The family of Larry Ely Murillo-Moncada had been searching tirelessly for him after they saw him for the last time in November of 2009: barefoot, scared, confused, and hallucinating, he left his home and walked into a snowstorm, never to have been heard of again.
Only in mid-2019, after almost a decade of not knowing his fate and of keeping some minimal hope that he may still have been alive, Murillo-Moncada’s body was finally found.
He had died and remained behind a cooler in his old workplace, less than a mile away from his home, where he’s concerned parents still longed for his return.
But what happened to him? And how could his body stay in there for so long without being noticed?
Keep reading as we examine ten facts about this everyday tragedy that quietly took place in a No Frills supermarket of Council Bluffs, Iowa.
10 /10 The Background
Larry Ely Murillo-Moncada was born into a family of immigrants from Honduras, where he had been born on August 22, 1984.
They had moved to the United States at an unspecified time after his birth, and he lived alongside his parents in a house at 719 N.
14th Street, in the town of Council Bluffs, Iowa, where he worked at a local No Frills supermarket, a subsidiary of the Canadian chain of discount supermarkets.
Though he had an everyday life, unfortunately, something stood in the way of it staying so: mental illness.
9 /10 Hallucinations And Voices
According to his family and friends, Larry had a mental illness background, which caused him to receive medication.
His mother explained, back in 2009, that when he arrived home from work on November 27, he seemed profoundly disoriented.
Like any concerned mother, she took him to a doctor, where he has prescribed a new medication that didn’t impact him well.
A friend of the family explained: “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.”