For years, no one knew what had happened to an Iowa man who stormed out of his home, barefoot into a blizzard. Now, a disturbing simulation is shedding light on the grim reality of how his body ended up trapped behind a supermarket refrigerator for nearly a decade.
About 6:15 p.m. on Nov. 28, 2009, Larry Ely Murillo-Moncada ran barefoot out of his Council Bluffs, Iowa, home and vanished into the snowstorm raging outside.
According to CNN, the 25-year-old had returned from a Thanksgiving shift at the supermarket he worked the day before, and was “acting irrationally.”
“He said somebody was following him, and he was scared,” Murillo-Moncada’s mother said through an interpreter, per The Florida Times-Union.
The next day, the supermarket worker was reported missing.
Flyers soon appeared around the city, calls were made to friends and relatives, and police began searching for clues, but despite their efforts, no clear leads surfaced.
As weeks passed without answers, the case gradually went cold, leaving his loved ones wondering what had happened to the young man who had vanished.
Badly decomposed human remains found
For nearly a decade, the mystery surrounding Murillo-Moncada’s disappearance remained unresolved. Then, in 2019, workers clearing out a long-vacant supermarket in Council Bluffs made a discovery that stunned both investigators and the local community.
The building had once housed a No Frills Supermarket, where Murillo-Moncada had previously worked, and as crews began removing shelving and equipment from the store – which had closed in 2016 – they uncovered human remains wedged behind one of the large refrigerator units.
Mom had idea he ‘never left No Frills’
“This is the first time in my career that I’ve seen a body in this type of condition,” said Sgt. Brandon Danielson, who worked on the case in 2009.
Though the body was too badly decomposed for visual identification, Danielson said he immediately believed it could be Murillo-Moncada.
DNA testing later confirmed the remains belonged to the man who went missing in November 2009.
“The mother had an idea that he has never left No Frills,” Danielson told KETV Omaha. “I don’t know how she came up with that idea, but [his parents] were pretty upset.”
‘People found in walls’
The discovery revealed a tragic detail that few could have imagined. His body had remained inside the supermarket for years while the store continued operating, and after it closed its doors.
“You don’t hear about these types of cases, people found in walls,” Danielson told KETV Omaha. “We have missing person cases all the time, but this is just unique.”
Though Murillo-Moncada wasn’t scheduled to work the night he disappeared, investigators said he returned to the store after leaving his home and climbed on top of the large cooler units, something employees were known to do while restocking shelves. At some point, he appears to have slipped and fallen – headfirst – roughly 12 feet into the narrow gap between the refrigerators and the wall.
Once trapped in the tight space, escaping would have been nearly impossible.
‘So loud’
And even if he had called out for help, the chances of anyone hearing him were extremely slim, according to Sgt. Danielson, who explained the constant noise from the refrigeration system likely drowned out any attempts to call for help.
“It’s so loud, there’s probably no way anyone heard him,” he said.
An autopsy later found no signs of trauma, and authorities concluded that Murillo-Moncada’s death was the result of a tragic accident. The case has since been officially closed and classified as an accidental death.
‘Cries for help were drowned out’
As details of the case became public, a haunting simulation began circulating online showing how the accident may have unfolded.
The reconstruction demonstrates how someone could slip into the narrow gap behind the appliance and become trapped in a space that was almost completely hidden from view.
“He was seriously trapped but his cries for help were drowned out, by the noise of the coolers” explains the clip’s creator on X. “It was 10 years later that contractors began working on the now abandoned supermarket.”
The clip ends with the disturbing image of a skeleton, “wedged behind” the freezers.
What are your thoughts on the simulation of what may have happened in this tragic case? Share your opinion in the comments and pass this story along so others can join the conversation.
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