The man’s remains were found in 2019
Larry Ely Murillo-Moncada, 25, was working at the No Frills Supermarket in Council Bluffs, Iowa when he went missing in November 2009.
His parents reported the man missing after he ran out of the family home in a snowstorm after an argument.
He was not heard from again and Police had no leads on the missing persons enquiry. However, when a team of workers started removing shelves and freezers from the store in January 2019, they found Murillo-Moncada’s decomposing body.
Contractors had gone into the store to remove the fittings and tear apart the freezer unit after the store closed down in 2016.
It was in an 18-inch gap between the freezer and wall that they discovered the body.
Council Bluffs Police Sgt. Brandon Danielson told the Des Moines Register that the 25-year-old instantly came to mind when he heard that a body had been found.
The remains were sent off for DNA testing and compared to DNA taken from Murillo-Moncada’s parents.
An autopsy showed no signs of trauma and the supermarket employee’s death has been ruled an accident.
Authorities believe Murillo-Moncada climbed on top of the freezer, which fellow employees said was not uncommon due to storage facilities up there. It is thought he fell between the gap and became trapped, and that any cries for help would have been drowned out by the sound of the freezer.
Now, a simulation has imagined exactly how that would have panned out.
Whilst some people were sceptical of the story, asking how people didn’t smell the decomposing body, it is completely true, and was widely reported back in 2019.
His mother told local media in 2009 that Murillo-Moncada had fled their house after Thanksgiving while suffering hallucinations.
She said through a translator: “He was hearing voices that said ‘eat sugar.’
“He felt his heart was beating too hard and thought if he ate sugar, his heart would not beat so hard.”
After the discovery of Murillo-Moncada’s remains, investigator Sgt Brandon Danielson said the mum had long suspected that he may have been in the store when he went missing.
“The mother, she kind of had an idea that he had never left the No Frills,” he said.
