Records: Man accused of rape turned in by his family

A man accused of kidnapping and raping a South Florida nurse had nowhere to go while driving across the state, so he phoned his dad asking for a hotel room. The dad said no to the room and instead turned him in to the authorities, ending the manhunt, newly released records show.

Joel Cossio, 31, forced a nurse into her white SUV early Saturday, taking her to an undisclosed location and sexually assaulting her, the Broward Sheriff’s Office said. He left her at Sawgrass Mills mall and drove west in her SUV, eventually stopping hundreds of miles away in Charlotte County, where he walked into a hotel lobby at 7:11 a.m. the

next morning and phoned his father.

Charlotte County Sheriff’s Deputy Ronald Chandler had been sitting in his patrol car at a gas station at 7:24 a.m. Sunday, when he was approached by a man with billowing dark curls, a hoodie and camouflage pants.

Cossio told the deputy he needed help, was hallucinating and believed that he may have escaped from a Miami area mental facility. He said he had seen Jesus, according to court records in Charlotte County. He is being held in that county until he is moved to Broward.

The deputy asked Cossio how he got to Charlotte County, and Cossio said he rode his bike across and up the state and that he got a flat tire, walking most of the way and called his dad to book him a room at the Holiday Inn Express in Punta Gorda.

Cossio was mistaken: He likely rode a bicycle that got a flat tire but that would’ve been in Weston a day earlier before the alleged attack, which began in the parking lot of the Cleveland Clinic Hospital.

Cossio’s family, in a statement to the South Florida Sun Sentinel over the weekend, said Cossio had argued about not being on his medications for mental illness and left the home early Saturday.

“The family’s thoughts and prayers are currently with the victim, the victim’s family and with Joel,” said the statement.

The Broward Sheriff ’s Office did not go into detail, but it did say that media coverage of the attack over the weekend did lead to a tip being phoned in to the Broward Sheriff ’s Office about the identity of the attacker. When that tip was called in was unclear.

Before the deputy in Charlotte knew any of this, the deputy wrote in his report that he checked if there were any warrants for Cossio and if he had escaped from a mental health facility, according to court records. No such records were found, the report says.

Cossio told the deputy that he is normally a good guy, but he knew he needed to get help, according the court records. He said he was thinking about committing a crime so he could get money for a hotel room.

The report says Cossio explained he has schizophrenia and generally takes his medication but stopped because he did not like the way it was making him feel.

Cossio told the deputy that he wanted help and agreed to go mental health facility under the state’s Baker Act, which allows for people who are believed to be of harm to themselves or others to be committed for a few days.

In the parking lot of the crisis care facility, the deputy was informed that Cossio’s father had called and reported that his son stole a car out of Broward County and had parked it near a hotel in Punta Gorda. Records say Deputy Chandler asked Cossio why his father would say that.

Cossio admitted to the deputy that he took the car and drove to Charlotte County.

According to records, when the deputy asked if he hurt anyone while getting the car, Cossio said this: “Well yeah, maybe a little.”

Cossio