[thecodont]

They speculate he was climbing up on top of the cooler and slipped into the crack and got stuck.

Comments following the article posted on SFGate.com (San Francisco Chronicle)

https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/A-supermarket-worker-vanished-10-years-ago-He-14115933.php

note that there are some holes in the story.

It doesn’t make sense that if he left his house in a disoriented and agitated state, after having been prescribed psychiatric medication, that a family member didn’t follow him and bring him home.

It doesn’t make sense that his employer didn’t conduct a more thorough search of his store.

[Rebelbase]

The article I read yesterday noted that employees would climb on top of the cooler when they wanted to ditch work for a while. If they were doing that how come no one noticed the smell?

[HighSierra5]

That article at link said that the employees frequently went up on top of the coolers to get to the storage. Maybe he was having a problem with another employee. Maybe if it was murder an employee of interest ran interference of anyone else looking behind the coolers. The autopsy said no trauma but there are other ways to die that are undetectable,especially after 9 years.

[lightman]

slipped into the crack

or sniffed up the crack.

[mass55th]

"It doesn’t make sense that his employer didn’t conduct a more thorough search of his store."

Especially since the article says "managers told police it was fairly common for employees to come to the store on off days."