Dead man charged rent for three years before his body was found in apartment

A navy veteran’s mother said her “knees gave way” when she was told about the horrific scenario of her son’s death.

A navy veteran who lived in Texas was dead for around three years before his body was found inside his apartment, officials said.

The body of Ronald Wayne White was discovered on the kitchen floor of his Dallas home by apartment complex staffers checking last week on units not using water, news station WFAA reported.

“What I can tell you is it is very clear when officers entered that he had been there for a while,” DeSoto Police Detective Pete Schulte told the outlet.

Police said 51-year-old Mr White had paid his rent through an automatic withdrawal system linked to his bank account.

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The third-floor apartment was new, and all of the windows had been sealed when he died, authorities said.

Inside his home, there were diabetes medications, which were dated 2016.

“The way he was found, the way the apartment was arranged and so forth, there was zero indication of foul play,” Detective Schulte told WFAA.

Mr White’s family was shocked to learn that he had been dead for three years in the apartment.

“My biggest question is, how in the world could my son have been dead in that apartment and nobody knows anything?” said his mum, Doris Stevens.

“My son would call me at least twice a month.

“When the medical examiner told me three years, my knees gave way. Three years? And that’s what I can’t get past in my brain. I can’t get past three years.”

Mrs Stevens said she became concerned when she was unable to reach him on his birthday in April 2017.

She was unaware that he was living in the complex where he was found dead, and a search of past homes didn’t lead to any clues about his whereabouts, WFAA reported.

Authorities declined to launch a missing persons investigations, citing that he was an adult known to travel, she said.

“All them days, holidays, I just suffered. Because nobody wanted to help find him,” Mrs Stevens said.

She confirmed he suffered from diabetes, though it’s unclear how he died, the outlet reported. Toxicology tests have been ordered to determine a cause of death.

This article originally appeared on the New York Post and was reproduced with permission

Originally published as Dead man charged rent for three years before his body was found in apartment