Cobra Killer (15 page)

After the murder, new developments surface

On Thursday morning, January 25, Virginia Beach detectives were still conducting their own separate investigation of Cuadra and Kerekes related to their home-based escort business. They likely had no knowledge that a vicious murder had occurred less than twelve hours earlier in Dallas Township, Pennsylvania. In fact, Virginia Beach Police Department patrol officer Brent Riddick was just doing his normal follow-up when he ran a license plate that morning. He ran the plate on a silver/grey Nissan Xterra SUV with dark trim that was parked in the driveway of 1028 Stratem Court in Virginia Beach, the home of Cuadra and Kerekes. The plate on the SUV came back to Enterprise Leasing Company of Virginia Beach. For Virginia authorities, although it was just a routine check as part of their pending RICO investigation into the activities of Cuadra and Kerekes, it would ultimately provide a direct link between the men and the violence perpetrated at Kocis’ home some 377 miles north.

Just over a week later, on February 2, police investigators told eager reporters covering the case that there were “new developments” to report. That same day they released a photo of a man they knew as “Drake,” who they believed was from either Philadelphia or Allentown, Pennsylvania. Investigators believed “Drake” was the young man who had an appointment with Kocis on the night he was killed. Bryan Kocis’ former attorney Al Flora, Jr. speculated to reporters that the man known as “Drake” “could hold some answers to a complex and puzzling investigation.”
⁽²⁵⁾
Detectives would soon learn that “Drake” and “Danny Moilin” were the same person: Harlow Cuadra.

The long hours of hard work was beginning to pay off for detectives. Along with the information gathered from Kocis’ family and friends and his phone and computer records, tips poured in from the gay community once the Danny Moilin picture was made public. Several calls came into the Pennsylvania State Police identifying the young man in the photo as Harlow Cuadra.
⁽²⁶⁾

Pennsylvania authorities wasted little time in contacting their Virginia counterparts, and on February 9, just sixteen days after the Kocis murder, detectives from both states began preparing a search warrant for the Virginia Beach home of Cuadra and Kerekes.

Just after 5:30 A.M. the following day, the Virginia Beach SWAT Patrol led a raid on the Cuadra-Kerekes home at 1028 Stratem Court. The SWAT team was used to gain entry but wasn’t needed to secure the site. Cuadra and Kerekes weren’t home. Lead investigator Leo Hannon said ninety-one separate items were seized from the home, including clothing, duffel bags, and a variety of video equipment. “Specifically what was brought to my attention were two video cameras, which had serial number plates forcibly obliterated,” Hannon said. “I observed no other items from the residence had serial numbers removed.”
⁽²⁷⁾

The cameras were returned to Pennsylvania, cameras detectives were convinced were the ones missing from Kocis’ home. A concerted effort was made to try and identify the original serial numbers. Hannon first sent the cameras to the FBI Academy-based laboratories in Quantico, Virginia. At the same time, he made contact with Sony Products in Japan. Hannon wanted to know if there was any type of hidden serial number found within the seized electronics equipment. No hidden serial numbers were found by the FBI—and for a good reason—Sony officials later verified that no additional serial numbers were placed inside the cameras beyond the one that police found obliterated.
⁽²⁸⁾

Prelude to a trap

In the weeks following the February 10 search warrant on their home, Harlow Cuadra and Joseph Kerekes were rarely, if ever, seen at home. The search warrant had not only served to chase them into a hiding of their own choice, it also crippled their escort and porn operations.

Associates of the couple would later report that Harlow changed his cell phone number and made his MySpace profile private, two moves that made it almost impossible for his loyal clientele of escort customers to reach him. Both men were convinced by their lawyer and their own fear that they needed to steer clear of the tightening noose that was emerging in Pennsylvania and Virginia.

During this period, Kerekes’ parents were observed by police going into and out of the Stratem Court house, gathering up what valuables remained after the police search. Were they collecting items to pawn and sell in order to raise money for the couple? Perhaps. Cuadra and Kerekes were verging on a level of broke they had not known for awhile. Although they had always had a mountain a bills, now they had little or no means to raise money.

In early April 2007, Cuadra’s attorney Barry Taylor sent a letter to Michael Melnick, assistant district attorney. In it, Taylor demanded Pennsylvania authorities release the 2257 forms that were seized from the Stratem Court house. It’s not stated in the letter, but it’s clear without the 2257 forms, Cuadra and Kerekes were unable to legally operate their BoyBatter website, a last refuge for some possible income.

Melnick said he told Taylor that the 2257 forms were no longer in his possession and were being reviewed by the FBI, and “it would take a long time for us to get those forms.”
⁽²⁹⁾
Taylor, no doubt, was irritated and dissatisfied with the reply, but didn’t have any choice but to accept it.

It was the second part of Melnick’s answer, however, that may have caught most of Taylor’s attention. “I made the comment that ‘We kind of put the investigation on the back burner’ and that ‘We’re working with a skeleton crew on this case,’” Melnick said. “I was perfectly honest with him.”
⁽³⁰⁾

The statement was true, if not leading.

The Kocis murder investigation
had
started with as many as twenty-five to thirty investigators when it first was opened. More than three months removed, however, the group of investigators looking into the matter had settled down to about six. Some observers may have assumed that meant no one was spending much time on the Kocis probe. Nothing could be further from the truth.

One factor that may have fueled the “backburner” idea rested on the fact that one of Luzerne County’s other most historic criminal cases was making its way back into the headlines and dominating the work of law enforcement officials. Investigators faced the possible restart of the ongoing saga of Hugo Selenski, a convicted bank robber implicated in the deaths of at least five people whose bodies were found buried on his Kingston Township property in June 2003. Years of legal wrangling and appeals combined with the federal indictment and resignation of two Luzerne County judges on unrelated theft and corruption charges, helped to stall the Selenski case for years. A long-awaited appeal hearing regarding evidence in the Selenski case appeared at hand in the spring of 2007, fueling speculation that the Kocis murder investigation was fading as a top priority for police and the district attorney.

With all eyes focused on Selenski saga, Melnick said “What I learned later is that Taylor, after my phone call with him, called his clients (Cuadra and Kerekes) and stated basically what I had told him about the back burner.” Whether the comment was intended to root Cuadra and Kerekes from their hiding place or not, it served that purpose. “The next thing I learn, Corporal Hannon and Sergeant Higgins and the boys were on an airplane flying to California. I was shocked, but they said our suspects were on the move and going to California.”
⁽³¹⁾

State police computer forensics experts would later uncover e-mails between Kerekes and Roy that proved the two prime suspects were emerging from hiding and were headed to California. Unknown to Cuadra and Kerekes, Roy was in a mood to help police, if only to get speculation moved off him and Lockhart, once and for all.

“I had the impression that (Cuadra and Kerekes) were down in Florida, but then they thought the coast was clear and it was time to forge ahead with their ambitious plan to film with Brent Corrigan,” Melnick said.
⁽³²⁾

Cuadra and Kerekes confirmed that growing confidence when they re-emerged for their late April meetings with Roy and Lockhart.

Shock and Awe in San Diego

“It was culture shock. Not even in the Navy had I ever been in front of so many people naked…Lots of laughs were had tossing the ole (sic.) football around and frolicking around in the nude. My favorite part was how Brent melted in my arms, cuddling on a beach blanket.”

—Harlow Cuadra, blog entry about his day
at Black’s Beach

To be clear, suspicion about who killed Bryan Kocis did not immediately settle on Harlow Cuadra and Joseph Kerekes. Speculation online and among porn insiders almost immediately centered instead on Sean Lockhart and Grant Roy because of their well-known and public feud with Kocis.

Blogger Jason Sechrest posted on his blog that many people reported having heard Roy talk out loud about wanting to “get rid” of Kocis. Sechrest, who then as now claims to be a friend and supporter of Lockhart, compared the young actor in one blog posting to Sharon Stone’s evil character in the psychotic thriller
Basic Instinct.
“(Sean) has every quality that made (Stone) one of the more lovable villains in cinematic history,” Sechrest wrote. “He’s overtly sexual, frighteningly intelligent, highly manipulative, and he has an addiction to risk in seeing how much he can get away with…and yet we root for him every time.”
⁽¹⁾
Sechrest said he was concerned that “it doesn’t look good at all” for Lockhart and Roy, writing, “I wouldn’t like to think that either of them would ever be capable of involvement in such a crime. But I also know that when I take my personal feelings for the two of them out of the equation and look at this on paper, it doesn’t look good for them, and that worries me.”
⁽²⁾

Sechrest also raised a frequent theory about who killed Kocis: “It could have been any number of those boys who came back seeking revenge upon him. Or even perhaps one of their fathers.”
⁽³⁾

How it may have looked didn’t matter except for the fact it helped prompt Lockhart and Roy to actively participate in helping police trap the real killers: Cuadra and Kerekes. Blogosphere speculation aside, police had long ago satisfied themselves that Lockhart and Roy had nothing to do with Kocis’ murder and instead focused their entire attention on the men from Virginia Beach. Among other factors weighing heavily in favor of their innocence, Lockhart and Roy were confirmed by police to have been in California at the time of the murder in Pennsylvania.

Harlow and Joe ensnared—on tape

Grant Roy and Sean Lockhart had previously agreed to notify Luzerne County detectives if they had any contact from Cuadra and Kerekes. As early as March 2007, the contacts were coming fast and furious by phone and e-mail. “Harlow and Joe were itching, itching to get work done with us,” Lockhart said. “And we took the opportunity to have them come out to San Diego to open up a dialogue with them in a wiretap setting.”
⁽⁴⁾
Lockhart said his attorney advised against getting involved in the wiretap. “I chose to take part because I knew that this was the only act, this was the first thing and the biggest thing I could do despite the risks to my safety or anything else,” Lockhart said.
⁽⁵⁾

The time had come for authorities to take Roy up on his offer to wear a wire and help gather specific evidence against Cuadra and Kerekes that implicated them in the death of Bryan Kocis. San Diego Police Department authorities planned, supervised, and executed the wiretap since it was to occur in California, and Roy was a resident of that state. “Roy consented to wearing a body wire, he never withdrew his support,” the state would later argue in its in-court motions to keep the recorded tapes in evidence against Cuadra and Kerekes. “He was under no pressure from any law enforcement agency regarding consent. Law enforcement officials made no promises or threats. Roy received no compensation for acting as an informant and had no charges pending against him at the time.”
⁽⁶⁾

Investigators met as a group at 8 A.M. on Friday, April 27, inside the San Diego City Police Department to make hasty but needed final plans to get key evidence on Cuadra and Kerekes. Pennsylvania state detectives Hannon and Yursha, along with Dallas Township Police detective Higgins, led a briefing for representatives of San Diego city and county authorities, as well as representatives of the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) .

At 12:30 P.M. that day, Grant Roy reported to the gleaming glass and steel office building in downtown San Diego that houses the city’s police force. There he met with investigators discussing a wire that he would wear during planning meetings with Cuadra and Kerekes.

Planning for the San Diego wiretaps, at both the Crab Catcher Restaurant and Black’s Beach, would require quick work on the part of investigators who brought in help from the San Diego City Police department, the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office, and investigators from the DEA and NCIS. The meeting locations were both calculated by authorities to try to put Cuadra and Kerekes at ease, perhaps prompting them to talk more openly about the Kocis murder.

San Diego detective Robert Donaldson, investigator Ronald Thill, and NCIS Special Agent Kim Kelly would finalize Roy’s instructions, including the execution, security, and safety measures they would employ should any problems arise. Following that, detectives told Roy to meet them at 2:15 P.M. at the Marian Bear Memorial Park, a 467-acre natural parkland in the San Clemente Canyon of San Diego County. As Roy’s black 2003 Ford Expedition entered the park, Sean Lockhart was with him. DEA Special Agent Andrew Pappas installed the wire for Roy and gave final instructions. Pennsylvania state trooper Yursha assured him he would be followed by police at all times. From there, Roy and Lockhart set off north on the seven mile drive from the park to the San Diego-La Jolla Marriott Hotel near the Regents Marketplace in La Jolla.