility there.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Now you know.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
He was considered a model inmate and served thirteen months
of his sentence before being released. We know that Ricky
fathered at least two other children as well, though there
is little to identify the mothers of these children. We
do know that both Ricky and his cousin Charles both
claim to have fathered the same child with a woman
named Vicky Young, a woman who is also tried and
(17:33):
convicted on charges of passing bad checks and unemployment fraud.
He knows so many nice people, h Yeah. We also
know that he was tied to a woman named Sandra Jones,
because they are both listed in court records on the
same rent dispute. However, it is unknown if either of
these women were the mothers of the other two children
(17:54):
he foresure fathered. Also in some sources, Sandra is listed
as his girlfriend and and others she is not so
I don't. I just wasn't confident enough about it to
include that detail, gotcha.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
So let's take a moment now for another word from
our sponsors, And don't forget that. If you don't like
to take these sponsor breaks, you can always sign up
as either a one dollar or three dollars Patreon member
and that will get you an ad free version of
the show. You also get that ad free version before
(18:30):
anybody else has access to the show.
Speaker 6 (18:40):
It was time to get back to the show.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
Roth, Are you want to take this little next part
for us?
Speaker 4 (18:45):
This next part also will feel sponsored me.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
We all feel sponsored, very sponsored all right.
Speaker 4 (18:55):
After getting released from the Farming ten Correction Correctional Family
Facility facility, sorry, mad he began working overnight ship overnight
shifts at the Amacco station owned by Jumo and Baja
Bob Amdla. These to these two men both served time
(19:23):
for repeated violent acts and were rumored to traffic drugs.
I mean yeah, that makes sense. In fact, in nineteen
ninety nine, Ricky McCormick would take Greyhound bus trips to
Florida some from time to time. According to roommate and
(19:45):
possible love interest Sandra Jones, he would return from these
trips with baseball sized bundles of marijuana in plastic zip blockbags.
According to her, he made these trips to Orlando on
behalf of his boss Bob.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
His boss Bob, yeb Bob the boss. All right, Well,
sounds like they've got quite a set of going. So
in June of nineteen ninety nine, he made what would
be his last trip to Orlando. According to Sandra and Gloria,
(20:25):
when he came home from that trip, he seemed haunted
and erratic. Between June twenty second and the twenty fifth,
he went to the now closed Forest Park Hospital twice,
complaining of chest pains, attempting to get admitted. Cookie claimed
she thought that he was attempting to use hospitals as
(20:48):
a place to hide. He never explained why he was
afraid or what led to his erratic behavior. On June
twenty seventh, he was seen at the Amiko station. On
June fortieth, he was found in a cornfield by a
woman driving by fifteen miles from his home, a place
(21:14):
that was not on any line of public transportation. And
if you remember from a little while ago, we mentioned
that he only had the ability to get around using
public transportation. His body was visible decomposed, which is rare
for bodies that are only three days old. Found on
(21:37):
f person were two pages of scribbled, strange writing that
most investigators believed was coded information. However, the police gave
it to the FBI, who were never able to break
the code. In twenty and eleven, they turned the code
(21:57):
over to the public in hopes that the public might
be able to decipher it. When interviewed about this later,
his mother claimed the only thing he could write was
his name, and he certainly wasn't capable of writing in code.
Charles McCormick, his cousin, agreed with this assessment. The police
(22:19):
didn't tell the family about the code until twelve years later,
when the FBI asked the public how asked for the
public's help in breaking the code. No one reported Ricky missing,
so his being found decomposed was surprising to almost everyone
(22:41):
within his family.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
And now another word from our sponsors.
Speaker 6 (22:50):
It was time to get back to the show.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
So what was Ricky afraid of? We don't know. Some
suspect that the deal on his final trip to Orlando
went bad or wrong somehow, that Ricky perhaps was scammed
out of his boss's money or something similar. Others think
his schizophrenia like symptoms may have begun spiraling out of control,
leading to rampant paranoia. Still others think the cipher he
(23:16):
was carrying may have contained details of the drug pickup,
and the fact that he was doing this work began
to make him fear criminal punishment. Others think he might
have witnessed something on the trip and he knew the
perpetrators of whatever he witnessed would likely be after him.
The two pages of coded writing fascinate some, but his
(23:36):
family insists of creating that he wouldn't be capable of
creating a code other His own mother even stated that
he often scribbled instead of wrote. His mother regularly and
publicly referred to him as a word that rhymes with regarded.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
But and that's the word that you were referring to earlier.
Speaker 3 (24:01):
That yes, yeah, so yeah, she would publicly say that
about him, so and I.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
Know, having a mental difference deficit, but a inappropriate slang
term for a saiden.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
And I know that word was all over the seventies
and eighties.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
But we don't use it now and we refused to.
So there you go.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
Some point to the fact that this is that this
is in the code, by the fact that it still
remains unbroken. Who murdered Ricky again, we don't know. Some
likely suspects are Baha Bob Hamdallah, and if Bob is
the culprit, then it was done because Ricky somehow screwed
up the last drug exchange. However, the police could find
(24:49):
no evidence to tie him to the murder. Another suspect
was Gregory Lamar Knox, a known drug dealer who lived
in Ricky's housing complex. Police suspected Knocks being guilty of
several murders for higher schemes and knew he had ties
to the Hamdalla brothers. However, after investigating and surveilling him,
(25:09):
police could not tie him to the crime either.
Speaker 4 (25:12):
And now we promise the final word from our sponsors.
Speaker 6 (25:22):
It was time to get back to the show.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
It's important to keep your promises. Arthur. Also, I feel
sponsored awesome.
Speaker 4 (25:29):
This case has been covered by a few podcasts, on YouTube,
documentaries and wherever amateur sleuths and code breakers gather, and
in fact it is the latter, this last element that
has kept the case alive with the public as these
(25:50):
amateurs each try their hand at cracking this unsolved case.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
Like you know, because if you're into code, you're always
looking for that next puzzle, right.
Speaker 3 (26:02):
And that brings us to summary and final thoughts. I
think this would be Arthur's week to start.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
Just lived a messed up life.
Speaker 3 (26:10):
Yeah, yeah, he did, And it's such a weird case.
Speaker 4 (26:15):
It is very.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
I mean, when you stuck, when you get tied up
in drugs, And it sounds like he was dating a
lot of different people through the course of his life.
He had several kids. He probably wasn't doing the best
of taking care of him. Plus Saint Louis's historically been
kind of a rough area for crime anyway, so I
(26:38):
mean there were a lot of areas where he could
get himself into trouble. It was obviously hanging out with
some people who weren't necessarily doing the right thing. I
imagine he just got caught up in something ugly, whether
it was the drug running that he was doing or
something else that he was doing to make ends me,
made the wrong person that and ended up in a
(26:59):
corn field.
Speaker 3 (27:01):
I wonder if it was pretty baby's parents, I.
Speaker 6 (27:03):
Wouldn't blame them for that.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
I'm I'm surprised he was still alive after the parents
got her away from him.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
And the thing is is it doesn't matter to the
story except he's a black man. And the only reason
that might matter is redlining in Saint Louis is still
kind of a thing. There's a lot of bad neighborhoods,
and those are the neighborhoods that most, sorry, most African
(27:38):
Americans have been pushed into. Now that is beginning to change,
or at least it was, but and that could have
a lot to do with it when all you know
on the street are our gangsters. And that's not a
(27:58):
condemnation of black neighborhoods. Just every time in this country
some black neighborhood gets a reputation for crime, well, yeah,
you haven't given them anything else. There's no place for
him to gather after school. There's no you know, four age,
there's no boy Scouts in those neighborhoods. There is just
(28:21):
literally nothing for them to do. What do you want
them to do?
Speaker 1 (28:24):
Right?
Speaker 3 (28:25):
You know? So, yeah, this is not a condemnation of
African American neighborhoods. If anything, it is a condemnation of
the white businessmen who create those neighborhoods. And then don't
provide anything good in them.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
Lack of positive outlets.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
Yeah, yeah, you don't have anything positive to put your
hand to what's left.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Well, and we've talked about before when you when you
don't have any other ways to make your livelihood. He
was working a job and the people he was working
for supposedly had him running drugs. Even when he was
trying to do the right thing, he was still getting
(29:10):
deeper into the wrong thing.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
Yeah, and well, I mean, I'm not sure he could
have said no even if he wanted to.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
Because see, you, when you're in that, when you're in
that type of position, it's like you don't have a
lot of options.
Speaker 3 (29:25):
Well, and his mental deficit makes him seem like he
was not a real complex individual, right. I don't know
that he had the depth of thought to be able
to go and and with his schizophrenia like symptoms to
be able to go, huh taking their money to do this, Eh,
(29:50):
that could lead to some bad things. I'm going to say. No,
I'm sure he heard his bosses go, hey, we'll give
you one hundred dollars in a free rip to Florida
to go pick this up or whatever. I'm sure that
he didn't do this free, right, and so it I
just don't think he had the capability wherewithal, Yeah, the
(30:14):
wherewithal to see how bad things could go by doing this.
And he just saw it as, Oh, I'm going to
make more money, and at least he understood money and
how it worked.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
Right, Harper, He already talked, I know, he already talked.
Speaker 3 (30:32):
I just was going to say, did he want to
add anything. I mean, we covered a lot since he spoke.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
See the other side, it's scarce, just a just a
classic scenario. The guy had a booger of a life,
he got dealt some tough hands and wasn't necessarily taking
care of it, even if he was trying to take
care of it. Schizophrenia is one of those things that
(30:59):
it's like it's hard to get people to become pliant
on the meds that are available. In the late nineties,
it's like there was enough going on that people knew
more about mental illnesses, but we hadn't come into where
we are now, to where mental illnesses were actually addressed
and it wasn't frowned upon to get help for those
(31:25):
mental illnesses, where in the nineties it definitely still was
more of a thing where people look down at you.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
Yeah, and there certainly wasn't much throughout the seventies and
eighties as far as as helped for schizophrenia. Right, But
that brings up something else. Is the code. If you
look at the picture I sent you, uh huh, what
I sent was a copy of the code he used.
(31:54):
And just a cursory examination, there are like, in one section,
there are three times he repeats the same three letters together,
and that could be a word like the or ann
and in my head, I'm tempted to cast it as such.
(32:22):
But how if one is given to scribbling instead of writing,
does one develop their own words?
Speaker 2 (32:32):
But he was the one who wrote this, I mean,
we don't know how he came to be in control
of those papers either. It's absolutely possible that it could
have been something that somebody gave to him. It could
have been something that he found on the ground and
put in his pocket. I mean, there are gazillion ways
(32:53):
that you can come into ownership of something like that too.
So that's just guessing that he's one who wrote that,
or he had it for a personal reason.
Speaker 3 (33:06):
Okay, I will admit that it would be pretty funny
if they finally cracked the code, and it's just hey,
go to the store and get me some milk and
tomatoes and cigarettes, suggesting that.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
Back, just saying we don't know for sure that whatever
that code is for, that it was something that he
was intentionally using, that he didn't just have it to
take from one place to another. There are a lot
or that he didn't just come in contact with it
and pick it up and stick it in his bucket.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
Yeah, yeah, I guess you're right, Arthur. What are your
thoughts on the code? And I can't do it real
well because I've got a fatty laying on me. But
when I say code, I mean it in quotes, because
we don't know that it actually was a code. Like
I said, his own mother's like, he doesn't write, he scribbles.
(34:04):
The only thing he knows how to write is his name.
So it could have just been his own mental defect.
And like I said, does just the fact that that
three character sequence is repeated doesn't mean it's a word.
Speaker 4 (34:23):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
And it's that code that keeps his case alit because
it is still bandied about online, traded among code breakers
who are sure it's an actual code. No matter what
his family says, fair enough, but.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
That's still even if it is an actual code, we
still don't know why he had it, whether he was
taking it to someone, whether what the actual reason was
that he had it. So unless someone can figure out
what that code was supposed to be, it doesn't really matter.
(35:02):
I mean, it still matters, but it doesn't necessarily figure
into why he died. I guess this is the best
way I can put that.
Speaker 3 (35:15):
Yeah, and it makes me wonder, Like it occurs to
me that it could be his, like something he's supposed
to give to the pickup guys, right, like maybe they
gave he gave coded messages from his bosses to the
guys he was picking up the drugs from, sure, and
he just forgot to give that And maybe that's what
(35:36):
had him so flustered.
Speaker 2 (35:37):
Who knows, it's crazy.
Speaker 3 (35:40):
Yeah, it's it's it's.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
Something with a lot of questions left. That is that
the end of our show.
Speaker 3 (35:46):
I believe that is the end of our show. Come
to the end of our show, and that's our show.
Thanks for listening, Thanks for keeping us in the good
Pods top one hundred, and for being memory of the fam.
We love you all. Thanks to Blue Lexi, Laura and
(36:07):
Arthur H Arthur, especially today. I know how that you're sick,
and I know how rough this was for you, so
I really appreciate it. Let's see. Thanks to Bill Page
and Aaron. Bill Is Bill Barrant b E h R
E N d T. Bill is a musician who just
(36:29):
got out of the hospital and is doing very well.
So yay Bill. But he's a musician who does our
theme music. But he's also available for You can hire
him to do music, or you can hire him perform
at an event. If you're interested, you can reach him
at Bill Barrett at SBC global dot net. Thanks to
(36:49):
Paige Elmore of the Reverie Crime podcast for creating some
logo art with her Canva addiction and Arthur's artwork. Thank you, Paige,
Thank you. Thanks to Aaron GNNERK of The Big Dumb
Fun Show, who continues to promote us locally. Join us
next week as we look into the life and times
(37:10):
of a very interesting person. Holy gods, I did not
know this woman was so interesting.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
To scribble Clara Barton, Yes, the amazing nurse Clara Barton.
Speaker 4 (37:23):
Bye,
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