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Tragedy in a Tight Spot — The Case of Larry Ely Murillo-Moncada
Struggling with his mental health, the grocery store worker left home and never returned
Larry Ely Murillo-Moncada ran into the night, upset from a fight with his parents and still “disoriented” after a Thanksgiving shift at No Frills Supermarket in Council Bluffs, Iowa.
The snow gave him a blanket of anonymity as he fled without shoes, socks, keys or a car over the 2009 holiday weekend. His chest throbbed, caught up in both the storm and the argument.
Murillo-Moncada had been experiencing paranoia and confusion when his parents took him to the doctor, who prescribed him antidepressants medication to no avail.
“He was hearing voices that said ‘eat sugar,’” Maria Stockton, a friend of his parents, Victor Murillo and Anna Moncada, said to the media. “He felt his heart was beating too hard and thought if he ate sugar, his heart would not beat so hard.”
He was reported missing, but the intuition of his loved ones always pointed towards a safe space, somewhere their son could go for time away from the world — and away from his thoughts.
From a Honduran family legally in the U.S. on work permits, Murillo-Moncada, 25, had worked at No Frills for five years…
