Larry Ely Murillo-Moncada disappeared November 28 2009, Council Bluffs, Iowa. Body Discovered January 2019, No Frills Supermarket, Council Bluffs.

Revised September 2024

In 2009, 25-year-old Larry Ely Murillo-Moncada of Council Bluffs went missing whilst working for a supermarket in Iowa. Ten years later, a badly decomposed body was found by workmen between a gap of about 18 inches (45cm) between the 12-foot-high coolers and a wall. It appeared to investigators that Larry had been trapped and died there. Shoppers in the supermarket would have likely smelt his body purifying for weeks as they bought their groceries, and some had actually reported a strange stench to the manager, but he had dismissed their reports as being caused by a dead rat.

Was Larry’s strange death just a weird freak accident?

The disappearance of Larry Ely Murillo-Moncada

Murillo-Moncada was reported missing the day after Thanksgiving in 2009 after he left his parents' house barefoot after an argument during a blizzard while suffering hallucinations. He left behind his keys and car. He failed to return home and was never heard from again.

His mother said through a translator in 2009, "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.”

Discovery of a body in the No Frills Supermarket in Council Bluffs

The body of a male was discovered in January 2019 when workers were removing shelves from an abandoned No Frills Supermarket in Council Bluffs that had closed in 2016. It appeared the corpse had been there for several years, and it was so badly decomposed that it was not positively identified until July 2019, 6 months after it was found.

The Iowa State Crime Lab identified the body as that of Larry Ely Murillo-Moncada. Investigators said they believed that Murillo-Moncada, who worked at the store, climbed on top of the coolers in late November 2009 and fell into a gap of about 18 inches (45cm) between the 12-foot-high coolers and a wall. He was trapped and died there, and passers-by in the supermarket had walked by him, collecting items from the coolers for seven years.

The blue clothing found on his body in January matched the description provided by his parents.

Former store employees said that it was common for workers to rest on top of coolers, where the supermarket would store goods. Police said that an autopsy found no signs of trauma, there was no evidence of foul play and that the case had been closed as an accidental death.

The store was less than a mile from where Larry lived. Investigator Sgt Brandon Danielson said, “You don't hear about these types of cases, [like] people found in walls, especially in this area. "We have missing persons all the time, but this is unique”. Sgt Danielson was assigned the original missing persons case back in 2009.

Danielson said that Larry’s mother had long suspected he may have been in the store when he went missing. "The mother, she had an idea that he had never left the No Frills.”

What happened to Larry Ely Murillo-Moncada?

The authorities said Larry had fallen in the gap between the wall and the coolers, and it was an accidental death. Did he immediately die? It seems strange that he could not call for help with shoppers so close by. Investigator Sgt Brandon Danielson said noise from the coolers probably muffled his cries for help, but is this feasible? They would need to be very loud coolers. If it were death by dehydration, it would have taken several days.

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Sources

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/body-found-behind-cooler-abandoned-grocery-store-man-who-went-n1032671

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-49078557

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7274293/Remains-man-supermarket-freezer-10-years.html