The Ricky McCormick Cipher: A Murder Written in Code

On December 6, 1991, four teenage girls were found murdered inside a burned-out frozen yogurt shop in Austin, Texas. What initially appeared to be a robbery became one of the city's most disturbing homicide investigations, involving disputed confessions, questionable forensic evidence, and convictions that were eventually overturned. For more than three decades, investigators struggled to determine who committed the murders and why. This episode examines the original crime scene, the investigative mistakes, and the DNA evidence that eventually changed the direction of the case.

On February 2, 2008, five women were murdered inside a Lane Bryant clothing store in Tinley Park, Illinois, during what investigators believe began as an armed robbery. A sixth woman survived and provided police with a description of the gunman, yet the killer disappeared without being identified. Despite surveillance evidence, forensic examinations, and thousands of investigative leads, the case has remained unresolved. This episode examines the crime, the surviving witness, and the disturbing question of how a gunman could murder five people in a suburban shopping center and escape.

For nearly seventeen years, the murder of nineteen-year-old Edric Hinton remained unresolved, leaving his family searching for justice. The investigation reportedly changed when a confidential source directed detectives toward a shotgun hidden beneath the ground. Forensic specialists examined the recovered weapon, helping investigators connect new physical evidence to the original crime. This episode explores how old leads, modern forensic techniques, and persistent investigative work can bring a seemingly forgotten homicide back into focus.

For 66 years, the murder of eight-year-old Gloria Kowalewicz remained one of Chicago's haunting unsolved crimes. Investigators pursued answers while generations passed and the original evidence became increasingly important. In October 2026, a forensic breakthrough led authorities to identify a deceased former homicide detective as their suspect, bringing a remarkable development to a case once thought impossible to solve. This episode reconstructs the original crime, the decades of uncertainty, and the scientific advances that finally gave investigators a new answer.

On February 14, 1929, seven men were murdered inside a Chicago garage, yet no one was convicted of the killings. Suspicion centered on Al Capone’s criminal organization, but investigators struggled to establish who planned and carried out the attack. We revisit the suspects, conflicting accounts, forensic evidence, and unanswered questions surrounding one of America's most notorious unsolved multiple murders.

In June 1860, three-year-old Saville Kent vanished from his bed and was later discovered murdered on his family's estate. Investigators suspected someone inside the household, but conflicting accounts and public controversy complicated the search for justice. For five years, the murder remained officially unresolved until a stunning confession changed everything. Yet questions surrounding the motive and possible involvement of others have continued to intrigue historians.

Two young brothers entered the Tower of London in 1483 and disappeared from the historical record. Their uncle inherited the crown, while rumors spread that the boys had been secretly murdered. Nearly two centuries later, workers discovered the remains of two children beneath a staircase. More than 500 years after the disappearance, historians continue to debate whether the princes were killed and who might have been responsible.

For decades, investigators leaned on a simple framework to read crime scenes — organized killers who plan and control, disorganized killers who act on impulse and leave chaos. This episode traces how that model shaped early FBI behavioral profiling and became baked into how the public understands unsolved cases. But later research found that real offenders rarely sort that cleanly, raising real questions about how much weight this framework should carry in actual investigations. We examine what that means for cold cases built on profiles that may be more oversimplified than the field once believed.

For more than six decades, he was known only as the "Boy in the Box," his battered body discovered outside Philadelphia in 1957 with no identity and no leads that held. This episode follows the case through 65 years of failed attempts, generations of detectives, and the eventual arrival of forensic genetic genealogy, which in 2022 finally gave the child a name: Joseph Augustus Zarelli. We look at what that breakthrough changed — and what it didn't. The identity has been found, but the person responsible for his death has never been identified, leaving this one of the longest-running unsolved murders in American history.

When Ricky McCormick’s body was discovered in Missouri in 1999, investigators eventually encountered an extraordinary mystery. Two handwritten notes found in his pockets contained lines of letters, numbers, parentheses and apparent coded messages. Years later, the FBI publicly appealed for help deciphering them. Investigators believed understanding the notes might reveal information relevant to McCormick’s death, but their meaning remains uncertain. This is the strange intersection of homicide investigation, cryptanalysis and one man’s private language.