Left to right: Joshua Cullen and a car said to belong to him carrying a wheelbarrow and a ladder (Lee County Sheriff”s Office).
A Florida man has been arrested for an unsettling crime involving his deceased mother. Authorities say Joshua Kuke Cullen, 47, disposed of her body by wrapping it in a rug and discarding it in a river, all to gain access to her finances.
Cullen faces charges of neglecting an elderly person and abusing a dead human body, as announced by officials from both Lee and Charlotte counties.
“A report of a missing person led us to uncover a disturbing tale of deceit and utter disrespect for human life,” stated Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno in a press briefing.
The investigation began on May 25 when deputies responded to a missing person alert at the woman’s residence in North Fort Myers. Interestingly, it was Cullen himself who filed the report.
According to the authorities, Cullen expressed various concerns about his mother’s whereabouts. Claiming she had been out of sight since March, Cullen suggested to investigators that she might have suffered a stroke, been hospitalized, or even eloped with an unidentified wealthy man.
To hear Cullen tell it, he had not seen his mother since March. The defendant allegedly went on to tell investigators his mother had suffered a stroke, was hospitalized, or had possibly run off with a wealthy man who Cullen could not identify, the sheriffs’ offices said.
The search for the woman began in earnest.
But alarm bells quickly emerged.
Investigators allege Cullen had been draining his mother’s financial accounts — and had even purchased an RV.
Then, on May 29, Lee County detectives learned that Charlotte County deputies had discovered human remains near the Peace River.
“A group of boaters saw something large submerged in the water,” Lee County Sheriff Bill Prummell said in the combined press release. “We responded, and located a woman wrapped in carpet, bound tightly and weighed down by cinder blocks and chains.”
The body was the defendant’s mother. Cullen reported her missing on Memorial Day, but she had been dead for weeks, authorities say.
“These remains were wrapped in blankets rolled inside a rug and bound with tape,” Marceno said during the news conference.
After the grim discovery, investigators began searching the area near the river — and found what they believe to be tools used by the defendant to try to surreptitiously dispose of his mother’s corpse.
“Some of the things they collected were a wheelbarrow, blue straps, and a ladder,” Prummell said during the news conference.
Law enforcement shared traffic surveillance photos that purport to show some of the items used in the failed plot. In those photos, the wheelbarrow and ladder are strapped to the top of a car said to belong to Cullen. Investigators said they created a timeline based on the images to tie the defendant to the scene of the crime.
“We believe the woman died inside the home, and Cullen continued living alongside her deceased body,” Marceno added. “This sorry excuse for a man left this woman exposed, discarded, and alone while he selfishly carried on with his life.”
On Tuesday, Cullen was arrested at the Hitzing Avenue home he previously shared with his mother in the Twin Pine Villages neighborhood. The defendant is currently detained in the Lee County Jail on $50,000 bond. He is slated to appear in court on July 6.
