In 2009, Larry Ely Murillo-Moncada was reported missing. Ten years later, his body was discovered behind a refrigerator at a local grocery store in Council Bluffs, Iowa.
Murillo-Moncada, who was 25 at the time he vanished, was reported missing by his parents the day after Thanksgiving in 2009.
Former Council Bluffs Police Capt. Todd Weddum stated that Murillo-Moncada’s parents mentioned their son had run away from home and was acting irrationally, likely due to the medication he was taking at the time.
Despite an extensive search to locate Murillo-Moncada, which included enlisting the help of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the efforts were unsuccessful and he remained missing.
This changed in January 2019.
While cleaning a No Frills supermarket in the area that had closed down in 2016, workers stumbled upon human remains wedged behind one of the store’s fridges.
DNA testing confirmed the body was that of Murillo-Moncada.
The clothes found on the body matched the description from the time he disappeared a decade earlier.
Murillo-Moncada was an employee at the store, and former co-workers noted it was common for staff to climb on top of the fridge units to stock them.
Investigators, finding no signs of foul play, concluded that Murillo-Moncada likely climbed onto the fridge and accidentally fell into the 18-inch gap between the unit and the wall, where he became trapped.
The fridge stood about 12 feet tall and its compressor units produced significant noise, likely drowning out any cries for help he might have made.
His death was ruled an accident.
An unsettling simulation of Murillo-Moncada’s predicament has since gone viral online, illustrating the position in which he became trapped and how the size and noise of the fridge made it impossible to detect him.
Murillo-Moncada’s body remained undetected in the store for ten years, with the market still operating for at least seven of those years.
When Murillo-Moncada was discovered in 2019, Sgt. Brandon Danielson of the Council Bluffs Police Department remarked: “The mother had an idea that he has never left ‘No Frills’. I don’t know how she came up with that idea, but [his parents] were pretty upset.”
According to KETV, Danielson added: “You don’t hear about these types of cases, people found in walls. Especially in this area. So that would be the odd part of about. We have missing person cases all the time, but this is just unique.”