HARLINGEN, Texas — A man who said he has damaged nerves in his nose never smelled his wife’s decomposing body in a storage room of their home and thought she had left him, police said.

The couple’s daughter was looking for a cat July 15 when she found Alicia Pilouw’s body in a storage room filled with household items, Eugene Pilouw said. His wife had been gone for three days.

“I never smelled anything and I still don’t smell anything,” said Pilouw, who blames diabetes for his damaged nose. “I thought she had run away from home again — especially after I noticed an envelope with $250 was missing.”

Harlingen police expect to get toxicology test results Monday that will help them determine 50-year-old woman’s cause of death, police spokesman David Osborne said. He said that initial autopsy results were inconclusive.