{"id":294992,"date":"2026-06-03T21:54:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T21:54:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/294992\/"},"modified":"2026-06-03T21:54:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T21:54:08","slug":"florida-man-accused-of-dumping-his-elderly-mothers-body-into-a-river-officials-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/294992\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida man accused of dumping his elderly mother’s body into a river, officials say"},"content":{"rendered":"

A North Fort Myers man is accused of dumping his mother’s body into a river, according to the Lee County and Charlotte County Sheriff’s Offices. <\/p>\n

The sheriffs of both counties announced the arrest of 47-year-old Joshua Cullen at a joint news conference on Wednesday. <\/p>\n

Cullen is accused of transporting his mother’s deceased body from Lee County to Charlotte County, wrapping her in a rug, weighing it down with cinder blocks, and disposing of it in the river. <\/p>\n

“What began as a missing person investigation soon revealed a web of lies, deception, and a shocking disregard for human dignity,” said Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno.<\/p>\n

\"fort-myers-body-dumper-mug.png<\/p>\n

Lee County Sheriff’s Office<\/p>\n

According to a Facebook post by<\/a> the Lee County Sheriff’s Office, deputies responded to a home in North Fort Myers on May 25th to take a missing person’s report from Cullen. The post said Cullen told deputies that his mother had suffered a stroke, was hospitalized, or had left with an unidentified wealthy man, claiming he hadn’t seen her since March.<\/p>\n

As detectives tried to determine where she could be, they learned that the Charlotte County Sheriff’s Office had discovered human remains on March 29th near the Peace River. <\/p>\n

“A group of boaters saw something large submerged in the water. We responded and located a woman wrapped in carpet, bound tightly and weighed down by cinder blocks and chains,” said Charlotte County Sheriff Bill Prummell.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, the medical examiner in Charlotte County positively identified the remains as Cullen’s missing mother. <\/p>\n

Preliminary investigation also connected Cullen to the disposal site, with detectives using license plate reader technology to capture Cullen’s vehicle traveling toward Hunters Creek. Detectives say he had a wheelbarrow secured to the roof, which they later determined was the same one that was found near the woman’s body when it was recovered. <\/p>\n

“We believe the woman died inside the home, and Cullen continued living alongside her deceased body. This sorry excuse for a man left this woman exposed, discarded, and alone while he selfishly carried on with his life,” said Sheriff Carmine Marceno.<\/p>\n

Cullen is facing charges of neglect of an elderly person and abuse of a dead human body. His total bond was set at $50,000, according to the Lee County Sheriff’s booking website.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A North Fort Myers man is accused of dumping his mother’s body into a river, according to the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":192013,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[5507,61200,28,30,29],"class_list":["post-294992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-death","tag-elder-abuse","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=294992"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294992\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/192013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}