Metal Anarchy

Kara Murray, an ex-girlfriend of Tactosa vocalist Kyle Weeden, has accused him of sexual assault and manipulation. The alleged incidents were said to have taken place in 2021.

Murray issued the following statement:

“kyle weeden of tactosa manipulated and sexually assaulted me from march-april 2021. i was coerced into sexual acts (one time under the influence of alcohol), verbally abused, and was manipulated.

at the time, kyle was 23, and i was 19. from the very first date, i was coerced into having sex with kyle. immediately, it was rough and aggressive.

he would often “open up” to me, admitting how he had manipulated other girls he dated, and how badly he had “fucked up” his last long term ex.

on one occasion, he raised his voice and yelled at me for wiping a tear on his shirt after i yawned. it was some hardcore shirt and he was upset at me because “they don’t make this shirt anymore”.

another night we had decided to drink, i had an entire tall boy can of some beer (i don’t drink often now, and i did even less back then), and was definitely feeling tipsy. we had started to kiss which i was okay with. he then asked if i wanted to go upstairs (to his bedroom, we were downstairs on the couch), and i told him no. i told him no. he wanted to kiss more, i was okay with kissing. he started to touch me more. then he asked again, if i wanted to go upstairs. given he had just raised his voice at me a few nights prior, and my impaired judgement from being intoxicated, i agreed, and i went upstairs with him. i felt ashamed walking up those stairs, like i was letting another man take advantage of me and it was my fault. i could have said no again but i was scared.

only about 2-3 weeks into our relationship, kyle broke up with me, claiming he wasn’t ready for a relationship, but really it was because his ex was coming back into town. i guess they tried to make it work but they didn’t (i wonder why), because a week or two later, he was back to sliding into my DMs.

he then told me he had slept with his ex, and realized he wanted to be with me instead. while we were broken up, i had also hooked up with my ex, so it wasn’t something i was upset about in the moment. i just figured we were even then. but in hindsight there’s definitely a difference in breaking up with someone to hook up with your ex, and hooking up with your ex after you get dumped. but i digress. we decided to meet up at ihop to talk about whether or not we wanted to continue a relationship, and on this “date” i made it clear i wanted to hold off on sex until we work on the relationship, and until i felt like we had more trust. in the car on the way back to his place, he told me he felt like he was developing “serious feelings” for me. i’m sure you can guess what happened after getting back to his parents house, probably less than 2 hours later.

atop the obvious sexual assault and manipulation, he generally just treated me like shit. he went with me to get my belly button pierced and complained that i had squeezed his hand too hard and he “felt bad for whoever had to be there when i gave birth”. i have a needle phobia and i almost fainted.

the relationship ends a few weeks later, again on the premise that he isn’t ready for a relationship. i then open up to him about him coercing me into sex, he deflects and tells me to “remember the good times we had”. i wish i still had screenshots but i deleted all of our messages (as one does when they’re trying to move on from an abusive relationship).

what makes me say something now, over two years later, after i have moved on and now have the best partner i could have ever wished for? obviously it takes time to step back from a situation to realize the magnitude of the abuse going on, but when we broke up, tactosa had like 25 monthly listeners on spotify and i thought blocking him and the band would be enough to put it behind me and move on. as they’ve become a little more well known in the scene, i’ve had to block, unfollow, and lose friends over trying to distance myself from him. i get ads for his band. bands i used to enjoy support his band. i cant escape it on any platform. it’s hard for me to heal from my trauma when i’m constantly exposed to it.

i’ve also been scared to speak up, scared that no one will believe me without “receipts”. scared that he will try to contact me. that he’ll try to deny it. i’m not scared anymore. you can not believe me, he can deny it, but i know, and he knows, what happened. and at the end of the day he’ll get the karma coming to him.

i’m not speaking up about this to “cancel” him or the band or whatever, i just want everyone who interacts with me to know that your support for him or the band will result in me no longer associating myself with you. at this point i’ve grown numb to losing people over this. just do us all a favor and block me now.”

Weeden has since commented on the allegations in a since-deleted post:

“Hey everyone. Recently I have been made aware of some pretty serious allegations against me. As I’m sure you can imagine I wanted to take my time to gather all the info and make a sincere statement. A post has been made by my ex girlfriend claiming abuse, specifically manipulation and coercion. During our three week relationship I treated her disrespectfully by ending our relationship to get back with my ex and being unclear about where she stood with me. She is a human being with feelings and I acted selfishly. In her statement she mentions how once, although she gave consent, she felt as though she did not have the space to revoke it. The final time I ended our relationship, which was the last time we spoke, she was understandably upset, but at no point during our final exchanges did she express these things to me. She just stated that she had felt used and disregarded. She makes it clear that she has no evidence to support any of this and neither do I. She has made it clear she doesn’t want to hear from me and I respect her wishes. I’m sorry for my actions and to anyone affected by them.”