Free Cobra Killer by Peter A. Conway, Andrew E. Stoner Page B

the Citizens’ Voice reported, “The half-charred home, guarded by no trespassing signs and crime scene tape had been a haunting sight for residents of Midland Drive, a constant reminder of the night seven months ago when police found (Kocis) slashed and stabbed to death inside his burning home.” (81)
    Neighbor Nancy Parsons, told a reporter that she felt sorry for Bryan and that “once the ground is smoothed over, it’s like you’re erasing him.” (82) The lot containing Kocis’ former home was eventually purchased by Parsons and a grassy lot is all that remains of the site today.

CHAPTER 4
     
    Virginia is for Lovers

     
“Harlow said something to me once…he said, ‘Bo-bo, sometimes I forget what Harlow I am.’ I didn’t think that much about it at the time, but I think there was so much pressure on Harlow, even pressure I put on him, to be so many things. I think he may have just went off a little.”
    —Joe Kerekes

    Since 1969, tourism officials in Virginia have attempted to lure visitors to the state by reminding them that “Virginia is for lovers.” The phrase has helped boost tourism to the state and it accurately describes the relationship between Harlow Cuadra and Joseph Kerekes. Although Cuadra and Kerekes have said they still love each other, they will spend the rest of their lives apart from one another.
    Outside of their personal lives, the two men attempted their own form of luring visitors or “tourism” dollars to their own Virginia enterprise. They were so successful, in fact, that at one point local officials in Norfolk became concerned when a Google search of the city’s name would most often pop up with Norfolk Male Companions at or near the top of the search list. It reflected the huge investment the couple put into marketing their escort business not only in Virginia but all across the Atlantic seaboard—fueled by online links and more than $120,000 annually in advertisements placed in gay publications in Baltimore, Richmond, and Washington, D.C. (1)
    They also invested in themselves—spending most mornings at Big House Gym in Virginia Beach. They chose that gym because it lacked all the clients and “fans” of Cuadra found at Gold’s Gym. Kerekes called their new gym “this little shitty thing (where) you slide your card, and no one is ever there, and if they are it’s just great guys, like bartenders and bouncers.” (2) Cuadra said he liked the gym because “you can do whatever you want in there.” (3) Doing whatever they wanted is just what they did—including filming Cuadra’s first solo gay porn video on the site. It was the start of more to come.
    Cuadra was the star on the Norfolk Male Companions and the www.boisrus.com website touted him as “Virginia’s Hottest Gay Male Escort.” On a profile next to photos of Cuadra clad only in revealing underwear, he falsely listed his age as nineteen (he was well into his twenties), his height and weight, the size of his penis, and that he was a “skater” and “surfer,” basically “an All-American next door bad boy” of Cuban-German descent. (4)
    Another posting on the site listed Cuadra as “Stud Wonder Harlow” and declared him as “the hottest ‘top’ in teen porn and escort world as voted by user review sites.” (5)

    A boy named Harlow
    Harlow Raymond Cuadra was born August 5, 1981 in Miami, Florida to a fragile and struggling family, ultimately led by his mother, Gladis Zaldivar. With Harlow’s birth father out of the picture and never a presence, Mrs. Zaldivar attempted to build a normal family for her growing brood of four children. But poverty, a divorce and a struggle to learn English and assimilate contributed to continued challenges. The family eventually settled in nearby Homestead, Florida—a town perhaps best known for having been leveled by the devastating Category 5 Hurricane Andrew in 1992.
    During his trial for the murder of Bryan Kocis, a psychologist who examined Cuadra described his