A man who vanished in 2009 has been found behind store shelves at the supermarket where he once worked. His name was Larry Ely Murillo-Moncada, and he was only 25 when he disappeared from his home in Council Bluffs, Iowa.
His parents said he left their house upset and barefoot during a blizzard, leaving behind his car and keys. They told reporters he had been hearing voices and was afraid his heart was beating too fast. His mother said: “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.”
Police said Larry may have been reacting badly to his medication. He was reported missing, and years went by with no answers. Then in 2019, workers clearing out the closed supermarket made a shocking discovery.
Larry’s body was found wedged in an 18-inch gap between the wall and a cooler inside the same store where he used to work. The Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation confirmed his identity through DNA from his parents. The clothes he was wearing also matched what he had on when he disappeared.
Authorities said there were no signs of trauma and ruled the death accidental. Investigators believe Larry climbed on top of the coolers, fell into the narrow space, and got trapped. The store’s freezers made a constant loud noise, and officers said there was probably no way anyone could have heard him.
His father, Victor Murillo, told local news: “Our heads are spinning, finding this out after so many years, and it is distressing, it makes us feel a lot of pain. They closed the building. The freezers weren’t working anymore. So how can a body just be there?”
Former employees and shoppers once complained of bad smells in the freezer area, but the odors were dismissed. Some people online said supermarkets always have terrible smells from trash or dairy, and it might have been easy to overlook.
One wrote: “As a grocery vendor, I can definitely say stores and grocery backrooms are full of various horrible stinks at all times. Sometimes it’s old dairy, sometimes it’s trash, and if there was a dead body in one of my stores, I probably wouldn’t think twice about the smell.”
Others disagreed, saying the scent of a dead body is so strong it would be impossible to miss. Two mortuary workers said the smell is “the worst on earth” and that no store could have ignored it. The case left many shocked that Larry’s body stayed hidden for so long, only discovered ten years after he vanished.
