In June of 1999, 41-year-old Ricky McCormick was found dead near St. Louis, Mo. with nothing but a couple of papers in his pocket.
The papers, supposedly written by McCormick, contained codes that the FBI have been unable to crack for the past decade, according to the Associated Press.
Utilizing top cryptologists and cryptanalysts on-and-off since 2001, the government bureau is finally turning to the public to ask for help.
"We are really good at what we do, but we could use some help with this one," said Dan Olson, chief of the FBI Laboratory's Cryptanalysis & Racketeering Records Unit, who believes that decoding McCormick's messages could lead to solving his murder.
However there are doubts.
Police are still trying to decode the messages from the serial Zodiac killer from the 1960s and 1970s.
Since calling out for help last week, the FBI has received over 1,000 tips, prompting them to create a website to collect submissions, New Scientist reported.
Officials hope that someone has a sample of McCormick's code or a similar pattern that they could compare it to.
According to the Associated Press, Olson believes that the answer will come from a non-cryptological source.
