Overview
- Boaters recovered a woman’s body wrapped in carpet, bound and weighed with cinder blocks and chains in the Peace River on March 29, and the Charlotte County medical examiner later identified the remains as the suspect’s mother.
- Deputies took a missing-person report from 47-year-old Joshua Cullen on May 25 after he gave conflicting accounts about his mother’s whereabouts, saying she had a stroke, was hospitalized, or had left with an unidentified man.
- Lee and Charlotte County detectives used license-plate-reader data and matched a wheelbarrow seen on Cullen’s vehicle to one found near the recovery site to place him at the disposal route.
- Cullen was charged with neglect of an elderly person and abuse of a dead human body and held on a combined bond of $50,000 while investigators continue processing evidence.
- Authorities say Cullen accessed his mother’s accounts and removed furniture and belongings from the home, the probe remains active with the cause and exact timing of death unconfirmed, and prosecutors say further charges may follow.