TEXAS CITY — A 21-year-old man found decomposing inside his mother’s apartment may have been dead for three or four days, despite an adult protective services caseworker saying she spoke to him the day before he was found.

Police have not determined whether the caseworker actually visited the man this week as she stated.

Preliminary autopsy reports found that Alfredo Garcia Jr., a cerebral palsy patient, died of natural causes, said John Florence, spokesman for the Galveston County medical examiner. The same report stated he had been dead for three to four days when police found his body, based on the stage of decomposition.

Police went to the Sundance Apartments, 3404 Ninth Ave. N., about 5 p.m. Tuesday and found Garcia’s body in a living room chair in the cluttered apartment, Texas City Police Capt. Brian Goetschius said.

“His body was deteriorating,” he said. “There are a lot of questions still out there.”

Police took Garcia’s mother, 46-year-old Thelma Garcia, to the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston for a psychiatric evaluation, Goetschius said. Police and neighbors said they thought Thelma Garcia had spent the last several days in the apartment with her son’s body.

A caseworker told her supervisors she had spoken to Alfredo Garcia on Friday and Monday, said Gwen Carter, spokeswoman for the Region 6 division of Texas Department of Family and Protective Services.

“She saw him,” Carter said. “She said she went out there on the ninth. He couldn’t have been dead. She talked to him Monday. The only thing I can go by is what she and her supervisor tell me.”

Carter said she couldn’t explain why the time of death would differ from the caseworker’s statement.

Carter said the state agency had been monitoring Alfredo Garcia since Nov. 16. On Tuesday, the caseworker talked to her supervisor about the state taking custody of him, Carter said.

The state agency was also working to turn the apartment’s electricity back on, Carter said. Florence said heat in the apartment could have affected the state of the body.

Goetschius said police are investigating the case as a suspicious death. Detectives took several photos at the scene and were speaking with protective services workers, he said.

He declined to say whether police were investigating whether the caseworker actually went to the apartment on Monday. Police are speaking only to her supervisor, he said.

“We’re in the process of getting their information to see what they had,” he said. “Everyone is a little confused.”

Eric Butler, a neighbor in the apartment complex, said he occasionally saw Alfredo Garcia sitting in his wheelchair on the apartment balcony.

“Lately he looked so weak, like he had malnutrition,” Butler said. “He was like skin and bones. I thought he was about to die.”

It would be difficult for the medical examiner to determine whether the man died of malnutrition because the body became bloated after death, Florence said.

Patricia Rodriguez, who lives next door to the Garcias, said she never saw Alfredo Garcia or knew he lived there until apartment managers told her within the last week. She and Butler said they frequently saw Thelma Garcia get inside a nearby Dumpster and bring empty bottles, used mops and trash bags into her apartment.

Rodriguez said earlier this week gnats and other bugs were swarming outside her neighbor’s door.

“I said, ‘I think someone died,’” she said. “I didn’t know she had a son. I thought she was dead.”