Get out your telephone

I haven't figured out exactly how it works yet but I am relatively sure the code requires a telephone.  The only letters that never appear in the entirety of the two pages are Q and Z.  I find that to be too much of a coincidence.  I started writing a computer program on Sunday night to try to decode it using the first possible method I have devised.  Program isn't done yet though and can't work on it at the moment because I have to do the job I get paid to do.  :)

I have been busy but not updating

While I am sure a simple substitution cypher will not work for this I am thinking that grouping letters and then doing some sort of substitution may be the answer. My biggest problem at the moment is exactly how to group things. For instance, I originally thought NCBE was an obvious grouping however I am starting to think that N could just be a breaking character and CBE could be the actual pattern.  Here is one of the pages with a possible coding of repeating characters.  To do some of these I tried to find a pattern first and then find the largest grouping that never appeared apart from each other.  Below is not finished but it is my first pass through.

(MND MKNE? RSE-N-S-M-KNARE)  ( ACSM )?

TFRNE NPKNSE NPRSE RCBRNSE NPRSE INC

PRSE NmRSE ?PRE HLD WLDNCBE (TFXLF TCXL N CBE)

AL-PRPPIT XLYPPIY NCBE m?KSE WLD RCBR NSE PRSE

WLDRCBRNSE NT ??NENT?SE - CRSLE - CLTRSE WLD NCBE

AL WLD NCBETSmE LRSE RLSE UR GLSNE AS N WLD NCBE

( NOPFSE NLSRE NCBE ) NTE GD DMN SEN CURE RCBRNE

( TENE TFRNE NCBRTSE NCBE INC )

(FLRSE PRSE  ONDE   71 NCBE )

(CDNSE PRSE ON S?E 74 NCBE )

(PR+SE PRSE ON REDE 75 NCBE )

(TF NRCMSP SOLE MRDE LUSE TOTE WLD N WLD NCBE )

( 194 WLD'S NCBE ) ( TRFXL )

Video of where he was found

This is the video I used along with the article to pin point the location they found the body.

FBI Seeks Help Cracking Cold Case Code

From 1999: Body found in field puzzles police

This is an article containing information I sued to find the location of where they found the body. I will be posting a link to a Fox affiliate's recent coverage which shows archival footage of the scene.

From 1999: Body found in field puzzles police

My theory so far

I have read many theories on this and a good number of them seem plausible. I believe the numbers are all bus routes. The biggest problem with definitively proving this theory is that I only have access to current bus routes and not the routes that existed in 1999.

Almost all of the numbers found on the notes are bus numbers in the St Louis area. I suspect that this would probably be true of most areas so I had to make more sense of them before I felt comfortable about this. On one of the pages the number 75 appears. On the other page there are a series of numbers which when taken in order are routes that intersect with the 75 route.

Line 10 on the page labeled NOTES has the numbers 36 74 27(9) and 75.
The 27 could be a 29 although that would not work out with the current bus lines. If looking at the bus system map of the area traveling west - east on the 75 line each of these numbers is a bus route heading south in the order listed above.

I have also noticed some patterns which could be streets individual bus routes take although this will take a good bit more investigation on my part.

One additional item I thought of while writing this post was that what look like the letter k could be a symbol denoting a bus turning. That is wild speculation at this point though.

Location the body was discovered

Through some thorough searching of the area and local news footage I think I have found the exact area the body was found. Here is a link to the area on Bing maps

Why am I doing this

Since the FBI has asked for help it seems there are hundreds if not thousands of people trying to crack this code. I like puzzles and I thought it would be fun. I have gathered a lot of data on my theory and thought I should start documenting it. Maybe someone will even see this and leave a comment that helps me break the code. In addition to my overall theory I will be posting any info I find along the way which should help anyone else looking into this code.