For the last four years, relatives of Cayman Brac resident Mitchell ‘Mitchie’ Ryan have been waiting for justice for the 56-year-old who was killed in a hit-and-run collision.
As they marked the anniversary of his death on 22 March, their feelings of loss have been replaced by anger and frustration.
“I feel like he has been forgotten by the public… his friends haven’t forgotten nor his family, but I think that the police system [has] forgotten. They don’t even know where his case is,” Ryan’s younger sister Marcia Scott said in a recent telephone interview.
She said she and her siblings have been waiting for answers as to what really transpired the night their brother was killed.
“It’s been four years now and nothing has been done and every time we enquire, we get a dead end,” she said, adding that the story the family was given around Ryan’s death was not “adding up”.
Ryan was knocked down and left to die at the side of Watering Place Road, near La Esperanza Bar and Restaurant, a short distance from his home.
Claims at the time were that he had fallen asleep by the roadside.
A 28‑year-old female suspect on Cayman Brac was detained in the case back in 2019. She was arrested on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving and was granted bail back then.
In a one-line response to queries from the Cayman Compass, the RCIPS Media and Communications Unit said, “Regarding the Mitchell Ryan case, the police investigation was completed, and no criminal charges were recommended.”
Police said a file has been submitted for a Coroner’s Inquest.
“A date has not yet been set. Once the police are advised of a date, the Cayman Brac station will inform the family,” police added.
A loving brother lost
Scott said her brother did not have children of his own, but loved all the kids in his family.
She said he was someone who always looked out for others and was willing to lend a helping hand.
“He was a very kind, loving person. He was so helpful and considerate. Anybody he would help, not just his family. If you needed something done, he would come and help you. He was a very loving person… very family oriented,” she said.
Scott said her brother deserved better and she is calling on the authorities to act.
“We are very disappointed with our justice system… [we are] fed up with it. We haven’t even gone back to ask anything this year as yet. But we have been to the police, we have been asking… getting no answers, getting nowhere,” Scott said, adding that her family needs closure.
Scott said Ryan had been working in Grand Cayman for two years and returned to the Brac shortly before his death.
Another of Ryan’s sisters, Myra Ryan-Ebanks, lamented the unfairness of her brother’s death, saying that he had been killed on the same day he started a new job, at Scott Development Company.
She said he had been “troubled” in the past and had turned to alcohol following the failure of his marriage.
“But he kind of settled and got his act together,” she said. “He stopped drinking and he got himself a job.”
She said she had been pleased to see the strides that he had made.
“He was so happy and so proud of himself, and I was so proud of him, that he had pulled himself up and he started working again. He was so positive,” she sobbed.
A call the family never expected
Scott said her brother was killed just two days after her birthday, when they had spent time together marking the occasion.
She said Ryan, her sister Myra and herself were “very close because we were the younger siblings”.
Scott recounted the morning she learned that her brother was gone.
She said she was preparing breakfast around 8:30am on 22 March when she looked out the window and saw her brother-in-law talking with her husband.
Just that sight so early in the morning, she said, gave her an uneasy feeling and she thought to herself, “I wonder why he was here?”
Just as she started to question his presence, she said, her phone rang and a family member on the other end asked if she heard that Ryan was killed.
“I said no… that was quite a shock. Someone just called asking me if I heard about it… And then my brother-in-law at the time was telling my husband about it, for him to come in to tell me then, but I had already received the news,” she said.
After the initial call, she said, more messages flooded in as news spread about her brother’s death.
At the time, she said, the family were told that Ryan had been knocked down, but she believes there is more to the story and that it was not an accident.
“The condition that his body was in, it was more than one time that this happened to him. He was run over repeatedly… it wasn’t just a hit-and-run. To us, it seemed like the vehicle did it more than once with intentions to do it,” she said.
Scott said her elder brother went to the scene to identify Ryan.
Both Scott and Ryan-Ebanks said they do not want what happened to their brother to be swept under the rug.
“It’s been too long,” Ryan-Ebanks said.
The truth, they said, needs to come out as many stories have been circulating in the community, including claims that Ryan was involved in a heated dispute at a nearby bar prior to the incident.
The vehicle involved in the incident was seized by police in 2019 and it was alleged that there were attempts to clean the vehicle before it was impounded.
She said the vehicle remains in the police pound, but police have never revealed to the family who owned the car or whether the owner was the driver of the car.
“We need justice for our brother, and it’s no good [for police to keep] holding the vehicle,” she said.
Ryan-Ebanks said her brother was loved in the community.
“He was a very sociable person. He loved family, he loved his friends. When we had his funeral, it was such a humongous outpouring of love for him,” she added.
Anyone with information on this case can call the Cayman Brac Police Station at 948-0331 or send tips via the RCIPS website.
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