encrypted communications and right now they are stumped at an old murder investigation they re asking for your help. cnn s jeanne meserve with the story. reporter: in 1999 in this field near st. louis, police found the body of ricky mccormack, unemployed, 41 years old. authorities think he was murdered, but why? by whom? two pages of encrypted notes written by mccormack and found in his pocket could hold key clues but 12 years after they were found, no one has broke on the code. could it just be gibberish? i don t think so. we have patterns and very consistent character repeating sequences. there are almost rules to whatever language this is. this is not random. reporter: dan olsen s team at the fbi crypt nals unit has sliced and diced and theorized and analyzed and still hasn t found the key.
whose real life job is unlocking encrypted investigations. right now, they re stumped on an old murder investigation, and they re asking for your help. reporter: in 1999, in this field near st. louis, police found the body of ricky mccormack, unemployed, 41 years old. authorities think high was murdered, but why? by whom? two pages of encrypted notes written by mccormack and in his pocket could find clues, but 12 years after they were found, no one has broken the code. could it just be gibberish? i don t think so. we have patterns. we have character repeating sequences. there are almost rules to whatever language this is. this is not random. dan olson s team at the fbi crypt analysis unit has sliced and diced, theorized and analyzed but still hasn t found
think the davinci code for our national treasure, for example. but at the fbi laboratory in virginia, there s a small band of people whose real life job is to unlock encrypted communications. right now, they are stumped in an old murder investigation and they are asking for your help. here s cnn s jeanne meserve. reporter: in 1999 in this field near st. louis it, police found the body of ricky mccormick, unemployed, 41 years old. authorities think he was murdered. but why? by whom? two page afc notes written by mccormick and found in his pocket could hold key clues, but 12 years after they were found, no one has broken the code. could it just be gibberish? i don t think so. we have patterns, we have very consistent character repeating sequences. there are almost rules to whatever language this is. this is not random. in what, g, q.