True Crime Campfire - Cobra: A Bizarre Story of Murder in the Gay Porn Industry

Episode Date: July 3, 2020

We all roll our eyes at a spoiled brat—that kind of kid who, no matter how much they have, can never get enough. The kid who snatches toys out of other kids’ hands. For that kid, it’s all about ME. What *I* want is all that matters, all that’s real. Good thing we all outgrow that as adults, right? Ha. Yeah. Well, turns out, some of us don’t. Today we’ll learn about two guys who never aged out of the “if I want it, I’ll take it” phase. Somebody else had something they wanted, and they were determined to snatch it away, no matter what it took. Sources:Cobra Killer: Gay Porn, Murder, and the Manhunt to Bring the Killers to Justice, by Andrew Stoner and Peter ConwayOxygen's "Snapped: Killer Couples," episode "Harlow Cuadra and Joe Kerekes"Follow us, campers!Patreon (join to get all episodes ad-free, a day early, an extra episode a month, and a free sticker!): https://patreon.com/TrueCrimeCampfireFacebook: True Crime CampfireInstagram: https://gramha.net/profile/truecrimecampfire/19093397079Twitter: @TCCampfire https://twitter.com/TCCampfireEmail: [e-mail] a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-campfire--4251960/support.

Hello, campers. Grab your marshmallows and gather around the true crime campfire. We're your camp counselors. I'm Katie. And I'm Whitney. And we're here to tell you a true story that is way stranger than fiction. We're roasting murderers and marshmallows around the true crime campfire. We all roll our eyes at a spoiled brat. The kind of kid who, no matter how much they have, can never get enough. The kid who snatches toys out of other kids' hands. For that kid, it's all about me. What I want is all that matters. All that's real. Good thing we all outgrow that as adults, right? Yeah.

Well, turns out some of us don't. Today, we'll learn about two guys who never aged out of the, If I want it, I'll take it phase. Somebody else had something they wanted, and they were determined to snatch it away, no matter what it took. This is Cobra, a bizarre story of murder in the gay porn industry. So, campers, we're in Dallas Township, Pennsylvania.

24th, 2007. 9-1-1 dispatch got a call from a frantic neighbor reporting a house fire in a shishi neighborhood. Firefighters rushed to the scene, and when they'd mostly gotten the fire out, they went in to look for possible survivors and or bodies, and they found a horror scene, a terribly burned body on a love seat in the living room downstairs. It was quickly obvious that the fire was most likely arson. There were flammable objects just piled up behind the love seat, and that was clearly where the fire had originated. They could also tell that the fire had spread fast. Accidental house fires usually spread slowly.

They also noted that several smoke detectors had been pulled down from the ceiling and laid on a table, presumably so they wouldn't go off, which is amusing to me because the batteries were still inside them. So you have these charred and melted smoke detectors just sitting on the table. So they totally would have still gone off. So good job. So although it would take dental records to identify. the body the next day for sure, the victim was the owner of the house, 44-year-old Brian Cochis. But he hadn't died in the fire. The medical examiner determined that Cochis had been nearly

decapitated and stabbed 28 times before being set on fire. He was so badly burned that he had to be positively identified with dental records. So this was no accidental fire. This was murder. So who'd want to kill this quiet guy who neighbors said mostly kept to himself, almost to the point of being reclusive? Well, it turns out, Mr. Coaches wasn't your average suburbanite. He was the owner of a video production company called Cobra Video. Cobra was a boutique gay porn studio, run mostly out of Brian Coch's two-story suburban house. His neighbors were mostly shocked to learn that adult films were being made inside their neighbor's home, although many of them had noticed that Brian sometimes hosted parties and lots of young, attractive men would show up.

Can you all imagine finding out your quiet, like, unassuming next-door neighbor was literally running a porn studio out of his house? Like, right next door. I don't know whether I'd find that hilarious or, like, horrifying, but it would be one hell of a thing to find out. Well, I live in an apartment complex, so that kind of thing I'd be like, yeah, makes sense. I hear them banging around all day. You just assume that's already going on. Right. Some of the neighbors also knew some other not very nice things about Brian, but.

We'll get to that in a minute. Police immediately knew that there was a solid chance that Brian Coaches' murder had something to do with his business. They reached out to Brian's closest friend, Robert, who worked with him in the business and asked him to walk through the charred house and let them know if he noticed something missing. One thing was obvious. There were several computer towers missing. Obvious, because they'd been pulled out of the wall and their cords were still plugged in and dangling. and Brian's friend Robert also noticed something really important. Cobra's 2257 forms were gone.

Now, this is a form that attests to the age of a performer. It proves that you don't have underage kids working in your adult films. So obviously that is crucial for a porn producer. If law enforcement shows up and asks to see that and you don't have it, obviously you can be in serious trouble and with good reason. And in addition to that, a Rolex watch was missing. but other than that there were no signs of robbery so there was cash still laying out valuables all over the place

undisturbed and there was no sign of forced entry so the investigation got started and the police threw everything they had at it which of course you're going to do in a sensational murder like this where somebody's that badly brutalized and there's overkill and then the house is burned down so they really went for it so email records gave them their first lead when they got into coach's email account they found that the last contact

he'd had online was with a young man named Danny Moylan. Danny had sent him an email asking to do some modeling for Brian, and Brian had written back, and they'd set up a time to meet and do a screen test. They were going to do it, the night of the murder. So soon it came out that Brian Coaches had also been on the phone with his attorney the night of the murder, and while they were talking, the attorney had heard him let Danny in, so they knew that this guy had in fact shown up. The IP address for Danny's email would eventually lead right to the suspect's front door. But of course, that takes time. More time in 2007 than it would take now, but the IT folks got to work on it.

So let's put a pin in that for now. Whitney mentioned that Brian Coaches had an unsavory skeleton in his closet. In 2001, he'd been arrested for videotaping himself having sex with a 15-year-old boy. The boy had come forward and alleged that coaches had groomed him online, asked him for nudes of himself and others, and promised him a modeling job when he turned 18. Yeah. Lots of grooming behavior, promises of money, and work for his company. Oh, shame with you. The boy alleged two sexual encounters.

In one of them, the boy said he thought he'd been drugged with an open can of soda coaches had brought it. The police eventually found video evidence of the first encounter. Cotius was initially charged with rape of a child, which is a felony, and a slew of other things, but the case fell apart because the boy didn't want to testify, which of course is very common of victims of sexual assault and abuse, and very understandable. It is, and unfortunately it's something a lot of predators count on. They know that their victims are going to be traumatized, possibly ashamed, although obviously the only person who should feel shame in that situation is the perpetrator, but nevertheless.

And, you know, they count on the fact that they won't. want to come forward. And I think it's probably compounded with the fact that this boy wasn't out yet. So I think that was hard for him. Sure. Cochis claimed the boy had lied about his age and police couldn't prove otherwise. Much to the detectives discussed, Cochis ended up pleading to a single count of corruption of a minor for producing and possessing the video.

He was sentenced to a year in probation. Oh, my God. Yeah, and he didn't even have to go on the sex offender registry, which ended up being hugely controversial later on with some people arguing that he should absolutely have been forced to register under Pennsylvania law. And it's just gross. So, you know, I don't care whether this kid lied about his age or not. And I think this is important to say, I very much doubt he did lie, but it doesn't matter in my opinion. Because when you are a grown-ass man in your 30s and you're chatting with what is clearly a very young guy, like clearly not somebody

in their 20s or 30s, whether he tells you he's 18 or not, it is your. It is your. responsibility to check on that before you make any further moves. Yeah, a 15-year-old looks like a 15-year-old looks like a 15-year-old. I don't give a fuck what you say. Yeah, I mean, it should at least be crystal clear that there's a good chance you're dealing with a minor. And it, again, is your responsibility. You are a full-grown adult. And if you want to get sexually involved with somebody a lot younger than you are, then you need to be damn sure that you are safeguarding that person by verifying and not verifying by asking how old are you. verifying their age, period.

Miss me with that victim-blaming bullshit. Teenagers don't know what's best for them. I thought an emo haircut was best for me when I was 15, and I'm so glad I wasn't allowed to get one. Yeah, I thought vampires might be real when I was 15. And I'm not talking about the nerds like those kids in the Clara Schwartz case who go to golf clubs and cut each other with razor blades and stuff. I mean actual vampires.

Like, I was half convinced that Vampire LaStat from Anne Rice might float through my window on any given night and spirit me away. And I was rooting for it, to be perfectly honest with you. That's still the only movie I like Tom Cruise in. Absolutely. So however cool and cute and however much potential you might have as a teenager, you're also kind of dumb. Bless your heart, it's not your fault, you just haven't cooked enough yet.

You're still developing, happens to all of us, you know, you're still developing into a person who knows better than an emo haircut or a tattoo of Tom Cruise as a little stat. Yeah, we won't say any more about that. So even if this 15-year-old kid did lie to Brian Coaches about his age, which again, I doubt he did, but whatever, coaches is still a creep, in my opinion, for getting involved with him without asking for ID, doing whatever he could to verify the age of this person that he wanted to have a sexual encounter with. And also, it sounds like he drugged the kid as well, which is horrifying. I mean, that's straight up, just predatory behavior. And this was apparently a thing with Coaches.

I mean, he liked young guys. And I think what we can say about him at an absolute minimum was this. He at least was not careful about checking on the ages of these guys before he got sexually involved and professionally involved with them. A perfect example of that is a guy named Sean Lockhart. Sean Lockhart met coaches in 2003 when he was 16 and still in high school. Sean was gay, but he was still in the closet with his family and at school. But he did have a 21-year-old boyfriend.

And this guy pushed him into a lot of stuff that Sean would later say he wasn't even close to ready for. One of those things was meeting Brian Cochis. The first contact Sean had with Cochis was when his boyfriend got him naked and all worked up, then revealed in the middle of making out that the two of them were on webcam. Performing for a porn producer named Brian. That's so flipping wrong. I can't. Oh, it's awful. Yeah, I'm nauseous.

Brian Coaches quickly struck up an online relationship with Sean, the same kind of grooming we saw with the 15th. year old boy, asking for news and webcam performances, telling him he wanted him to model and perform in adult movies, promising him money, showering him with compliments, and giving him lots of attention. Now, Sean did lie about his age. He says so himself. He said he'd turn 18 at his next birthday. Really, he'd be 17. And once that day arrived, he and Coaches began their professional relationship. Coaches initially accepted Sean's word about his age, but he eventually did start pressuring him for ID. First, Sean emailed him a photoshopped driver's license and birth

certificate, which coaches accepted at face value. Yeah, and there's a veteran porn producer that was interviewed in the book that I read about this case, and he said no reputable producer would ever accept such flimsy proof of age from a performer, a potential performer. So I think that really shows how eager coaches was to believe that Sean was legal. So that's creepy. Then later, Sean gave him a fake ID. Brian always led Sean to believe that if he was lying about his age, Sean would be the one to go to jail for it, not Brian. And because Sean was young and didn't know anything about this stuff, he believed it. And it scared him.

I mean, if you're a teenager, you're going to believe the thing that the adult tells you. That the experienced adult porn producer is telling you. Sure. So that was just another way for Brian to manipulate him. according to Sean, they had a disturbing relationship for years, where Brian pushed for a sexual relationship and used Sean's contract to manipulate him. Sean alleges Brian once threatened to kill him. But Sean, under the stage name Brent Corrigan, was a huge moneymaker for Brian Coaches.

Nobody knew until later that Sean slash Brent's first four videos for Cobra were shot when he was underage and still in high school. And Brent Corrigan's thing? was doing controversial bareback scenes, which means nobody's wearing condoms. And this is another thing that drew a lot of criticism toward coaches from others in the industry for obvious reasons. In fact, a number of people in the gay porn industry viewed Brian as a pariah. Veteran porn producer Kevin Clark has said, and this quote is from his blog, there are two kinds of people who make porn, those that are in it for the work and those that are in it for the boys.

It's obvious which one of those Brian Coaches was. and his take is that Brian Coaches was, quote, a predator and an abuser and only wanted to make these movies so he could prey on young men. So, yeah, there's that. So Brian and Sean slash Brent Corrigan had a complicated, often uncomfortable relationship all along, uncomfortable for Sean anyway. But the really bad blood between Sean and Brian began in 2005 when Sean signed his second contract with Cobra. coaches registered the domain name Brent Corrigan XXX.com, so make sure that no other sites could use Brent, but as that was going on, Sean slash Brent had gone to San Francisco to be with his new lover, a man named Grant Roy, who was 20 years Sean's senior. Grant was encouraging Sean to break away from Brian coaches, preferably altogether, but at the very least to the extent that they kept things strictly business and didn't get intimate with each other anymore, which apparently Brian was always pushing for. really wanted to strike out on his own as Brent Corrigan, and Grant Roy was encouraging that.

So when Sean started pulling away, coaches got angry, and after some increasingly irate back and forth between them, Sean told Brian he was going to go public with the fact that he'd been underage when he'd done his first few videos with Cobra. Obviously, that's a serious threat because coaches could get in huge trouble. So this, plus Sean announcing on a porn fan site that he planned on releasing his own videos as Brent Corrigan, kicked off an online battle royale. between Sean and Brian Cochis. Brian posted under the name King Cobra

and Sean under the name Cobra Killer. Pretty clear what, you know, the situation is between those two. And each one lambasted the other on the fan sites. And Coaches went even further. He actually filed a U.S. trademark and patent application for the name Brunt Corrigan, which didn't work, but, you know, I guess he felt he had to try to patent somebody's name.

Sean Lockhart made good on his threat to go public about being in four adult videos for Brian when he was 17 and still in high school. And Brian's response to this, which was 100% true, by the way, he said, these are just allegations. Talk to my attorney. Yikes. People were calling for the films to be immediately removed from distribution. Yeah, people were right. Oh, hell yeah.

So Coaches' response seems to have been to assure everyone that he'd been provided the proper documentation by Sean. Don't worry, it's all fine. no federal authorities have contacted me about this, and I'm going to be releasing more Brent Corrigan content filmed after 2004. Meanwhile, Sean slash Brent and his boyfriend, Grant Roy, formed a new company and bought the domain name Brent Corriganon.com, and coaches sued them to try to stop them from releasing anything under the name Brent Corrigan. Sean's lawyer accused coaches of trying to intimidate to make sure that any other underage boys he'd hired wouldn't come forward.

Oh, yeah, I think that's exactly what he was. was doing. Brian's lawyer said Sean was the one who'd broken the law by using a fake ID and knowingly appearing in adult films when he was underage. That's charming. Yeah. And so it went. It was ugly. The online feud continued and Sean alleges that Brian Coaches hacked into his MySpace account and posed as him to message his friends and family, outing him about his work in adult films and damaging his reputation. Oh my God. As if coming out is not hard enough. Imagine when you're still that young, especially, having this guy who prayed on you

when you were a minor. I just can't even with this guy. And, like, telling your family you're a sex worker. Yeah, absolutely. Sean also says coaches solicited sex with his brother. Oh, charming. Like, posing as Sean. Oh, my God.

Yeah. This is so messed up. Meanwhile, Sean slash Brent and his part. partner Grant Roy told gaywired.com that they'd started their own company because they wanted to produce wholesome adult work where no one is degraded, embarrassed, or exploited. We pay attention to good pairing and we only want to produce condom work. Good for them. So that was what was going on between Lockhart, Roy, and Coaches in the years and months leading up to Coaches' murder. So it's not surprising that Cobra star Sean Lockhart and his partner Grant Roy were among the first suspects in Brian

Coaches' murder. But they didn't stay suspects long. Police quickly discovered that the lawsuit had just been settled to the mutual benefit of all parties. The papers had been signed on the 19th, just five days before the murder. Police were also quickly able to determine that Lockhart and Roy were in California when Cochis was killed. And relations among the four men had improved a lot. At the signing, Coaches had apologized for how he'd handled the whole thing. So back to that evening, email from Danny Moylan, and the meeting coaches had apparently had with Danny the night of his murder. The IT folks were working on trying to find the IP address where the email originated. Meanwhile, police released a picture of Danny from the application that he'd emailed to coaches.

The next day, a tipster revealed Danny as a guy named Harlow Raymond Quadra. They quickly determined that Harlow was an escort and gay porn performer who worked on both of these ventures with his partner, Joe Carrickes. Harlow Quadra grew up in Miami, Florida, in a struggling working-class family. His mom, Gladys, was a Cuban immigrant. His birth dad was never involved in his life. Gladys worked hard, but the family struggled for money and relied on welfare and food stamps. It was tough.

Little content warning on this next part for some child sexual abuse, we're not going to go into any details at all, but we will be talking about it for a minute. When Harlow was four, Gladys got married, and the money situation improved quite a bit. but the stepfather was a predator. He became obsessed with Harlow and allegedly molested him for years, mostly throughout his adolescence and teens. And like many victims of sexual abuse, Harlow didn't tell anybody what was happening. So we talked about that earlier, that there's a lot of shame that goes along with that.

You wonder, is this going to blow up my family life? So there's a lot of reasons, understandable reasons why people don't come forward. And he has since said that he felt like he just kind of had to grin and bear it. Like he felt ashamed. He didn't know how to tell anybody. And his mom, Gladys, didn't know about the abuse until Harlow was out of high school and in boot camp for the Navy. And she found out when she accidentally found a letter that her husband had written to Harlow, and it was like a love letter. And it just made it very clear to her what had been going on.

So, of course, she freaked out and she kicked him out of the house that day. But the damage, obviously, to Harlow, was done. And adding to his struggles, Harlow realized he was gay really early on in life, as people tend to do, and he struggled to fit in at school. And he since said that growing up in a Latino family made it harder for him, although later on in his life he was surprised to discover that his family actually supported his sexuality and didn't judge him for it. Growing up, though, he expected he'd be judged, and he stayed in the closet at home and at school. So after high school, he joined the Navy, and the structure really suited him, but the don't ask-don't-tell policy meant that he still couldn't confide in anybody about his sexuality, which I imagine is a really lonely feeling, like you're in a room with a bunch of other people,

and yet none of them really, really know you. And it just created an invisible barrier between him and his fellow soldiers. And in 2002, while serving at a naval base in Virginia, he met a handsome older man named Joe Caracas on a dating site for gay men. Joe was 26, Harlow was 20. Now, Joe Carrickus' background was really different from Harlows. He grew up in Norfolk, Virginia, near Virginia Beach. He describes his childhood as wonderful with parents who were devoted to him, adored him.

His dad was in the Navy and sometimes on deployment, and Joe and his mom were really involved in the Pentecostal Church. In fact, Joe was on track to be a minister from his early teenage years. At one church where he mentored under the senior pastor, he was actually the youngest person ever allowed to preach sermons from the pulpit. And man, he loved preaching. People would stand up and cheer and applaud, and Joe just could not get enough of it. So he eventually became the youth minister at that church in his early 20s, but unfortunately, Joe had an issue that would derail his plans for the ministry and dog him in every one of his endeavors forevermore. He had himself

a little problem with rage. Now, whether this is just an inherent part of Joe Carrick's personality, or whether it stemmed from having to keep his sexuality under wraps because of his religious upbringing and his job as a youth minister, I don't know. And it's interesting, although he says Harlow Quadra is the love of his life, and although he built an entire career as a gay male escort and gay porn producer, Joe Caracas identifies and says he always has identified as straight. Which is puzzling to me, but, you know, he could be saying that for a number of reasons. First of all, it could be true. I mean, sexuality is weird. It's a fluid thing, and it's different for everybody, right? We can't pretend to understand anybody's sexuality but our own.

So it could just be true. He may have just fallen in love with Harlow as a random fluke, and maybe he's only attracted to women otherwise. It could be that he has some trouble confronting his sexuality because of his religious upbringing, his beliefs. It could be that he just doesn't want to out himself because he's in prison, and being out in prison can be a dangerous proposition. we can't know for sure.

What we do know is that Joe's anger created huge problems with the church elders, and when he was 23, they asked him to leave. And after he left, he joined the Marines, hoping for some structure in his life, just as Harlow had when he joined the Navy. But, oh boy, did it not work out. Joe was not cut out for military life.

He clashed with his drill sergeant and instructors from day one minute. one. And he was kicked out of boot camp within the first two weeks. Damn, that's not good. So despite news reports, you'll see that refer to him as a former Marine, he was never a Marine. He didn't even make it through boot camp. After he got kicked out of the Marines, Joe started working as an escort. He was young, he was hot, he had an athletic build, so he was very sought after by male and female clients. He started out working for an established escort service owned by a guy named John Ross.

Then he had a falling out with Ross and struck out on his own, launching a website called BoysR.S.com. Boys with an eye. BoysR.S.com. Yeah, it makes me laugh every time you hear it. It's very apt as a name. Oh, yeah. Later, it would come out exactly how he'd severed ties with John Ross and obtain the rights

to the name Boysoross.com. Boys are Russ had belonged to Ross, and shortly after Ross fired Joe Caracas for refusing to drive an hour away to meet a client, Joe tried to get Ross to sell him the name. Ross refused, and not long after, he was attacked one night by two men who jumped him and tried to slit his throne. Ross survived fortunately, but he didn't get a good enough look at his attackers to give a good description, and the police weren't able to prove anything against Caracas. But Ross sold him the domain name after that, and Joe was able to start his own escort service

as he wanted. So if Joe Caracas was responsible for that attack on Ross, and I think it's at least plausible that he was, he has now learned a dangerous lesson, that violence can get him what he wants. Not good. Really, really not good for somebody like Joe. No. And business was good for him, but obviously meeting clients isn't the same as having a real romantic relationship. He wanted to find somebody to date for real. And soon, Joe met Harlow Quadra on a dating site for gay men. Whether he was there scouting talent for his escort service or looking for love, I'm not 100% sure. But he and Harle Quadra fell hard and fast for each other. Yeah, and Harlow tells a story about their first night together where Joe takes his face in his hands and says, Harlow, I want to get

jealous over you. Oh my God, shut up. Yeah, that's your first red flag. Because That's toxic as hell. So Harlow really should have left a Harlow-shaped hole in the door at that point, but he was in love, and they got serious fast. Joe was six years older, and my sense is that he filled multiple needs for Harlow. So not only was their chemistry and a sexual attraction, a romantic attraction, but Joe had a dominant personality, and I think Harlow really thrived on that. He liked having someone to kind of direct him.

And he said the same thing about the Navy that he liked the structure, that being in the military was like living with a loving but strict parent. But he knew being in an openly gay relationship would derail his military career. So in 2006, at Joe's urging, he asked to leave the military due to his sexuality, which is just so crappy and stupid. Yes. He should not have to leave the military because of their sex. That's so stupid.

Anyway, whatever. And he was granted an honorable discharge, and he moved in with Joe. And at first, Harlow was content to let Joe support him, just pay for everything, but, you know, he soon got bored with that. He didn't want to be a kept man. He wanted to go to school in the medical field, but he was having trouble finding work that paid enough, and he saw how much money Joe was making as an escort. And Joe saw big potential in Harlow. He was young and hot and fit, and Joe knew he'd make a ton of money as an escort. So it took some persuading. Harlow was initially really resistant to the idea. But Joe worked on him and finally talked him into just trying it once and seeing how it went. And after that, he was off to the races. Harlow became hugely sought after as an escort on Joe's Norfolk male companions and boys' arrest sites, where he was billed as Virginia's hottest gay male escort. And he is a gorgeous man.

I mean, there's no doubt about that. But Joe saw even further potential in Harlow. The real money he knew was not in escorting but in porn. He'd had a porn company and web-forking. site since 2002 and I am genuinely sorry that I have to tell you this campers but the name of it was boy batter just if you need to throw up forever we understand it's it's rough not not like a baseball bat batter like okay I'm just gonna stop anyway Joe worked for boy batter both as a performer and a director and for Harlow this wasn't much of a leap to go from having

sex with clients to having sex on camera. And soon he was just as popular as a porn performer as he was as an escort. And he was soon the star of Joe's company, which produced, quote, barely legal and bearback videos. God, I hope my mom's not going to listen to this episode.

Me too. Sorry, Mom. It's just a really wild story, y'all. Hang in there with us, okay? We're almost done talking about barebacks and batter, I promise. Just hang in there with us. Harlow was intoxicated by the money. And they were making it hand over fist.

I'm sorry. That's unfortunate phrasing. I should have realized that. That's okay. It just occurred to me. Okay, now we're done talking about. Yeah, I'm 12. It's basically what's just happening as I'm 12.

Oh, man. They were buying Dodge Vipers and BMWs and Corvettes and a beautiful home and expensive. of watches. But he really didn't feel great about the work he was doing. He says he'd get big waves of sadness sometimes at the thought that, as he put it, this was the mark I was leaving. Yeah, he wanted to be a medical professional initially. Yeah. And he felt bad when he'd go to meet an escort client and he'd see that the guy was cheating on his wife. He said, it made me feel like a home wrecker. But Harlow and Joe were living large. They were spending their money. They were spending their money faster than they could bring it in.

Earn it and burn it. Joe was the boss of both the porn site and the escort service. He only occasionally escorted himself, and Harlow did all the, quote, mule work, as one former colleague put it. Joe set up Harlow's sessions with clients. But according to a former roommate of Joe's and Harlow's, despite the good money the escorting brought in, it caused a lot of friction in the guy's relationship. Joe was jealous. I mean, he had Harlow's last name tattooed on his ass. This man was

attached. And as we said before, he had a huge temper. Even though he was the one who encouraged Harlow to get into escorting, he still got fits of furious jealousy. That's kind of sake. I know, especially if he thought Harlow was spending too much time with any one client. He wanted him to take a Wham-Bam, thank you, sir, approach. But Harlow wanted to make clients feel like they were really getting their money's worth. On a number of occasions, Joe stormed into a client session and yelled at Harlow to come home right now. Scaring the shit out of the poor client, of course. Yeah, and on one of those occasions, if I remember rightly, it was like a 70-something-year-old man,

so poor dude probably almost had a heart attack. And this whole thing just mystifies me. It's just so unfair. It's like you drag him into this business. Like against his will initially, like he didn't really want to do it. You convince him to do it. And then you're mad because he's good at it. And he wants people to feel like he's enjoying himself.

And he wants them to have a, you know, a human experience instead of just wham, bam, thank you, sir, or whatever. It's just so unfair. It's in this kind of relationship, it's really about keeping someone on their toes and making sure they know that their needs and their feelings are important. Yeah, absolutely. It's very toxic. Yeah.

One time, the roommate witnessed Joe firing off a gun inside the house during an argument with Harlow. Big red flag. Huge red flag. He also saw Joe throw stuff at Harlow during his rages. And we're not talking little stuff. We're talking computers, lamps, big, heavy items. Joe punched holes in walls, which we're just in a blizzard of red flags, y'all. One time, he kicked in Harlow's bedroom door.

So Joe's just going full-on Kyle over here. Their spackle bills must have been astronomical, not to mention the monster energy drink tab. And the roommate himself had a run in with Joe one day. Joe got drunk and angry and grabbed the guy by the throat. Oh, my God. And then he said, this is so fucking creepy and possibly prophetic. If I ever needed you to do anything for me, would you do it? No.

No, I would not. in fact I'm changing my name and moving to Peru so that you can never find me that is just so yikes and I mean the roommate was worried for his own safety that day but eventually he came to feel that Joe's bark was worse than his bite which I think is interesting and he said he didn't feel like Harlow was cowed by him at all now this is just one person's opinion who knows but he said Harlow would just sit there while Joe kind of ranted and raved and eventually he'd just be like oh shut up Joe and Joe would shot up. Usually, anyway.

So, I mentioned that these guys were making money like mad, but they were spending it even matter, and by the dawn of 2007, Harlow and Joe were in some serious financial shit. They needed to make $4,000 a day just to break even on their living expenses,

and they were hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, mortgage to the hilt, which just inferior, you fucking idiots, you could have been set for life. If they had just have the tiniest centilla of common damn sense and just put some money away and we're smart about it for just a couple of years could have been set for life it's just such a waste oh people who are like really irresponsible with money just chat my ass anyway on top of that harlowe was 26 now and

the idea that 26 could be over the hill in any profession was really astonishing to me but apparently there's like a hard expiration date on the twink category in gay porn and harlowe had past it. Now, he looked a bit younger than his age, so he could definitely keep his porn career going for a little while longer, but he and Joe realized that they needed a long-term plan. What they needed was a new star for the porn films, and they knew exactly who they wanted. A guy named Sean Lockhart, stage named Brent Corrigan, a young guy who looked a lot like Zach Efron. Of course, the problem with that was that Sean was still under contract, Brian Cochis and Cobra Video. They were in the middle of mediation with Coaches and his lawyer.

and trying to work it out. But Harlow and Joe were not the type to take no for an answer. They were not going to let that stop them. And on January 11th, they traveled to Las Vegas for the Adult Film News Awards to meet up with Sean Lockhart and Grant Roy. They had dinner at a fancy restaurant, and it was very clear to Lockhart and Roy that Harlow and Joe were very eager to move forward with signing Sean Lockhart on. So Lockhart and Roy were like, look, we're in mediation. We can't commit to anything yet. we have to see what happens legally with Brian Coaches.

And Joe Caracas's response to this was, well, what if Brian was gone? And initially, Sean and Grant Roy were just confused by this, and they're like, you mean gone like gone on vacation? And then Harlow was like, oh no, gone, gone. We could make Brian, you know, leave the country. Then you wouldn't have to worry about your contract and we'd be free to work together. Now, that's pretty clear, right? Yeah. Harlow and Joe were convinced that Sean Lockhart

slash Brent Corrigan was the goose that laid the golden eggs, and they felt like they could create a million-dollar movie if they just had him and Harlow Quadra as the stars. That would solve all their money problems, get them out of debt, catapult them into the big leagues of gay porn, and they could accomplish all that if Brian could, you know, just leave the country. And it was very clear to Sean and Grant Roy what he meant by that, that they could have Brian killed. I mean, they weren't being subtle about it.

And that was even clearer when Joe said, Harlow has a guy who'll do anything for him. Yikes. So Grant Roy was like, no, no, no, no, no, that's the last thing we need. It's already been ugly for everybody. We're close to a resolution. We don't want anybody to get hurt. For God's sake. And for him, it was just a bizarre conversation.

But Sean Lockhart and Grant Roy never really thought that Harlow. and Joe were serious, because as we've seen a million times, nobody ever flipping does in these situations. So, they didn't think he was serious. That was January 11th. The murder happened on January 24th. The morning of January 25th, Joe and Harlow had called Sean Lockhart and told him to go to a particular news station's website. The main article was about the murder. Harlow said, I guess my guy went a little overboard. It scared Lockhart and Roy to death, and they cut off all contact with Harlow and Joe.

Especially since Joe and Harlow were hardcore pressuring them to firm up plans for Sean to appear as Brent Corrigan in a series of films for them. They wanted that million-dollar movie, and they wanted it now. You know, this is like when your cat brings you a dead bird. they're like, I got you diss. And it's like, why? Why did you do this? Because he loves you, Katie, you monster, God. I mean, the cat and the bird, not the murder, obviously.

Right, right, right. Now, the cat just thinks up too stupid to hunt, which fair. I am. Right. So, as we said earlier, Sean and Grant Roy were among the first suspects because of their longtime feud with Brian Coaches. And this suspicion lingered in the blogosphere and gay porn community even after the police had eliminated the Lockhart and Roy as suspects, because obviously the community at large

didn't know that yet. One friend of Lockhart's, a writer who blogged about the gay porn industry, said that Lockhart was a lot like Sharon Stone's character and basic instinct. Lovable, but manipulative and addicted to seeing how much he could get away with. He said, as much as he loved Sean personally, it didn't look good for him and Roy. Ouch. That must have been awkward later, right? God knows what my friends would say to, like, Nancy Grace, if I were ever a suspect in a murder.

She'd probably make a meal out of it. Cat mom. Cat mom. What this accomplished in the long run was to make Lockhart and Roy that much more motivated to cooperate with police to help nail Harlow and Joe. They told the police about that bizarre conversation in Vegas. And by now, the IT folks had discovered that the email from Danny Warren. Moylan had come from an IP address registered to Harlow and Joe's Virginia Beach House. Hey, good job, guys.

Well played. Always make sure you send your murder emails from your home computer, y'all. Pro tip from true crime campfire. You're welcome. We're going to stop giving murder advice and just start laying fake ones. This is great advice. So Lockhart and Roy agreed to wear a wire and try to get Harlow and Joe on tape confessing to the murder. They arranged two meetings.

The first meeting was a lunch at a restaurant near the beach, the ostensible purpose of which was to talk about Lockhart signing on to work for Joe and Harlow. When Roy flat-out accused Caracas and quadru of the murder, saying it was too big a coincidence that the murder happened within a week of that creepy, Brian could just leave the country, conversation, at the award show in Vegas, Caracas said, I wish I could change a few things about the situation, but I can't. A few things.

No denial? No. What the hell are you talking about? No. We didn't kill anybody. Very telling. Yeah, it sure is. And when Roy angrily talked about how much coaches murder had fucked with his in Lockhart's lives, because, you know, obviously they were the first natural suspects. Caracas said, I apologize, Grant, for hurting you guys and messing things up. I really do. I messed up our lives, too. And then he was like, you want to throw me off a cliff, kind of jokingly. Oh, Jesus. And then he expressed worry that Roy might be wearing a wire and said he just. didn't feel comfortable talking about anything more specifically, because, you know, you haven't already said far too much. Smart, Joe. Good job, man. Well played. Yeah, I think it'd be hard to get any more specific. Yeah, but it gets better. So Joe Caracas wanted to talk more

with Sean and Grant Roy, but he insisted the next meeting take place at a nude beach. Can't wear wire in a nude beach, right? Well, possibly not, but you can put one in a key fob, Joe. Bless your heart, you freaking idiot. Okay. One should always operate under the assumption that the person you're talking to is wearing a wire, even if you haven't done anything wrong. Like, yes, I will have the pasta, Sandra.

By the way, I haven't committed any felonies lately. I actually think about this all the time when I'm watching my, like, huge bin sessions of murder shows. because I yell at the screen. Sure, of course. Just like sports fans do when they're watching football or whatever. I yell advice at the screen. And I'm thinking, my God, if the NSA or the FBI or some hacker is listening,

like they're going to think I'm a serial killer or something, you know? So just for the record, I also have not committed any felonies lately. So at this meeting, with Joe and Harlow feeling confident that there was no wire to worry about because everybody was in, you know, just what the good Lord gave them, they got the goods and after a quick photo shoot to create some content for the company a first foray into working together

they started talking about coaches first Harlow revealed that all coaches 2257 forms were gone plus a big box of master DVDs and records and he said you guys could bring down COBRA now all you'd need to do is go to the FBI and say hey I think someone else is underage

and then when they ask cobra for those 2257 forms and they can't provide them they're screwed Okay, how would an innocent person who had nothing to do with the murder know that those forms were missing? That information wasn't in the media. Smart, Harlow. Well played, man. So he went on to admit to taking Coaches, Rolex, and disintegrating it, because it's just too hot right now. And to watching some of those master DVDs and, quote, seeing all I needed to see, presumably to prove to himself that Coaches was hiring underage actors, I suspect.

he knew that the Rolex had the initials BCK on the back again how would he know that if he wasn't involved in the murder and also side note how do you disintegrate a Rolex watch like did he throw it in the volcano at Mount Doom or something like specifically what did you do to this thing

that you would use the word disintegrate I'm very curious anyway and after kind of nattering on about the layout of coaches his house and how the front door didn't have a peephole and other stuff that there's no way he could have known unless he was involved he finally just blurted out, it was quick. He never saw it coming. Well, there it was, a clear admission of guilt.

And he didn't stop there. Harlow said the murder had been cathartic for him. He opened up about his stepdad and the molestation, and then he said, it's what kind of made the whole decision kind of easy, almost a little too easy. He said, actually, seeing that fucker going down, actually it's sick but it made me feel better inside it almost felt like I got revenge yeah and to me this explains the overkill which you know you don't usually see in murders like this where there's a just purely financial motive so I think this does explain the overkill I don't think that this was Harlow's motive like I don't think his motive was kill this guy because he prays on underage guys but I do think it explains the rage and I think he was telling him

the truth when he said it was cathartic for him to kill Brian Coaches. We know that killers sometimes will use victims as surrogates for people in their lives that they have a deep-seated rage against. Great example of that would be the serial killer Ed Kemper, who killed a bunch of young women before finally actually

killing the person that he was really mad at, his mom, and then turning himself in because he was done at that point. Old Eddie Kemp. Yeah. Harlow and Joe were arrested a few weeks later without incident. Both refused to talk and asked for their attorneys, and they exchanged love letters back and forth from their separate

jails. Both rejected any talk of a plea deal. We're innocent. We want to go to trial. Until, as these things so often tend to go, Joe Caracas got a good look at the evidence being amassed against them. Oh, you mean like the SUV that they rented with Harlow's frickin credit card with his name on it? Yeah, the gun and knife they'd bought at a pawn shop again with their own freaking credit cards And the hotel they checked into under their own damn names with their own damn address Wow, guys, any other gifts you want to wrap and put under the tree for the detectives, or are you done now? Did they write their names on the body? Log in to their MySpace pages from his computer.

Hire a Skywriter to confess that they did it. I really would not be surprised, honestly. These are definitely in the Keystone Killers category, these two guys. So much. So all that, plus the fact that it was a death penalty case, started to sink in on Joe. And he decided that he better go ahead and take a plea deal after all. And he rolled right over on the love of his life. Don't they always?

He said Harlow had created the Danny persona, a barely legal twink just Brian's type. He said Brian Coaches had done. jumped at the chance to audition, Danny, and scheduled a meeting on the night of the murder. Harlow slash Danny was supposed to bring an overnight bag to spend the night with coaches. Joe said Harlow had committed the murder while he was sat in the car. They'd wanted Sean Lockhart, and they did a stupid thing on impulse. For some reason, Joe didn't seem to want to admit that they were struggling financially and that this was part of the motive, but whatever.

I think it had to have been. I mean, why else would they be so desperate to sign this guy? So Joe Carrick has later tried to say that the whole thing was a conspiracy between him and Harlow and Sean Lockhart and Grant Roy, that it was Lockhart and Roy's idea to kill Brian. That falls a little bit flat, though, given that during the police investigation, they found an angry email from Joe to Grant Roy saying, we'll tell them that you hired us if Lockhart and Roy didn't agree to partner with them in their new porn ventures. Are we sure Joe didn't want to get caught? Oh, Lord, so bad at it. So since that initial statement from Joe, by the way, his stories have changed more often

than most of us change our underwear. Sometimes Harlow killed Coaches. Sometimes Joe did out of jealousy when he heard them having sex on the couch. So it's impossible to know the whole truth about what actually went down in Brayne Coaches' house that night. I think the most likely scenario, based on the evidence, is that Harlow went in his Danny, got coaches nice and loose with some alcohol,

made out with him on the couch, and then slid his throat and stabbed him. And once that was done, he called Joe, who was sitting in that rented SUV down the street, and they went to work getting those 2257 forms and the computer towers and the DVDs and Brian's Rolex, and then they set the place on fire. That's what I suspect happened. But who knows? We can't know for sure exactly what the sequence of events was. Anywho, Joe pled guilty to second-degree murder,

thus avoiding the death penalty and scoring a sentence of life in prison. Harlow went to trial. He tried to blame the whole thing on Joe, of course. He had nothing to do with the murder. That taped conversation on the beach wasn't a confession. Okay, it didn't work of fucking course. He was convicted and sentenced to life without parole. The sensationalist coverage of the case was hard on coaches' loved ones.

They just knew him as Brian, not as a porn producer, pariah, or predator. They described him as a thoughtful, generous, loving, a great son, brother, and uncle. He'd once saved his dad's life during a heart attack. His sister said, Brian was a good, honest person in a bad, dishonest business. Yeah, I don't know so much about that. I mean, it seems to me that a lot of other people in that business considered him a predator. but I can't understand finding it hard to believe that about somebody you love, especially if they've just been brutally murdered.

What coaches did was despicable, but it wasn't his family's fault. So, I mean, I think he's a greek, but his family loved him, and this has been really hard on them, just like it is on the family of any murder victim. So I feel bad for them. I hope they've managed to find some peace from the fact that Brian's killers are behind bars. These two guys could not have been worse at it. Good God.

and it all just came from just pure greed I think just we just we have to have this guy and we're not willing to wait and if they had just waited I mean the lawsuit had just been settled the mediation had gone through like they could have probably worked something out so it's just bonkers well and it it really skews me out that it it felt like everyone viewed Sean as an object to be traded I know right yeah and that that feels really disgusting to me. And Sean has done a lot of great work. He's now a traditional film actor. He's out of the porn industry and he does a lot of work talking about, you know, the importance of using a condom. He's a, he's an advocate for the gay community. So absolutely. It seemed like it was important to him

after he had this really bad experience in the industry as an underage kid and as a really young guy to kind of turn that around and, you know, do things the right way. Yeah. Yeah. So good for him. You know, I hope he's moving on and happy with his life. So that was a wild one, right, campers? You know, we'll have another one for you next week. But for now, lock your doors, light your lights, and stay safe until we get together again around the true crime campfire. And by the way, now that it's almost over, happy Pride Month. Happy Pride, fly that rainbow flag.

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