(CNN) Ronald Wayne White's body was found during a routine check of apartments where tenants did not appear to be using water, according to police in DeSoto,Texas, a suburb southwest of Dallas.

The Navy veteran was discovered on the kitchen floor of his apartment in DeSoto earlier this month -- about three years after his death, DeSoto Police Detective Pete Schulte said. He added that he believed White was 51 years old at the time of death.

His mother, Doris Stevens, suspected something was wrong after her son stopped responding to her phone calls in 2016, she told the military newspaper Stars and Stripes.

"Now as I look back, all the while I'd been crying about my son in Dallas, my son was dead in that apartment complex and I didn't know," Stevens told the newspaper this week.

Workers at the DeSoto Town Center Apartments were checking on units not using water on November 10 when they forced open his bolted apartment door, according to Schulte.

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