Wednesday Weird: Ricky McCormick Death

We're only a few days away from Christmas for those that celebrate so it seems like a good time for another Wednesday Weird!

As i said last week, since we're counting down the days until ASSASSIN'S HEART releases, the Wednesday Weirds are all going to be strange, creepy or unsolved deaths.

Today we're talking about Ricky McCormick.

Ricky McCormick was 41 years old when his body was found in a cornfield, June 30th, 1999 in Missouri. He hadn't been reported missing, but someone had seen him five days earlier so at the most he could have been missing for less than a week.

Despite that, his body was strangely decomposed already. And the cornfield was 15 miles from his home, and not only did he not have a car, there were no bus lines that lead out their either.

Ricky also supposedly suffered from either a heart or lung condition and was a high school dropout. His family would later say that Ricky was more or less illiterate. He could write his name but really nothing else.

And for twelve years, that was all anyone knew about Ricky McCormick's death.

Until the FBI released more information in a plea for the public's help.

Because Ricky had had notes in his pockets. But not just any notes. These notes were written in a cryptic code and had been written at least 3 days before his death.

The FBI had spent 12 years trying to break the code of the letters and were unsuccessful, and so they were reaching out for the public's help in the hopes that the notes will help lead to Ricky's killers.

And that's where the case stands today. The encrypted notes are listed as the FBI's Cryptanalysis and Racketeering Records Unit's (CRRU) top unsolved cases.

Thoughts or theories?

Ignore this post

Friday Fun

Woo! Yvie's here again, ape-friends, to launch us into the fun that is Friday!

fun involves napping, right?

Let's get this started!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wednesday Weird: Lake Bodom Murders

All right. Since we're counting down the days until ASSASSIN'S HEART releases, from now until then, all the Wednesday Weirds will be in some way related to AH.

Which mean, time for some weird, creepy or unsolved murders!

Today we're starting with the Lake Bodom Murders.

Lake Bodom is in Espoo, Finland and on June 4th, 1960 a group of 4 teenagers decided to spend the night on its banks camping in a tent together.

That was the end of their fun.

While they slept, someone with a knife crept into their tent and violently stabbed the teens. Only one of them survived the attack, 18-year old Nils Gustafsson. Which, you think would be great (objectively) because at least there would be an eye witness to help the police catch the murderer.

Except Nils's face had been bludgeoned so bad that he couldn't really remember anything.

Unfortunately, the case went cold.

Until twelve years later, on the anniversary of the murders, when a man committed suicide. In his note, he confessed to the killings. In fact, the man used to work in a lakeside kiosk selling drinks, and had quarreled with the teens more than once. Hey, motive!

Case solved, right?

Nope.

The man had an alibi during the night of the murders. He'd been at home with his wife.

Around the same time, a doctor revealed that he had treated a man at his hospital shortly after the attack. The man, Hans Assman, was a German immigrant and lived near Lake Bodom. He arrived at the hospital wearing red stained clothes and discombobulated. But somehow, the police never thought to question him.

When the doctor did some research on his own, he discovered that Assman was former KGB and possibly a violent, ex-nazi.

But Assman also had an alibi for the night.

In 2004, another suspect entered the scene. Survivor Nils Gustafsson himself.

A new witness had come forward and said that Nils had been drunk and aggressive right before the murders, Also, with new forensics technology, including blood spatter analysis, there was some evidence that showed that perhaps Nils had murdered his friends in a drunken rage, and had received the facial injuries in the fight.

But, over a year later, Nils was cleared of all charges, too.

And that's where the case stands today. Two of the suspects dead and Nils cleared.

Thoughts or theories?

In Which I Talk ASSASSIN'S HEART Holidays

'Tis the season and all that Jazz!

This time of year blogs are full of Christmas and other holiday posts. And I've certainly done so in the past.

But, since ASSASSIN'S HEART will be out in the world in less than 2 months (eeeee!!!) I think I'll do something a bit fun and talk about a holiday in the world of ASSASSIN'S HEART.

Of course, there are many different countries and kingdoms in ASSASSIN'S HEART but today I'm going to focus on the kingdom of Lovero and their main holiday Susten Day.

Lovero has a patron goddess names Safraella who is the god of death, murder and resurrection. She's a real happy and lighthearted god, if you can't tell (kidding! One day, one day we will have a sarcasm font and everyone will rejoice)

In Lovero, disciples of Safraella are clippers (assassins) and they murder people in Her name. And the clippers wear bone masks when they work.

Susten Day takes place the ninth night after the midsummer new moon and the festival lasts for three days.

People wear Susten Day masks, masks made of feathers and gems.

And there's pretty much a constant party, with street vendors serving food, fire breathers, stilt walkers, puppet shows, pretty much anything and everything.

Because Lovero is on the sea, much of the food is fish or sea related. Want some deep fried fish served on a skewer? Sure thing! Honey and seed stuffed dough balls? Why not! (I love to write about food (probably because I love to eat food) and so I try to make sure I go into detail about foodstuffs)

Yay for Susten Day!

What's your favorite fictional holiday? Or is there a holiday in one of your books you've written? Share in the comments!

Friday Fun

Well, another week has gone by. And this one was a boring week, too. With no holidays with lots of good food or presents.

Also, gross snow.

But, one thing this week does have is a Friday! Which means it's time for Friday Fun!

Wednesday Weird: The Sweating Sickness

It's been, like, forever since I've had a Wednesday Weird, so I'm glad today we're back at it.

It's also been forever since we've done a weird disease so it seems like today is the day!

The sweating sickness.

So, it sounds kind of harmless, right? I mean, sweat.

But here's the thing. The sweating sickness will kill you deader than dead within a few hours. Prepare to be kind of creeped out in the way that all deadly diseases are creepy.

The Sweating Sickness begins with, awesomely, "a sense of apprehension" (great, right?) and from there it's followed by cold shivers, severe neck, shoulder and limb pain, headaches, and then giddiness.

All of that is considered the cold stage, which can last from 30 mins to 3 hours.

Then, you're into the sweating stage, which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. Sweating. Profuse sweating.

And then you die.

Well, sometime the sweating stage isn't immediately fatal, but when it isn't, it leads to additional sweating stages, and one of those WILL end you.

The Sweating Sickness first appeared in England in1485 and killed thousands of people within a year. Mostly because by the time anyone realized they had it, everyone else around them was already infected.

And, because it's not terrible enough, no one knows what causes it. Is it a bacteria? A virus? Who knows! Some people think that perhaps its an illness related to the hanta virus (which is terrible enough, as all hemorrhagic fevers are) but we really don't have enough information to know one way or another. All we really know is that it's popped up 6 times so far. Which, okay, that's not so bad.

Except, yeah it is. Because those six times it showed up were epidemics. So, yeah, we really don't want it showing up again.