Sockweb Frontman’s Fiancé Speaks Out About His Suicide and Domestic Abuse

This morning, we reported that Adam Young, the frontman of father/daughter grindcore duo Sockweb, had hanged himself at 28 years old. In this report was a Facebook post from Young’s mother, who heavily blamed his fiancé–whom she called “Caroline”–for his suicide.

Young’s mother said that Adam’s suicide came after a night where she’s been up until 3am filming Caroline physically harming herself and shaving her head. She claimed Adam was dead due to “the lies that were spun by the same person who pushed him to his death” and “because he loved someone and tried to help her.” She also claimed that the domestic abuse charges filed against Adam had been dropped–which, according to public government records, isn’t true.

Now, Young’s fiancé, who goes by the name Ryden Armani and is an adult cam model, has spoken up about Young’s death in an exchange with our friends at Metal Injection that she personally requested. She asserts that the behavior Young’s family witnessed occurred during a panic attack, and that she and Adam had a loving and stable relationship.

You can read the whole exchange on Metal Injection, but here are some important moments. On the night for whicb Adam was charged with domestic abuse:

The night he was arrested, we were fighting over lies. He was suspicious that I was seeing someone behind his back and that was partially true. I had a friend who I had gotten flirty with, but Adam was very stuck on the idea that it was full blown cheating. Every time I told him it wasn’t, he got angrier. We had gone to the gas station to pick up a few things. When we were getting ready to go into the house, he lost his temper and burnt me with a cigarette. Afterwards, we went inside where he eventually cornered me in the dining room, where he had me by my hair and slammed my head into the wall. I still wasn’t giving him the answer he wanted to hear, so he made me follow him into the kitchen where he opened the oven and told me to put my head inside. When I refused he forced my head down on the open door and continued to interrogate me. When I still didn’t give him what he felt he needed to hear at the time, he reached up and pressed a button on the stove. I panicked and tried my hardest to get from under his grasp, which I eventually did and backed myself into the corner next to the stove. He then grabbed a knife from the holder on top of the stove and held it against my side. He said what the news reports said he had said. He also threatened to cut my face and my nipple. When he finally backed off, he ordered me to go sit on the couch. I was afraid so of course I complied. However I saw the door (which was NOT wide open) and felt like I needed to just run or I was going to die.

After he went to jail, we talked a lot about why that happened. He was recently diagnosed with PTSD due to past trauma and it had just been triggered badly at that point. He said that he never had the intention to hurt me, but that felt like the only logical way to get the truth at the time. He understood why I ran and why I feared for my life. Honestly while I don’t regret getting out at the time, I do regret letting the police get any word of it because they made it so much worse. I didn’t want to see him go to prison for one really awful time that wasn’t entirely under control.

On the video Young’s mother referenced of her hurting herself:

I was having a panic attack. When that happens, I often punch myself. From what I can remember, I was hanging over the toilet vomiting and hyperventilating. I was also begging him to leave me alone and let me deal with it myself although I don’t know if that bit was recorded or not. He wouldn’t go away and it just made it harder and I think I slammed my head into the toilet because I have a very large goose egg. I think there was a point where I realized he was recording and said “of course you’re recording there’s something else you can use against me” which was very irrational, but my state of mind wasn’t rational. I think that’s the only thing that was on the video. Me, a person with severe mental illness, suffering from a panic attack.

On calling 911 after she found Young dead, and her interaction with his family:

I couldn’t contact anyone except 911 because he took both of our phones and put passcodes on them. I don’t know why. When his parents found out, I was sitting on my front porch balling my eyes out while my neighbor talked to me. His mother got in my face and said that I basically needed to get out of the house we lived in together. His step dad, who was open-carrying a pistol on his waist, got directly into my face in a very threatening way, pointed at me, and told me to cut the crocodile tears, that I had murdered Adam, and I needed to get the fuck out of the house immediately. Both of them full well knowing that I had no family out there and the only place I could go was four hours away. The police nearly had to make them leave the scene.

According to Armani, Joanie, Young’s ten-year-old daughter and Sockweb’s singer, has been in the custody of Young’s mother. Armani was also quick to point out that she and Young had met through her cam modeling work.

Obviously, this is all very tragic for everyone involved. Whether Armani was the unstable influence on Adam Young, or whether his family unfairly vilified Armani in a quest for answers as Armani suggests, remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, our hearts go out to Armani, Young’s family and friends, and most of all Joanie.