*Navy veteran Ronald Wayne White lay dead on his kitchen floor for three years before his remains were discovered by police, according to a Dallas County medical examiner.
The Daily Mail reports White’s rent was automatically withdrawn every month from his bank account so management didn’t become suspicious that something wasn’t right until they noticed he had not been using water. They alerted police who made the grisly discovery last week.
“What I can tell you is it is very clear when officers entered [White’s apartment] that he had been there for a while,” a detective with the DeSoto Police Department told WFAA on Thursday.
Whites mother, Doris Stevens, says she hadn’t heard from her son since 2016 and grew concerned when he didn’t answer her calls on his birthday in April 2017
“I can’t hardly cope with it, to be honest with you,” she told WFAA. “I can’t get past three years. … I can’t hardly deal with it.”
“He had been there obviously for some time,” an officer with the DeSoto Police Department confirms to PEOPLE. “There were cobwebs and dead bugs all over the apartment.”
The Medical Examiner determined that there were no signs of foul play and that White’s decomposition “appeared to be over two years old, closer to three.”
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Navy Veteran Found Dead in His Texas Apartment 3 Years After He Died https://t.co/3b5lquaezx
— People (@people) November 22, 2019
“My son would call me at least twice a month,” Stevens said. “He would call me from Egypt. He would call me from the Philippines. He would call me right from Dallas.”
White’s mother couldn’t afford to hire a private investigator after all contact was lost with her son, and her search using his previous addresses turned up nothing. She also claims multiple police departments refused to launch a missing person case because White worked for a defense contractor and traveled often.
“All them days, holidays, I just suffered,” Stevens told WFAA. “Because nobody wanted to help find him.”
“When the medical examiner told me three years, my knees gave away. Three years? And that’s what I can’t get past in my brain,” she recalled. “My biggest question is, how in the world could my son have been dead in that apartment and nobody knows anything?”
Stevens nor White’s adult children were aware that White, who was single, had been living at the location.
“No family member that we know of reached out to us to check on him, to check his welfare,” the officer says. “We’re waiting for answers just to see what [the apartment’s] protocols are, in terms of checking on their residences and what they did.”
In a statement to PEOPLE, the spokesperson for DeSoto Town Center said:
“Mr. White was frequently out of the country and his bills were paid through automatic withdrawals from his accounts,” they continued. “Our maintenance personnel discovered his body when they identified and responded to a service issue at his apartment. We are cooperating with the police as they investigate this incident.”
When asked how White was able to renew his lease each year, the spokesperson added, “All we can determine is that the issues that would normally trigger a welfare check — non-payment of rent, a full mailbox, inquiries from family members or employers or concerned neighbors — did not take place in this case.”
“There was the unusual situation of Mr. White’s rent continuing to be paid automatically and his frequent travel that did not lead to a welfare check at his apartment,” the spokesperson said.
No cause of death has been determined from the autopsy yet, and the officer believes “it’s gonna be pretty hard to do, after three years of decomposition.”
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