Cobra Killer (18 page)

At times, the photo and video shoot would intercede back into the conversation. Kerekes thought Lockhart and Cuadra should kiss, but “you’re not allowed to fuck (on the beach),” Lockhart said.

A further few drifts of the conversation, and Cuadra disclosed he had been molested as a child, “and it’s what kind of made the whole decision kind of easy, almost a little too easy.”
⁽⁵⁶⁾

Unknowingly, he may have just disclosed a key factor in the Kocis murder, the amount of “over-kill” present with the victim suffering twenty-eight stab wounds after his head was nearly decapitated from his body. Forensic profilers have learned over time that when victims are found with such intense mutilation, suspects are likely to be found unsurprisingly among those harboring enormous amounts of rage.

Did Cuadra substitute Kocis for the man who had allegedly molested him as a boy? Only Cuadra knows that for certain, but his remarks that kept coming reveal that “the whole decision” to kill Kocis was apparently made easier by either perceived mistreatment by Kocis of Lockhart and other young men or by Cuadra’s projection of an image of his own childhood molester upon Bryan Kocis.

“Being molested…is, like, a very controlling type of thing, where you couldn’t really talk to anybody about it, ya know, just live with it, ya know?” Cuadra offered to Lockhart.
⁽⁵⁷⁾

Cuadra did have moments of doubt, openly expressed, but they seemed more intended to apologize to Roy and Lockhart for implicating them in the crime. “I should have thought a little bit more of where all those fingers would have pointed,” he said. “I remember looking at all the press…I’m just glad that shit’s over with.”
⁽⁵⁸⁾

Cuadra’s disclosure about his alleged childhood molestation prompted an impromptu discussion among the men about growing up and figuring out that they were gay. Cuadra doesn’t blame the molestation for that. He confessed he had feelings for other boys prior to that. But he would synthesize that statement with one that would convince most anyone who heard it that Harlow Cuadra was the killer: “I think (the molesting) is why it took me a while for me to accept my sexuality because of all of that,” Cuadra said. “Ummm, actually, seeing that fucker (Kocis) going down, actually it’s sick, but it made me feel better inside. It almost felt like I got revenge and I know that sounds really fucked up, really fucked up, but I still couldn’t sleep for a week.”
⁽⁵⁹⁾

Insomnia or not, Cuadra was convinced getting Kocis and Cobra Video out of the way not only solved Roy and Lockhart’s problems with him, but possibly also the emerging problems with LSG Media. “I don’t think that if we all would have just sat back and you would have done it the legal way, I don’t think it would have turned out the way you wanted, honestly,” Cuadra said.
⁽⁶⁰⁾

At one point, Kerekes even appears to threaten others who had struggled with Roy and Lockhart on financial matters. Kerekes offers that challengers should “bring it, I’ll dance with that all day long.”
⁽⁶¹⁾

Cuadra also boasted that Kocis was in a hurry to meet his new potential model “Danny Moilin.” Cuadra reported, “He was in a hurry, he had to go to California. That’s why it was all done so quick.”

Modeling would interject itself in the conversation again, with Roy giving instructions on how Lockhart and Cuadra should toss a football between the two men (a talent that Cuadra apparently did not possess). Roy described it as “if that wasn’t a couple of fairies playing catch, I don’t know what was.”
⁽⁶²⁾

Kerekes encouraged the two to kiss on the lips, to which Cuadra replied, “Don’t worry, we’ll get all warmed up in a second.”
⁽⁶³⁾

Cuadra wanted to know if he could “suck dick” on the beach, only to be reminded again by Roy that no sex acts were tolerated, even though it was a nude beach.

At one point, Cuadra also picked up Lockhart and carried him on his shoulder.

“It seemed effortless,” Lockhart said, commenting on Cuadra’s strength in picking him up.
⁽⁶⁴⁾

It may have seemed physically effortless for Cuadra, but Lockhart said it was anything but effortless for him regarding his own demeanor toward the more aggressive Cuadra. “I was very guarded, very cold with the exception of when I had to play it up to make them comfortable so they (could) speak,” Lockhart said.
⁽⁶⁵⁾

Cuadra was “doing everything and saying everything that he could to warm me up and make me feel better about what had happened to Bryan,” Lockhart would later say.
⁽⁶⁶⁾
  

The preliminaries over and the cloudy skies hanging on, the four men made their way back up the rocky cliffs over Black’s Beach and Cuadra and Kerekes were returned to the Marriott. There were discussions about the subsequent sex scenes that needed to be filmed between Lockhart and Cuadra. Giving excuses of needing to clean their house and go get the proper lights for the shoot, Roy and Lockhart extracted themselves from the other two and returned to be debriefed by police investigators.

No “million dollar sex scene” would ever be filmed between Cuadra and Lockhart. Within a month of their walk on the beach, Cuadra and Kerekes would be in handcuffs and shackles and facing multiple charges stemming from the murder of Bryan Kocis.

Cuadra-Kerekes react

Harlow Cuadra may have inadvertently picked up on Lockhart’s trepidation during their April meeting in California. He had posted on his blog while he was awaiting trial: “That last time Brent and I played footsies…our elders (Kerekes and Roy) discussed the boring paper work and financial deals. All the ‘boy wonder and stud wonder’ wanted was to fuck and make some memorable movies while we (were) at it…This time it was even difficult to look at each other’s eyes.”
⁽⁶⁷⁾

For his part, Kerekes was convinced that the microphone used to record both the Black’s Beach and Crab Catcher Restaurant conversations in Southern California was planted in Lockhart’s sunglasses. “The speaker was in sunglasses Brent wore at the beach. It was cloudy out and he never took those glasses off,” Kerekes told the
Times Leader.
⁽⁶⁸⁾

Kerekes was wrong.

Cuadra offered perhaps the most ironic take on all of the events, but did so before he would soon be arrested and later would be sentenced to life in prison.

“I’m a person that believes that scars are signs of living…and that everything tells a story,” Cuadra said to no one in particular during his day at Black’s Beach, long ago.
⁽⁶⁹⁾

THE CRIME SCENE
– The burned out remains of Bryan Kocis’ home, 60 Midland Drive, Dallas, PA.
(Citizens’ Voice photo, used with permission)

THE VICTIM
– Murder victim Bryan Kocis, circa 2001, following a court appearance on child endangerment charges brought in Luzerne County, PA.
(Citizens’ Voice photo, used with permission)

FRONT PAGE NEWS
– The murder of Bryan Kocis was big news in Northeast Pennsylvania
(Citizens’ Voice front page images used with permission)

FRONT PAGE NEWS
– The arrests and convictions of Harlow Cuadra and Joseph Kerkes made front page news.
(Citizens’ Voice front page images used with permission)