Lost Employee Discovered Stuck Behind Supermarket Shelves After Decade-Long Hunt
Few tales rival the grim oddity of Larry Ely Murillo-Moncada’s saga—the worker unearthed behind store fixtures fully 10 years after going missing.
Reports from 2009 indicate Larry was reported vanished on November 28, after bolting from his Iowa home in distress—barefoot in a snowstorm, sans keys or vehicle—and never coming back.
A 25-year-old at the No Frills grocery in Council Bluffs, Iowa, Larry prompted a prompt search, but leads dried up. His loved ones were left with scant comfort, as if he’d simply evaporated.
KETV NewsWatch 7 via YouTube
Per the BBC, family shared that hallucinations plagued Larry then.
“Voices urged him to ‘eat sugar,’” his mother explained through a translator.
“He sensed his pulse racing wildly and figured sugar would calm it.”
Council Bluffs Police Captain Todd Weddum noted Larry’s folks suspected his odd behavior stemmed from meds.
Fast-forward to 2019: a shocking find upended it all.
Credit: Council Bluffs Police Department
Workers dismantling shelves and coolers at his old Council Bluffs store—dark for three years—stumbled on his remains crammed in an 18-inch crevice between a cooler and wall.
The Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation matched DNA from his parents, plus clothes aligning with his last-seen outfit.
The Des Moines Register reported his demise as accidental.
Probe wrapped up that, post-home exit, Larry entered the store, scaled the coolers, then tumbled into the narrow space—doomed to entrapment.
Stuck Behind Fridge For Ten Years 😨 pic.twitter.com/AAcxVd9xCq
— Zack D. Films (@zackdfilms1) August 11, 2024
Sergeant Brandon Danielson pegged it a 12-foot drop, drowned out by roaring freezers: “Noise was deafening—no one could’ve heard.”
“Our minds are reeling after all this time; it’s heartbreaking and agonizing,” Larry’s dad, Victor Murillo, said in 2019.
“They shuttered the place, freezers offline—how did a body linger undetected?”
Eerily, ex-employees recalled flagging foul odors from the units, only for alerts to be brushed off.