Hello, Web Sleuths community.
After waiting several days to get my account activated, I am finally able to post my first contribution. Earlier in this thread, I saw a number of people suggesting these might be bookie notes. So I have looked into that angle pretty intently, and while I can't rule that out, I feel it is unlikely.
For starters, why write a code such as this and then include the word TOTE in plain text? Seems like any bookie keywords would be coded to avoid attention from police or others who might see the note.
Also, while there does seem to be some logical groupings in the note that could be repetitive enough to represent a sheet listing bets, I don't feel this contains enough detail to represent a realistic betting sheet. And in this format, it would be extremely difficult to score the sheet to determine winners and losers. And this is something any bookie would want to get perfect.
Getting past that, I looked into what sports were active during the last week of his life, and checked if I saw any correlation with the numbers in the notes. Perhaps this was a bookie's collection/payout sheet containing a summary of accounts and amounts won or lost for the week.
Again this is unlikely, as the collections would typically take place on a Tuesday. And from the date surrounding this, it seems this note would be out of date several days later. At least if some of the notes had been collected, it seems some would have been removed, crossed out, or marked as collected. Again, bookies would be very careful about this tracking.
More evidence to me that this is not a bookie's notes. However, taking a look at numbers and scores, I did see some possible coincidences.
For starters, looking at his date of death and when the note would have likely been produced shortly before that, I focused in on the last week or two of June. On June 23, there was an NBA finals game between San Antonio and New York. San Antonio won 96-89. This doesn't appear to me to correlate with any numbers in the note.
Looking at Major League Baseball scores, things get a tiny bit more interesting. On June 23, the St Louis Cardinals (local team) lost to the Houston Astros 8-4. There is an 84 in the note. However, I have not yet found any scores that match the 99 or the 52 in that same week. So make of that what you will. Maybe it's just a coincidence.
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Taking a look at the other page of code, I saw the 71, 74, and 75 lines. And I have a different thought that I haven't seen discussed yet in this thread. (Maybe I just missed it.) This man died in the last week of June, 1999. It's entirely possible these numbers, in that context, could represent 7/1, 7/2, and 7/4 ie dates in the upcoming week. Maybe they refer to upcoming appointments.
Taking the bookie angle again, I looked to see if there could be a sports connection. Maybe they represent upcoming games.
(FLRSE PQSE ONDE 71 NCBE)
Maybe this is FLR = short for FLoRida Marlins. They played an away game on 7/1. They lost 6-3.
(PRTSE PRSE ONREDE 75 NCBE)
Maybe this is another abbreviation he used. PRT = Pittsburgh PiRaTes. They lost a home game on 7/5 which was 5-2. Hmmm a coincidence with the 52 above.
Finally, (CDNSE PQSE ONSDE 74 NCBE)
Perhaps CDN was his abbreviation for the St Louis CarDiNals. They lost a home game on 7/4 17-5.
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Now to address a conspiracy theory that some MLB games are fixed or that some super genius betting group can predict scores in advance for betting, I took at look at the numbers to see if this was a sheet of betting instructions with predicted scores on the above games. What can I say? I was trying to be thorough.
Looking at 26 MLSE 74 SPRKSE 29KCNOB,OLE 175 RTRSE
35 GLE CLGSE UUNUTKEBKRSE PSESHLE
We can see the 17-5 score. The other scores are close to numbers listed, but not an exact match. I don't personally feel this is likely, but just throwing it out to the community since I noticed the data.
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Forgetting sports, I also looked into the one-time pad idea proposed early in the thread. If this is a one time pad in use, that seems extremely unlikely to me. There is way too much repetition for that to be likely in my opinion. What are the odds that NCBE would terminate so many lines randomly using a one-time pad? And the repetition of WLD only seems to confirm that for me. But who knows for sure? Not me.
I can see the thread has been most active among the car enthusiasts at this point, but wanted to share my thoughts anyway.