RedHanded - ShortHand: Dahvie Vanity – Juggalo Enemy #1

Episode Date: August 21, 2026

In 2007, child protection officers in Pinella County, Florida, spoke with a 14-year-old girl who’d been sexually assaulted by a musician she’d met on MySpace. But thanks to their failed investiga...tion, more than 20 preteen fans would suffer the same fate.Dahvie Vanity, frontman of scene kid band Blood On The Dance Floor, spent over a decade using social media to prey on his band’s enormous preteen fan base – seemingly, with absolute impunity.--Patreon - Ad-free & Bonus EpisodesYouTube - Full-length Video EpisodesTikTok / Instagram

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Starting point is 00:00:13 Bon evening. Bonnui. Bonnui. Welcome. Very good. To a short hand. Yep. Don't know what short hand is in French.
Starting point is 00:00:23 Petit hand. What's the French? I used to. Pond. Pond. Ma. Ma. Ah.
Starting point is 00:00:35 Petit ma. Welcome to Petitima. Anyway, we don't have French stuff today for you on. this week's shorthand, but we do have a disgusting YouTube man. Late one Sunday evening in June 2007, a 14-year-old girl, Sarah, not her real name, was sat alone in her bedroom listening to a Christian radio show, where teens ring in and discuss their Christian problems. And Dawson McAllister, the host of said radio show, lent a sympathetic ear to these young Christians and he provided them with Christian advice. That night, Sarah,
Starting point is 00:01:12 long-time listener, first-time caller, decided to pick up the phone and share something on the air. Sarah told McAllister, Dawson McAllister the radio host, a story of how she had been sexually assaulted in her own home just eight days before. The staff working on the show acted quickly, and while Sarah was still on the line, they contacted the police. The following evening, officers arrived at Sarah's home in Pinellas County, Florida.
Starting point is 00:01:39 She was a shy and introverted eighth grader who was regularly bullied at school and spent most of her time on the computer editing photos. So being questioned by police officers terrified her. But Sarah knew she had to tell them what had happened to her, at the hands of a man she met on MySpace, named Darvie. This Darvey had contacted Sarah, saying he was a hairstylist living in Orlando, and that he wanted to give the 14-year-old a new look.
Starting point is 00:02:09 He said he'd even come to her house to dye her hair, if she wanted. Sarah's mother is a single parent working two jobs as a nurse. So one night when she was out on a shift, Darvey paid Sarah a visit. That night, Sarah, who was 14 years old, don't forget, performed oral sex on Darvey. This was Sarah's first ever sexual experience. The 14-year-old burst into tears as she explained to the officers sat in her house how she'd started speaking with Darvie a few weeks before the night in question. She told them how Darvey would end their conversations by telling her how much he loved her.
Starting point is 00:02:49 And she said she'd believed him then, and that she still did kind of now. Heartbreakingly, Sarah's main concern was that she was going to get Darvey in trouble. One of the officers, Captain Kurt Romanosky, a detective within the Crimes Against Children's squad in Pinella County, track down this Darby character through a MySpace page entitled Darby Elite Hair God. Hate him for everything. So MySpace though.
Starting point is 00:03:19 Darby's real name was Jesus David Torres and he was 22 years old. So Captain Kurt, phoned this Torres and in quite an odd move told Jesus David Torres that Sarah's mother wouldn't go after his arrest on the condition that he stopped contacting Sarah altogether. Torres told Captain Kurt that he wasn't aware that Sarah was just 40.
Starting point is 00:03:43 He apologised and promised to cut off all contact. Now let's be clear what the law actually says about situations like this. What Torres did to Sarah falls under lewd and lascivious battery, which means engaging or inciting a minor under 16 years of age to engage in any type of sexual activity or intentionally touching a child in a lustful manner. This we took from like Florida's description of it. It may vary state to state,
Starting point is 00:04:13 but this is what Florida says and that's where they were. Now just to be clear, lewd and lascivious battery is a second-degree felony, punishable by up to 15 years in prison. Good. Exactly. And it can be more than 15 years if that person already has like another charge or another conviction that links to it.
Starting point is 00:04:30 That feels like the average amount of time. that people kind of get for crimes like that. Absolutely. And claiming not to have been aware of the victim's age is most definitely not an admissible defence in Florida. Just saying, I didn't know she was 14, that's not good enough. But for some reason, Captain Kurt and the police simply let Torres off the hook,
Starting point is 00:04:50 as though he'd been driving around with like a broken headlight or something. They're so, like, casual about it, they're so just want to make it go away. And again, we need to be clear, Captain Kurt wasn't just like a random officer, be a cop who turned up that night. he works in the crimes against children unit. And just to be clear, we are saying Captain Kurt, not Captain Kirk.
Starting point is 00:05:08 Yes, let's be clear. So, however, this is what happened. And for most of you, the name Darby Vanity is not one that is new. So you already know that despite Captain Kurt's stupid behavior here, this definitely wasn't the end of the story. A few months after this incident, the pedophilic hairdresser, Jesus Torres, started a band called Blood on the Dance Floor.
Starting point is 00:05:34 Die. A scene kid electropop Crunkcore group. It's so MySpace that it hurts. It hurts me physically, internally. Yeah. If you want to know more about Crunkcore,
Starting point is 00:05:48 you just need to take yourself over to Urban Dictionary. It describes it as one of the worst genres ever conceived. That is hilarious. Though I do want to understand what it actually is. Crunk core. according to Wikipedia, is a musical fusion genre categorized by the combination of musical elements from Crunk, post-hardcore, heavy metal, pop, electronic and dance.
Starting point is 00:06:14 Oh, and the genre often features screamed vocals, hip-hop beats and sexually provocative lyric. Oh, good. Everything and nothing at the same time. Yes, exactly. And Torres was naturally, the front man, of said Crunkcore Band and he now has a stage name
Starting point is 00:06:33 Darby Vanity He would dress in Gothic clothes and indulge in flamboyant multicolored spikey wigs and a lot of makeup Blood on the dance floor's heavily auto-tuned songs touched on topics that they knew would strike a chord with the preteen
Starting point is 00:06:49 MySpace generation of the 2000s so me and those messages were of course fuck what your parents say sex is cool so is self-harm and a skins party is not a lame thing to do.
Starting point is 00:07:00 Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Skins the TV show. Yes. Darvey Vanity and Blood on the Dance Floor somehow managed to amass a following of almost two million children. And they toured the nation because of it. They wrote songs about school shootings, revenge porn, murdering women, the classics.
Starting point is 00:07:23 Great. And one of Darvey's more inspired lyrics was, I'll fuck you in the face and leave a nice taste. Wow. I don't want to be fucked in the face. That sounds horrendous. us. I hate this guy. And despite the band claiming that all ages were welcome to their live shows, their performances were disturbingly sexual. He's really giving me like a less successful Ian Watkins vibe. Yo, like that is exactly what it is. I'm just going to go and look. I'm just going to take a
Starting point is 00:07:52 look at him. Oh, please do. Please do. Disgusting. In fact, let's all collectively as a group, Google W vanity. Oh, God. Okay. What we're looking at is, is a cross between a failed Ian Watkins and a juggalo. Yes, yes. So the juggaloes will not thank you for that because as we will come on to find out, they fucking hate Darby Ballytie. But we'll come back to that later.
Starting point is 00:08:16 If you do a Google and look him up, as I'm sure you all did, because you are obedient. You can look at videos of him, dancing in his boxes on stage in front of an underage crowd, screaming, I just want to come on all your little titties tonight. As he squeezes his crotch, disgusting. Yes.
Starting point is 00:08:35 I'm uncomfortable. Let's move on. Let's move on. Unfortunately, we can't move on to anything that is not talkful because this entire episode is about Mr. Darvey Manatee. But two years after being let off the hook for assaulting a 14-year-old, Torres was right back on it. Blood on the dance floor were in Denver, Colorado for a show, when one of Torres's former bandmates,
Starting point is 00:08:54 Garrett McLaughlin, spotted him alone in their tour bus with two teenage girls. Just before the group were about to go. go on stage. Halfway through the show, police actually turned up and arrested Torres after one of the girls reported him for having forced her to perform oral sex. But Torres was released just a few days later. According to a video that Torres posted at the time, the girl, quote, had mental issues and had failed a rape kit so he was let go. One doesn't fail a rape kit. It's not a pass-or-fail situation.
Starting point is 00:09:31 God's sake. But Torres, whilst saying these things about that girl, also hinted online that he'd come to an arrangement with her to keep quiet. Before adding, I always treat women with respect. Seems very contradictory because he's saying, it never happened because she, quote unquote, failed this rape kit. She also is mental. And I treat women with respect,
Starting point is 00:09:53 but I've also settled out of court with her so she stays quiet. Lots of messages there. Torres, which one are you going with? Well, I can tell you which one McLaughlin went with. He quit the band. I was like, I'm one absolutely no part of this. Good for him. That must have been hard to do because to have two million followers.
Starting point is 00:10:13 Back then. Back then, you know, it's not an easy thing to have achieved. We also know that people love to ride on the coattails of power and hide in plain sight and like, it doesn't have anything to do with me. I'm not the one raping teenagers. Jesus. So good for McLaughlin for stepping out of the band. Step out he did and he was replaced by 17-year-old.
Starting point is 00:10:31 old Jay von Monroe, who stayed with the band all the way up until 2016, at which point he spoke out against the numerous times he had witnessed Darvey Vanity wandering off with underage fans. Jay von Monroe also happens to be HIV positive and accused Darvey Vanity of having forced him to go on tour without his medication. Why? Yeah. It's just a control thing. Because like what has that got to do with anything other than the fact that somebody in your band needs those medication to stay alive and stay well. The only reason that you would do something like that is for control. Yeah. And as the band and Torres's individual fame grew, his sexual crimes became a massive open secret just like Ian Watkins. And there were multiple online groups exposing him as a paedophile.
Starting point is 00:11:19 And as a result, multiple venues cancelled Blood on the Dance Force shows. So by 2010, the allegations against Torres were so widespread that he actually began addressing them in his song lyrics. And here are some of those examples. Look at me, I'm beautiful, not a suspect of rape. My name and reputation won't be the target of a slut. Call me a paedophile. Underage is not my style.
Starting point is 00:11:49 What the fuck is going on? And despite all of this, despite him openly addressing these allegations in his lyrics in very provocative ways, Torres continued to be a lot of. able to prey on more victims with textbook predatory tactics. His Legion of Fans were predominantly unsurprisingly teenage girls and these teenage girls were ones who felt like outcasts. So Torres knew exactly how to manipulate them. In 2010, Blood on the Dance Floor collaborated and toured with
Starting point is 00:12:21 famous YouTuber and singer Jeffrey Starr. After the tour, Star tweeted, I'm going to speak the truth till I die. I saw blood on the dance floor Darvey Vanity bring underage girls to his hotel rooms and do sexual things. 100% illegal. Being on tour with that child fucker has made me see the truth. I regret ever doing a song with that pig, RIP, because you'll never be me. Just to remind you, that was a tweet by Geoffrey Starr in 2010 after he had been on tour with them.
Starting point is 00:12:56 Jeffrey Starr has since deleted those very passionate tweets. and strangely has gone on to make another song with Blood on the Dance Floor just four years later. But we'll come back to him later. I am not a Geoffrey Star Stan. I barely know who he is and what I have seen, I'm not interested. You don't want to cross him though, I'll tell you that for fucking nothing. In 2014, Megan, a 16-year-old from Colorado who'd been a huge fan of Blood on the Dance Floor since the age of just 11, received some DMs from the King of the Emo Nanteses,
Starting point is 00:13:26 who by this stage in the game was 28! Darby Vanity told Megan that he was coming to Denver for a show in July and wanted to take her out on a date. A pair of them texted for months leading up to that show and eventually they went to the cinema together to watch X-Men, during which Torres kissed Megan on the lips. It was her first kiss. I hate that. I hate that for her.
Starting point is 00:13:50 Later that evening, Megan went home and fell asleep but was woken up at 3 a.m. by a phone call from Torres. And they spoke to each other for about an hour. And after that, Torres told Megan that her reception was really bad. And he asked her to go outside. It's like a horror film. And when she did, to her shock, Torres was parked down the street in a fucking van. As Megan approached, Torres suddenly grabbed her by the wrists and told her to delete all of their messages
Starting point is 00:14:22 before leading her into the back of the van. He then told her, I can't wait to find her. your teen mouth. And like pretty much every other story from his victims, Megan alleged that Torres then violently forced her to perform oral sex on him. And Megan told the Huffington Post in an interview that she has since given, that Torres forced her head into his crotch so violently that he ripped out clumps of her hair and left her mouth bleeding.
Starting point is 00:14:50 And he wasn't done with her. He continued to regularly call and text teenage Megan for months afterwards, acting as though the sexual assault had never had. happened, which meant Megan started to second guess herself, as though perhaps she'd overreacted and what had happened to her was just completely normal. In 2015, Torres offered to fly Megan out to San Diego and she said yes. Megan didn't know Torres had only booked her a one-way ticket. He knew full well that Megan had no job and no money and couldn't afford to get herself home without him. Megan has said in interviews since that Torres explained to her that she'd have to
Starting point is 00:15:28 perform sexual favours for him if she wanted him to pay for her flight home. And every time she did that, she would make $50 towards the cost of a flight ticket. Jesus fucking Christ. It's horrific. Truly. So when the Huffington Post published their damning article against Darvey Vanity with dozens of testimonies and interviews with Torres' victims in 2019, Torres remained silent and just posted cat pictures and selfies to his Instagram.
Starting point is 00:16:01 His fan base, however, did not stay safe. silent. Thousands of young teenage girls leapt to his defense and even began attacking his accusers and former bandmates using the hashtag Darby Vanity is innocent. They sent his accusers death threats and messages telling them to kill themselves. One of his supporters even tweeted, if any of this shit was real, Darby would be in prison. Oh, how naive and stupid and twisted all of you are. Jesus Christ, that is so disgusting. Yeah. And it brings us on quite nicely to how incompetent and irresponsible the police were when they were handling the accusations against Torres for almost two decades. If Captain Kurt had done his job all the way back in 2007 when the
Starting point is 00:16:47 14-year-old Sarah had told him what Torres had done to her, then perhaps dozens of young girls and women could have been spared a lifetime of trauma. But the statute of limitations had passed in Sarah's case, but Florida lawmakers have since passed a bill allowing prosecutors to file sexual battery charges at any time in cases where survivors are minors at the time of the assaults. Pinellas County Police have said that although Torres apologized for what he did to Sarah over the phone, this couldn't be interpreted as an official admission of guilt because it was over the phone and not in a formal setting. This is the thing. He says when Captain Kurt calls him and says this is what this girl is saying, but her mum won't press charges,
Starting point is 00:17:32 if you stop contacting her. He doesn't say that never happened, that's all completely bollocks. He just says, I didn't know she was 14, which as we've already said, is not a defence against this kind of accusation. But now they're saying that him saying that he was sorry and he didn't know she was 14 is not even an admission that that happened, even though it very obviously is. And having said that, the police said that they didn't really feel the need to bring Torres in for proper questioning. And they also added that Sarah was pretty reluctant to cooperate in the quote-unquote investigation. Oh my God. This is such a common misconception because victims of crime do not need to cooperate with the police and prosecutors in order for
Starting point is 00:18:09 accused criminals to be arrested and charged. Yes, of course, testimony from victims can be crucial in getting a conviction, but it's up to the officers to decide whether to arrest people and down to prosecutors to press charges. It's not up to like a 14-year-old child who's been the victim of a sexual assault to decide whether that case gets progressed or not. And in cases of sexual assault against minors, it's far more straightforward than in other sexual assault cases where consent is the main issue because obviously minors cannot legally consent to sex so that he said, she said, was their consent or was there not, is not even a part of the conversation.
Starting point is 00:18:48 He did it and he admitted to it by saying that he was sorry he didn't know she was 14. A former sex crimes prosecutor has even called Captain Kurt's decision not to arrest, charge and prosecute Torres as nothing short of incredibly lazy, sloppy and irresponsible police work. Today, Jesus David Torres is 36. He lives with his parents in Florida and is still yet to face any legal consequences for his abusive behaviour. That is unbelievable, because I, like many people, knew this case, like from a distance, been in the news on and off multiple times. I did not realise he was just out and free. Yeah, me either. It's even more unbelievable when you consider that since 2007, over 20 women and underage girls have come forward
Starting point is 00:19:32 with allegations of sexual assault at the hands of Hesu's Torres. Those are just the ones who've come forward. The real number is extremely likely to be much higher. Yet, Torres still has no criminal record. His name doesn't appear on a single sex offender registry, and he's still releasing music and selling merch. Although all of Torres's former bandmates have now abandoned him, including his wife, He's rebranded himself twice in the last couple of years As a solo artist First as Kawai Monster And most recently as
Starting point is 00:20:04 The Most Vivid Nightmare You're a 36-year-old who lives with your parents And like can we let emo go now Yes, I think we should Send it off We had the time, we did the side fringe We did it, we've all done it Big tick there
Starting point is 00:20:17 Let's just let it go Let's not revive that Let's not No I really hope not I'm actually upset enough At the return of the low-rise gene I don't need to be further upset. No, let's move forward.
Starting point is 00:20:29 So as the years passed, Torres' horrendous campaign of abuse kind of faded from the zeitgeist. That is, until 2019. When MetalSucks.net and the Huffington Post published articles on his crime, complete, like we said, with interviews from survivors. That year, Spotify announced that it had removed all of Blood on the Dance Floors' music from their streaming service, stating that Torres' conduct violated their guidelines
Starting point is 00:20:54 on prohibited content. Yes, presumably because he's saying how he wants to come on the little titties of teenage children. I will. But we're checked. And although Blood on the Dance Floor is indeed no longer on Spotify, Darby Vanity's music under Kauai Monster and The Most Vivid Nightmare is still available on Spotify. Don't go listen to it. And I probably don't need to tell you that because collectively they both barely get about a thousand monthly plays,
Starting point is 00:21:25 which in Spotify money is probably a penny. But they are still there. So what was next in the Darvie Vanity saga? Well, this is when Chris Hansen, the former host of NBC's To Catch a Predator, turned YouTuber, also began releasing a series of videos about Darvie Vanity in 2020. Hansen announced that he's going to investigate Darvey Vanity and wants to put him behind bars.
Starting point is 00:21:49 Since then, on his YouTube channel, Hansen has interviewed a number of people who witnessed Torres' crimes firsthand, as well as Torres' survivors. And coming back to Geoffrey Starr, well, he has received quite a lot of backlash after his interview with Hansen, where he claimed that he was unaware of Torres' abuse in 2010,
Starting point is 00:22:09 despite having made a series of serious tweets calling him a child fucker at the time. So you can't retrospectively spackle up your reputation on this. No, although it is something he is quite good at and has done many times. And we weren't lying about the jugglers. Johnson also interviewed the insane clown posse who have made Torres juggalo enemy number one and have called for juggalo's everywhere to beat Darvey down.
Starting point is 00:22:36 So they've fatwaed him. They've fatwut him. Juggalo fatwa out on Darvey vanity. And you know what? I don't hate it. I'm not mad at it. But even still, there hasn't really been any news about Torres since 2020. That being an article from insider claiming that the FBI were now involved in his capture.
Starting point is 00:22:55 When we were in Michigan on tour, there was like an additional bunch of Fago in the fridge on top of the rider. And we were talking to the audience and the VIP bit and I was like, yeah, we've got loads of that stuff that jugglers drink. Oh, yes, that is happened. I wasn't groaning at that. I was groaning at something I've just Google imaged. And I'm going to end today's episode on this. Okay. Maybe we'll put a link to this picture in the show note so you can all share in this to stuff.
Starting point is 00:23:19 Is it a before and after? It is no. It is a picture of him in bed kind of like, meant to make you feel like P-O-V like you're in bed with him. Gross. And firstly, he's got black sheets. Hidious. Yep, so that's it, guys.
Starting point is 00:23:33 I hope you were all sufficiently horrified by that terrible disgusting story and the fact that that man is still free. Yeah. And wandering this earth. Yeah, look at that image. It's horrible. And he is truly the greatest nightmare or whatever the fuck he calls himself. Bye.
Starting point is 00:23:48 Bye.

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