Body Found After Almost 10 Years

[Cruor]

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...rs/1801273001/

Can someone please explain to me how the smell wouldn't have been noticed and the body found in a week? I mean there are cases of a person dying in an apartment and the next door and downstairs/upstairs nieghbor can all smell it. If a body dies in a car the smell is so bad it actually like merges with the car and the car is destroyed. He fell BEHIND the coolers.... its warm back there (exhuast) so should have stunk all the more. I can't find an explanation of how this is possible, this story baffles me.

[GreenJesus]

Don't let this distract you from the fact that Epstein didn't kill himself.

Anyway, apparently there was a 12 foot drop behind the coolers and I'm guessing the coolers blow fresh air in front of it. Therefore the smell from below would never carry? Idk.

[Cruor]

Don't let this distract you from the fact that Epstein didn't kill himself.

Anyway, apparently there was a 12 foot drop behind the coolers and I'm guessing the coolers blow fresh air in front of it. Therefore the smell from below would never carry? Idk.

There is a gap to allow the coolers to vent. Unless someone can correct me, they would be blowing warm air onto the body. The smell should have been putrid, and made 1/2 the store unbearable.

[Jonnusthegreat]

Damn that website has a good paywall. Can't get past it.

[Shadowferal]

There's a paywall?

[Cruor]

Damn that website has a good paywall. Can't get past it.

Google "body found in supermarket after 10 years" and one will let you in, like 10 links.

[Cruor]

As someone who has managed a supermarket I don't . . . I cannot understand this
Yes the coolers would have expedited decomposition and they make so much noise that he probably could not scream for help. But I cannot fathom how no one would smell the corpse or notice the maggots.
Heck coolers need frequent maintenance as well.

Exactly. I mean its just an impossible story... like zombies are more likely. I almost think he was killed eslewhere then later after he was pretty much a mummy thrown back there? I mean that is more possible to me. A dead 30 lb pig can stink up a huge area, and its horrible, a dead human can empty a building, like there is NO WAY this happened the way the story says. Also you bring up a good point, nobody cleaned the filters or anything in that long? (to be fair 7 years, place was closed for 3) I mean maybe we know why it closed now, maybe everything broke and they just said fuck it.

[Cruor]

Maybe the supermarket closed down soon after this guy died there and they only found him now because it took this long for someone to buy the space?

according to the story he went missing in 2009, store closed in 2016, and then they were taking it apart in 2019, so I assume he was there rotting for 7 years.

[The Butt Witch]

Nobody cared, and being a shop, people thought it's some rotten food somewhere or something.

[Biochem92]

Don't let this distract you from the fact that Epstein didn't kill himself.

Anyway, apparently there was a 12 foot drop behind the coolers and I'm guessing the coolers blow fresh air in front of it. Therefore the smell from below would never carry? Idk.

The cold air from the coolers also acted as a preservation factor that would diminish the rate of decay of the body, This couple with what you said is likely the answer.

[Yeti Glanchi]

Kitty litter absorbs scents very well ... you could , hypothetically , stuff / hide / conceal bodies in any small space and surround it with massive amounts of kitty litter and you would not smell it after the body got to the horrible decomposed state

If John Wayne gacy covered all of the bodies he stashed in his house with a looooot of kitty litter , he probably would have avoided detection a couple of months longer than he did ( before people were making mention of the stenches )

[Cruor]

Nobody cared, and being a shop, people thought it's some rotten food somewhere or something.

I don't think you understand how bad a dead human smells, and how powerful it is. Google "what does a dead body smell like?" There is one website that has stories from people who have had to deal with it. One guy had a job cleaning up after dead bodies, he said with one he had to go into a house where some old woman had been dead for a month in summer, it was so bad the smell penetrated his mask filters.

Also.... good god people, look up how a fridge or AC unit of any kind work... they have coils, it doesn't magically make things cold, it vents the hot "waste" air out the back.

[Skulltaker]

Damn that website has a good paywall. Can't get past it.

There's a paywall?

Body found behind cooler at Iowa supermarket was employee who vanished 10 years ago
Ian Richardson Des Moines Register
Published 2:11 PM EDT Jul 23, 2019
DES MOINES, Iowa – A man whose dead body was found at a former Council Bluffs supermarket in January has been identified as an employee who disappeared 10 years ago.

Authorities on Monday said they had identified the man as Larry Ely Murillo-Moncada, of Council Bluffs, who was 25 years old in November 2009 when he was reported missing.

The Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation identified him using DNA collected from Murillo-Moncada's biological parents. An autopsy showed no signs of trauma to Murillo-Moncada, and the death has been ruled accidental.

The decomposing body was discovered the morning of Jan. 24 as contractors were removing the former No Frills Supermarket in Council Bluffs. Police at the time said the body appeared to have been there for years.


Larry Ely Murillo-Moncada was reported missing in 2009.
Special to the Register
The grocery store has been closed for about three years, said Sgt. Brandon Danielson with the Council Bluffs Police Department.

Police say that Murillo-Moncada's parents reported him missing Nov. 28, 2009, when he became upset and ran out of their home. He was 25 years old at the time and was employed at No Frills Supermarket at the time of his disappearance.

"It was a snowstorm at the time," Danielson said. "He left with no shoes, no socks, no keys, no car."

Danielson said Murillo-Moncada was not scheduled to work at the time he would have entered the supermarket, and management said it was not uncommon for employees to enter and exit the store when they weren't on their shifts.

Police said former employees at No Frills Supermarket said it was common for workers to be in the space on top of the coolers, which was used for storage. Investigators believe Murillo-Moncada went into the store after leaving his home and climbed on top of the coolers, where he fell into a gap measuring about 18 inches between the back of the cooler and the wall and became trapped.

That's about a 12-foot fall, Danielson said. The noise of the freezer units also could have made it difficult to hear any cries for help, he said.

"It's so loud, there's probably no way anyone heard him," he said.

Contractors found Murillo-Moncada while tearing apart the freezer units, he said. Danielson, who worked the missing person case nearly a decade ago, said Murillo-Moncada was the first person who came into his mind when the body was found in the wall.

Greetings from Germany.

I don't think you understand how bad a dead human smells, and how powerful it is. Google "what does a dead body smell like?" There is one website that has stories from people who have had to deal with it. One guy had a job cleaning up after dead bodies, he said with one he had to go into a house where some old woman had been dead for a month in summer, it was so bad the smell penetrated his mask filters.

Also.... good god people, look up how a fridge or AC unit of any kind work... they have coils, it doesn't magically make things cold, it vents the hot "waste" air out the back.

As for masking the smell, we use peppermint oil scented creme under our nostrils at the hospital when we do autopsies, and even that doesn't mask it all.

That greatly depends. In general, yes, decaying bodies smell horrible. Not only human bodies, decaying meat in general. If you'd like a notion of how bad that smells, take the cheapest cut of meat you can find and leave it out in the open, in a Ziploc bag, for a few days, preferably a warm place. Open the bag, and enjoy. Add to that that the body already holds decaying material in the form of fecal matter... You get the picture.

It all depends on how warm the space behind the cooler is, how the ventilation works, the layout, and so on. I would assume that there is a way to move the hot air to the outside, since you generally speaking don't want to much heat inside your building, either. That's just asking for mold. The hot air is generally vented outside, and I'd assume that that leads to the back of the shop, and there is usually one item back there that people would pin the smell on - the garbage. If you've ever walked by a supermarkets garbage disposal in summer, that smell can be horrible aswell.

Anyway, after a few months, very little of the body remains that could produce an odor. Your tissue starts to liquify after a month you've been dead, add to that the above average heat that quickens the process, the smell might have been gone after a few weeks.

Just tossing around ideas.

[Orby]

Man just imagine being trapped there for so long slowly dying and no one hearing you. Unless he died on impact of the fall, it's not really mentioned in the article. But still, damn...

[unbound]

Considering the fall was 12 feet, these are bigger than even most commercial refrigerators. I can only guess that the hot air blowing out the back was being drawn / pushed outside by fans which might be why people didn't notice the smell (or notice enough of the smell to think of decaying human). Additionally or alternatively, when you get to refrigerators that large, the cooling system sometimes sits at the top, not the bottom such as the picture below.

[Skulltaker]

Man just imagine being trapped there for so long slowly dying and no one hearing you. Unless he died on impact of the fall, it's not really mentioned in the article. But still, damn...

Well, after 10 years, there's not much to perform an autopsy on left. He probably died due to dehydration.

[Orby]

Well, after 10 years, there's not much to perform an autopsy on left. He probably died due to dehydration.

Just the though of being trapped there until you die... it's terrifying

[Daedius]

That's just sad...

[Cruor]

So, I was talking to a few people about this, the theory we all have is he was on drugs, he most likely got them from someone at this store. He was most likely confronted there after hours, maybe he owed money maybe he wanted more drugs who knows. Fight breaks out he is killed it the store, put in a box, and put in the back of the meat freezer for 7 years. On closing day, he was simply thrown behind the freezer. 3 years later, a decayed corpse is found. Something like that has to be the answer. There is simply no way a body can decay 6 feet from peoples nose and not be noticed

[MrSandman]

This is one weird story... 10 years? How is that possible?