Police Report Missouri Factory Employee’s Death Inside Industrial Oven

A Guatemalan national working under an alias was found dead inside an industrial oven at a cereal plant in Missouri last week, authorities say.

The Perryville Police Department reported that Nicolas Lopez Gomez, 38, who was operating under the alias Edward Avila, was found by officers, emergency medical services, and firefighters. 

Officers were sent to the Gilster-Mary Lee Perryville Cereal Plant for a man “stuck in an industrial oven that was shut down,” police said. By the time they got to Gomez, he was already dead. 

The Perry County coroner was called in shortly after to assist.

A Gilster-Mary Lee truck sits outside the Perryville Mix Plant on Old St. Mary’s Road in Perryville, Missouri. The cereal plant is right across the street. (Google Maps)

Employment office for Gilster-Mary Lee locations in Perryville, Missouri. The company’s cereal and mix plants are right across the street from each other on Old St. Mary’s Road.  (Google Maps)

Gilster-Mary Lee Corporation operates 11 locations across three Midwestern states, its website says. The company has been in operation for 125 years, manufacturing “safe, quality food products” that are sold under private labels and by food service companies. 

In Perryville, the company’s cereal and mix plants are right across the street from each other on Old St. Mary’s Road, Google Maps shows.