Florida man allegedly slashed shopper’s face with box cutter because victim looked like he was born in the 1960s
A man from Punta Gorda, Florida, has been accused of going into a local grocery store and slashing a shopper’s face with a box cutter because the victim looked like he was born in the 1960s — an issue for the suspect.
Ramsey Thomas Lyons, 47, is facing an aggravated battery charge after randomly stabbing a 70-year-old man in Publix on Saturday evening, according to police.
The elderly man told the cops that he was in one of the aisles when he felt as if someone had punched him on the left side of his face, an arrest report reviewed by local outlets revealed. He then turned around and allegedly saw Lyons staring at him with a box cutter in his hand.
He said that when he removed his hands from his face, he saw blood and realized he had been stabbed.
Responding to a report of a stabbing, officers from the Punta Gorda Police Department arrived at the store to find Lyons standing near the entrance with his hands on his head.
Lyons was detained, and he told police he had an undiagnosed mental illness and disliked the “1960’s era.”
When the cops asked why he had a box cutter, Lyons said he went to the store with the intent to murder someone. He told police the elderly man “looked like he was from the 1960’s” and felt like “acing him out.”
“I just pulled it out of my pocket and stuck it in his neck,” Lyons said, adding that he dropped the box cutter down the aisle after the alleged stabbing so the police wouldn’t be alarmed.
Lyons told police he was thinking about attacking someone for the last two days.
“Who would think that when you’re just doing some regular grocery shopping, going about your business, that a stranger would come up and just attack like that? It’s very scary,” Kim Black, who works for a nearby business, told Gulf Coast News.
The elderly man was treated at a local hospital for a laceration that extended from his left cheek near his mouth, down his jawline and onto his neck. He had to get multiple stitches.
Lyons was booked into the Charlotte County Jail and remained there as of Monday afternoon.
He was booked in the same jail for battery charges in 2023 and 2025, according to online records reviewed by The Independent.
“There’s definitely something going on in his mental health that needs [to be] checked out,” one local told WINK News.
