It was back in the Fall, maybe early Winter, of 2011-2012. I was about 23 years old. I had just moved to Manor, PA and I had met Ryan at another house party a few months before. We both shared a love for music and the metal scene.
I had a friend over - I'll call her C. Well, C and I were just having a few glasses of wine when Ryan had messaged me. I knew he hadn't lived far and I thought he was cool, we were talking just as friends up until this point so I said he could come hang out.
We all just kind of sat on the living room floor of my apartment, I think we played Scrabble or something. He kept being overly sexual and very forward and made a comment about "protection" to which I added the only kind I had was a taser. He wanted me to show him it so I did.
He kept hitting on C and making her really uncomfortable, I did tell him too cool it or maybe leave if he was gonna keep making her feel weird. He stopped for a little then decided to taze her in the leg saying "I bet you liked that" she ended up leaving right after. I know she didn't realize and feels bad now, but at the time it put me in so much danger leaving me alone with him.
After she left I had asked him to leave because I was tired, he said he was gonna be heading out soon but then grabbed my taser again and said "oh, come on. It'll be OK."
He then proceeded to threaten me with it and grab me into my room where he assaulted me telling me "just relax, you like this."
I've seen this man continue to climb to the top and threaten and continue to assault women. I've been terrified to come forward or say anything, I even was asked to leave me as "Jane" in this post, however I feel like in order to protect any more women from getting hurt, they need to be warned about this guy. He preys on young women and he's renting out apartments to women. I don't think anyone should ever feel safe.
When I was 18 years old (2010), I met Ryan Dowden at a Keynote Cafe show. He added me on Facebook, we swapped numbers because it was "easier", and he offered to give me music scene advice if I was cool grabbing dinner with him. I didn't know any better. He picked me up, dragged me around to multiple locations (including Plato's Closet where he tried on girl pants and tried pulling me into the dressing room "jokingly"), and inevitably we ended up at a bar/restaurant where we ran into a friend of his. The entire time up to and including at the restaurant, Ryan was being aggressively flirty, trying to touch me, making comments about my body. When we left, he pinned me against his car door and tried to kiss me. His friend saw, came out, and offered to drive me home. I let him - this stranger - because it felt safer. Ryan went on to tell MULTIPLE people we slept together. Bruised ego. I called him out on it, he offered a non-apology and then asked to see my "bewbz".
Same year, I got invited by the stranger, who was now my friend, to visit mutuals in McKeesport. Its when I was introduced to "the McKeesport house". 4 men were in an attic bedroom watching a movie, I was the only girl. One of the guys was erratic and locked me in a walk in closet thing, with him, so he could "show me his ninja stars". I feared for my life, started freaking out, obvs. Ryan stood on the other side of the door, laughing. My friend and the other guy are the reason I got out, and we left. Whole ordeal couldn't have lasted 2 minutes, but it clearly stuck with me.
3 years later, he texted me telling me, point blank, his life was "miserable", but 100% of his problems would be solved if I slept with him. Didn't happen.
A year after that, I played an acoustic set with my partner at the NEW Keynote, where his band was playing. He, on mic, pointed to a girl and asked her age. She said 16. He said, and I quote, "I'll wait, but we don't have to if you don't want to". It was the last time I attended any event where I knew he would be in attendance.
This is NOT mentioning "casual hangouts" with mutuals where he showed up and tried to get handsy, with myself and others. This is NOT mentioning how he heard me sing and tore my voice apart, but said my mouth was good for other things. This is NOT referencing his "pageant", offering to waive presales if my band wanted to book him so long as I "made out with him backstage in between sets". This is the tip of an iceberg.
I have NEVER been silent on my dislike of this man. I have also never been in a room with fellow women involved in Pittsburgh music and NOT met a fellow survivor, for lack of a better term. More friendships have started over what he did to myself and the other party than I care to count, because ONE is too many.
This man has a CHILD. He runs a BUSINESS (Shellshock Multimedia). He is now invading the Pittsburgh theater space. We cannot allow this human any more access to prey than he already has. See something, say something.
Trigger warning+the following individual was a minor at the time of these messages.
"He was so aggressive about hitting on me, I made it beyond clear that I wasn’t interested and even when he was seeing someone he kept trying to get me to meet him even at ridiculously odd hours. At one point he saw someone’s dating profile and started telling me it was me and said it was definitely my face when I made it clear it wasn’t, like he caught me lying to him about being single as if I owed him something."
In 2010 I started to going to the “McKeesport House” with coworkers and friends. I was 16 years old. During one of the parties in the next few months I had gotten to know/see Ryan around the house.
One night after heavy drinking I found myself in the upstairs attic with Ryan and another man who was over 18. Ryan told me to put my hair in pigtails and tell me I was hot. He then grabbed my hair and forced his mouth on mine. I don’t recall how it did not go further, whether someone else walked in or if I excused myself. But I thank my lucky stars it didn’t. I felt the need to share as this was 15 years ago and I still remember it.
I was in my early 20s in the late 2000s (2009ish), just starting to go out to the local bars and clubs in the Mon Valley area. I had known Ryan for years. He was friends or part of friend groups I was also in and attended the same parties and events. We went to the same high school, him being a year or two older.
One night, at the bar with friends, Ryan invited me to his place for an “afterparty”. We were talking about a movie I hadn’t seen, and Ryan insisted on me coming to his house for a screening. We had all been drinking, and I had driven myself to the bar. Not wanting to drive home under the influence (I was still living with my parents and attending college at the time), he let me know he had only had a few drinks throughout the night and felt totally fine to drive. I didn’t want to leave my car parked on the street, but he insisted he would bring me back so I could drive home after I had sobered up a bit.
When we left the bar, he made it seem like others would be coming along. He pushed the afterparty story and invitations he had made to other friends of ours to make me more comfortable with what was about to happen. After arriving at his house, it was clear no one was coming over except me. Realizing I had no way to leave other than on foot, in the middle of winter, I resolved to just get through the movie and get home.
Giving Ryan Dowden the benefit of the doubt was an epic mistake. He put on the movie and asked to cuddle on the couch. Within minutes of the movie starting, he began to initiate sexual contact. Under the influence of alcohol and pressure to “give him what he needed”, he used coercion, manipulation, and outright lies to break down my resolve.
He also took the abuse a step further by pushing the idea of anal penetration due to not having a condom. I was not comfortable at all with the idea, and verbalized that to him. He again used coercion to push his agenda, and I unfortunately consented hoping the assault would soon end and I could leave. At this point, I was stone cold sober, beyond ready to get out and never see him again.
After the assault, he went back to the couch, sat down, and proceeded to laugh his way through the rest of the movie while I sat on the floor and tried to process everything that had just happened to me. After the movie ended, I asked him to take me back to my car so I could go home. He did return me to my car, the whole time acting like we were buddies and would hang out again soon.
I never saw him again, by choice, after that night. I never felt comfortable telling my friends about his abuse because of shame and embarrassment. He also knew ALL of my guy friends, which felt like a loss I couldn’t bear at the time. Ryan is very sick, and yet very charismatic at the same time. He has used his connections whether real or fabricated, knowledge of the music scene, and overall mass of friends and acquaintances to hunt women and girls for over 2 decades. It’s time for that to end.
I ended a long term relationship toward the end of 2018, which inevitably triggers an onslaught of DMs from men shooting their shot once they realize a woman is available. Ryan was one of those guys. He messaged me asking me to go to dinner, which I declined, but the conversation continued. He kept asking to hang out, and eventually I said what the hell, why not? We had been chatting consistently, he seemed nice, and I had a good time during the first couple of hangouts.
I was very clear with him that I was in NO WAY looking for a serious relationship, and if that’s what he wanted, he should look elsewhere. He said he understood, and was fine with that. We had sex consensually a couple of times. He took me to a house party with a group of his friends, and I’m an extrovert who loves people, so I had a great time…but this is where things started to get weird.
He started to get more demanding of my time and attention after this, and said the fact that his friends “thought we were a couple” must be evidence that we should be an actual couple. My message to him never changed, I was in no place to engage in a serious monogamous relationship, and certainly not with someone who couldn’t respect boundaries. I was obviously put off by this, so I was consistently declining invites to hang out. He started either demanding that I come to his place after visiting my mom (they lived in the same town at the time), or stating (not asking) that he was coming to my house at random (I lived by myself at the time). I NEVER went to his place, and I responded to his statements that he was coming to mine by saying “go ahead, I won’t be there, I have other plans”. He was pissing me off at this point.
One night while I was out with friends, we exchanged some texts where he once again was inviting himself over once I got home, which I did not say yes to. I got home and fell asleep on my couch. The next day, I woke up to multiple texts from him indicating that he had driven to my house, looked into my living room window and saw me asleep, and I didn’t wake up when he knocked on the door. He said that I “must have been really high” (I WAS NOT), because I had invited him over?!? (As if I couldn’t read through my own texts and see that I clearly did not say that????)…I was DONE after this, because that’s obviously extremely fucking weird. I wish I would have just fucking blocked him then, but I didn’t, because I honestly didn’t take the threat seriously enough.
I continued declining his invites to hang out, I was barely responding to his texts…and one night, it was VERY cold outside. He texted me saying the heat in his house went out, he took his son to his mother’s house for the night because his house was freezing, but there wasn’t room there for him to sleep (which in hindsight was probably all lies). He asked if he could stay the night at my place…and against my better judgment, I said yes. I felt fucking bad for him, I didn’t want my “friend” to suffer unnecessarily if I could help. I made it clear that this would be a platonic sleepover, I’m going to sleep and I have work in the morning. He came over and we went to sleep without any weirdness.
(⚠️This is the part that gets rough, so again, please don’t read this if it might do you harm⚠️)
My alarm went off in the morning, and I started getting out of bed, but he pulled me back. He was aggressively touching all over me, while I was stiff and trying to pull away. I said “no, I have to get ready for work”…and he said “haven’t you ever heard of a quickie?”
He gripped up my hair from the roots, shoved my face into my pillow, and he raped me. Unfortunately, this was not my first rodeo with being assaulted in this way…so I just froze, and waited for it to be over. I got up, got ready for work, we both left my house, and I never saw him in person again.
Of course he continued to reach out to me, I was obviously newly traumatized and did not respond how I would as the person I am today…I would sometimes respond briefly, sometimes ignore him. The last thing he did that was genuinely weird and scary was go to the salon where my mom worked at the time (she’s a hairdresser), and asked for her specifically to cut his hair. He had NEVER gone to her for a haircut prior to this. He posted about it on FB, identified my mom by name, singing her praises and encouraging people to go to her for a haircut (probably the only correct thing he has ever said, because my mom is amazing). I asked her about this, she said he never mentioned me or indicated that he knew me at all. I told her she should never entertain him again. I’m not sure what his goal was, I imagine he thought I would see that post and reach out, but I did not. It scared me to death. He occasionally reached out to me after that, mostly inviting me to see his band or asking if I could participate in marketing bullshit, which I never did.
So I met (Ryan Dowden) on a dating app 10 years ago, I was 28, so not underage at least. I worked at Walmart at the time and I knew by his pic that I had seen him in there before, and thought he was cute enough (he has a friendly face for being such an asshole!), so I responded to him in the app.
Shortly after, he introduced himself while I was at work (I did agree to that, he didn't just show up). He seemed nice. We texted for a bit, and then he ended up showing up again at my work one evening. I went on my break and stood outside talking with him by the front door for a bit. He got very pushy, trying to get me to go to his car with him in the parking lot to have sex. Of course I declined.
After that, he still texted me again, saying crap about how he usually gets what he wants, blah blah. He started asking me for pics, and when I wouldn't send him a picture of my butt, he started negging me and saying crap like I had small boobs (like tell me something I don't know 😂), dumb shit like that 🙄 so my response was basically "ok, we're done here 😂" and he totally back tracked when the negging backfired.
I was looking for a long term, monogamous relationship, and thankfully he was up front that he not only lived with his pregnant ex girlfriend, but that he was actively pursuing 3 other women at the same time as me. So after that and the boob comment, I ghosted him.
He continued to text me on and off for the next idk, 6 months? I didn't answer him at all in that time, but he was VERY persistent. I remember thinking, why tf is this guy still texting me after I've ignored him for months. He gave me bad vibes. I started having one of my male coworkers walk me out to my car at night (I worked until 1am some nights) because I was afraid he'd show up again, because he seemed like the kind of guy that would be angry for being rejected.
Thankfully, he never bothered me again after the months of unanswered texts. I just chalked it up to him being a man whore, but some of these stories on here are scary. My friend sent me this post because I had told her about him years ago, and she ALSO had a story about him. This guy really gets around. Ladies, stay tf away and be safe out there!