Unsolved Mysterious Murders Involving Cryptographic Writing

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Luigi
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Unsolved Mysterious Murders Involving Cryptographic Writing

Postby Luigi » Wed Oct 30, 2013 1:23 am

So I was researching cryptography and noticed that multiple unsolved instances of cryptography come from murder cases. So I decided to make a thread dedicated to it.

Taman Shud Case

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This is the case of a man found dead on a beach in Australia in 1948. He had no I.D. on him and nobody could identify the body. He seemed to have been poisoned but the typical signs for poisoning were not present. The case gets weird when on close inspection, a secret pocket is found sown onto the inside of the mans trousers. The pocket contained a small piece of paper that read "Tamam Shud".

Officials called in to translate the text identified it as a phrase meaning "ended" or "finished" found on the last page of the The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Khayyam was a Persian polymath, philosopher, mathematician, astronomer and poet who lived 1000 years ago. The text was rarely published in English, but around the time of the murder a man who had left his car unlocked found a rare copy printed in New Zealand in his back seat. The last page which contained the phrase "Tamam Shud" was missing. However strange pencilings were found in the back of the book...

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Along with these strange writings that appeared to be a code, was an unlisted phone number. When the number was called it led to a woman who had served as a nurse in WW2. When shown a picture of the victim she said she didn't know him but began acting strange and appeared as if she was going to faint. She said she once had a copy of the Rubaiyat but she had given it to a soldier named Alfred Boxall.

Boxall was tracked down, but he had the copy which the nurse had given him. The last page was in the book and the nurse had written in the front page:

Indeed, indeed, Repentance oft before
I swore—but was I sober when I swore?
And then and then came Spring, and Rose-in-hand
My thread-bare Penitence a-pieces tore.

The woman was not investigated further because she asked to remain anonymous because she was married and didn't want her family to be linked to a murder case. The police complied and in doing so lost their best lead. After the case went cold, a private investigator later determined that she had lied about being married at the time. The case has yet to be solved however the Cold war setting, the inability to identify the body, and the advanced method of poisoning lead some to believe the man was a KGB agent who was discovered and his murder engineered by a western government agency.

The Zodiak Killer

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The Zodiak Killer was a serial killer from the late 60s and early 70s. He sent a letter with a cryptographic message in it to the local news papers saying that if it wasn't published more people would die and only deciphering the message would lead to his identity.

The message was successfully deciphered and this was the message revealed:

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His need for slaves in the afterlife was still present so he continued to kill people and released a later cryptographic message along with other letters to the police and news papers. The second message was never deciphered and he was never caught. His last letter was signed Zodiac-37 Police-0.

The Ricky McCormick Case

Ricky McCormick was a high school drop out from Missouri who was 41 years old and unemployed. McCormick's body was found 15 miles from his residence, despite him not having a car and the area not having public transit. A note was found in his pocket which seems to be a code.

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The FBI withheld the existence of the note from both the public and the family for 12 years until it was announced to the public in 2011. The code has not been deciphered.
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Luigi
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Postby Luigi » Fri Nov 01, 2013 7:36 am

The Isdal woman

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In 1970 in the Norwegian city of Burgen, a strange woman checked into a local hotel. She had a foreign appearance and spent most of her time in her room. On the day she checked out she payed in cash and hastily rushed out saying "Im coming" in German to someone waiting for her. A few days later she was found dead in the nearby Isdal valley. The body was found with a container of sleeping pills, however the cause of death was determined to be blunt force trauma. The body was charred with a can of gasoline nearby.

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The official police statement said it was a suicide. The day she was found a man had been hiking in the valley and saw the woman who he later recognised from a sketch artists drawing. He said she was wearing elegant clothing not fit to be in the mountains and was with two Mediterranean looking men. He said she looked terrified as she walked by him and tried to mouth something to him. When he saw the police report he called the police and told them his story. They told him not to worry about her because the case would never be solved.

The investigation found she had deposited her suitcase at a train station the day she checked out of the hotel. Inside the suitcase they found 9 fake passports for the woman, all with different identities, along with many wigs and some notes written in a code. They were able to decipher the code and the notes revealed her travel log which indicated she had been traveling throughout Europe under different identities. They also found 400 german marks hidden in the walls of her suitcase. Examining her teeth they were able to conclude that she had received dental care in Latin America at some time in her life. The case remains unsolved, but many believe she was either a cold war spy or a turncoat.
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Luigi
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Postby Luigi » Tue Nov 12, 2013 2:40 am

It seems cryptograph enthusiast and video game pioneer Nick Pelling has solved the Ricky McCormick case earlier this year. Or at least proposed a logical and likely solution.
http://www.ciphermysteries.com/2013/03/ ... ious-notes
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Masato
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Postby Masato » Mon Nov 18, 2013 10:13 am

Luigi, thanks for all of this... I want to sink in and give all this stuff a good read but life has been moving fast the last while.

Will definitely come explore one day when work is slow, thanks for posting.

There is so much interesting shit out there!!

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Luigi
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Postby Luigi » Mon Nov 18, 2013 6:01 pm

No problem man, I am in a similar situation. I am totally swamped with work till mid December.
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Luigi
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Postby Luigi » Wed Jun 25, 2014 12:25 am

Tamam Shud case update: The granddaughter of the nurse reveals that she thinks her grandmother had an affair with the somerton man then was involved in his murder. She is calling for the body to be exhumed to do a genetic test. Here is a video on it by 60 minutes:

http://progressive.netshow.ninemsn.com. ... filiateId=
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Edge Guerrero
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Postby Edge Guerrero » Wed Jun 25, 2014 8:26 am

- This cold make good a movie.
- I rent this space for advertising

Don't be selfish, preserve this world for the next generations.

I'll never long for what might have been
Regret won't waste my life again
I won't look back I'll fight to remain

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Enock
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Postby Enock » Fri Jun 27, 2014 6:03 pm

Great material Lugi - you seem to be pretty amazing at breaking codes - have any basic cryptography tips for us newbs trying to learn?

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Luigi
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Postby Luigi » Fri Jun 27, 2014 8:03 pm

Enock wrote:Great material Lugi - you seem to be pretty amazing at breaking codes - have any basic cryptography tips for us newbs trying to learn?

Thanks man, I actually only know the basics, but I can teach you that. The first thing to learn is mono-alphabetic ciphers, where one letter in our alphabet = one code letter. When I was in elementary school me and my friends would write each other secret notes in this alphabet: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elder_Futhark and the teachers could never figure it out. The first thing you would want to do is find out the probable language of the message(remember, any language can be written in any script) and then use info on the language to attack the code. e.g. In English the most common word is "the", so if you see a 3 letter word that keeps popping up, theres a good chance thats your word. Other good clues are 1 letter words(a, I) because a language wont have many so your chances of getting it right are really high.
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Masato
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Postby Masato » Fri Jun 27, 2014 8:45 pm

Luigi is a smart dude

We need him here to balance out the rest of us stoners lol


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