A mother and son aboard the MSC Seascape were reportedly caught on camera assaulting a 65-year-old guest.
Kelli Lyn Ryan and her son, Dylan Ryan, sailed with MSC Cruises on October 5. A day after leaving Port Miami, the two passengers from Huntsville, Alabama allegedly got involved in an altercation with a 65-year-old woman.
Reports say that Kelli Lyn slapped the senior citizen once before her son struck the same woman multiple times.
In a police report obtained by Alabama’s News 19, the vessel’s deputy chief security officer claimed that the confrontation was captured on camera. It also mentioned that the blows sustained by the elderly woman led to multiple injuries on her face and head.
According to the Miami-Dade Police Department’s (MDPD) report, the confrontation happened at approximately 9:30 pm inside the MSC Seascape’s theater.
Disembarked and Arrested
Dylan Ryan was forcibly disembarked during the vessel’s first port of call in Falmouth, Jamaica for “excessive behavior.”
Though his mother stayed on the ship for the remainder of the cruise, she was promptly arrested on October 12 when MSC Seascape returned to Florida. Upon Kelli Lyn’s arrest, she was detained at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center for battery charges against an individual aged 65 years old and up.
However, Local 10 News cited that Kelli Lyn Ryan was no longer listed on the jail’s database the following Monday, October 14.
It is unclear at this point what they were arguing about, if the mother and son knew the victim before the cruise, and if the mother and son will face further legal consequences.
MSC Cruises hasn’t commented on the incident.
One of many cruise ship incidents
Sadly, conflicts between guests and even crew members lead to legally questionable behavior far too often. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) shared that after sexual assaults, physical assaults were the most common type of crime committed on cruise ships in 2023.
Last September, a guest repeatedly struck a waiter with a glass. Meanwhile, an earlier 2024 sailing saw an argument escalate among women, prompting them to throw chairs and tableware at each other.
