Cobra Killer by Peter A. Conway, Andrew E. Stoner

a sexually intimate relationship with another man, performed in gay porn videos, and worked as a prostitute for male clients for many years, he does not consider himself gay. The most he will say about his sexual identity is: “I still struggle with some issues of lust, but the only man I have ever loved was Harlow.” (67)
    Does this mean he was just “gay for pay” as some performers and escorts say? Kerekes says no. “I still do not call myself gay. I just love Harlow. I have never loved another—man or woman. Through high school, ministry years—I never even thought of myself as anything but straight.” (68) Kerekes said his feelings for Cuadra remain strong, though there were noticeable tensions between the two men under the strain of their criminal cases. “We are still hot and heavy. I have hundreds of letters (that) I have received since our arrest (from Harlow)…. We ‘made love’ together and simply ‘had sex’ as male escorts or in porn.(Harlow) was/is my lover, my mate, my better half.” (69)
    Pastor Johnston recalls a day when Kerekes came to him a few years after leaving the church and after washing out of the U.S. Marines being declared “unfit for duty.” He said Kerekes confessed he had started a male escort service and was in a sexual relationship with Cuadra. It was a stark contrast from the young man he once thought could be a successful, and charismatic, pastor for an Assembly of God parish. Johnston said he told Kerekes “You have the call of God on your life. It doesn’t matter how far you’ve gone or what you’ve done, God never takes back what he gives you. God is always there, no matter what happens or what happened, to forgive and help you.” (70)
    The pastor would not hear of Kerekes again until the spring of 2007 when news broke of his and Cuadra’s arrest for the murder of Bryan Kocis.

    Joe Kerekes’ ambition
    Kerekes’ journey to that low point had taken him from Bible college, studying to become a personal trainer and nutrition specialist, one month in the Marines, to a lucrative career in male escorting. “I was feeling like a failure; ministry, Marines, many good vocations, all failed,” he said. (71)
    Escorting then, he said, filled the desperate need for money and he declared matter-of-factly, “I knew I had the gift of ‘people skills,’ so I escorted.” (72) Kerekes’ ambition to succeed served him well in escorting, as he worked with as many as ten different escort services advertising him under various names and various sexual identities: straight, bisexual and gay. Most of the time, however, he operated under the names Mark or Trent. “I was pretty much the all-around gay, bi, straight male escort for all of Norfolk and Virginia Beach, because I was available 24/7,” he said. (73)
    It wasn’t all easy. Kerekes started out living in “transitional” neighborhoods of Norfolk, including a $300-a-month apartment at 3125 Jersey Ave. and spent his nights without escort calls working the gay clubs and bars of the Hampton Road areas of Virginia.
    Cuadra, who was living in Virginia Beach at the time, later joined Kerekes in an apartment at Hague Towers in nearby Norfolk. Referred to by them as a “penthouse apartment”(they actually lived on the twentieth floor, not the top floor), they later moved to a custom-built home on Stratem Court in Virginia Beach. “We started raunchy, but ended up being high-class,” Kerekes said. (74)
    Kerekes today makes strong claims that he and Cuadra pulled in more than $1 million in 2005 and 2006 from their growing escort and amateur porn empire. Investigators would later confirm that the escort service was bringing in money in at least the six figure range, if not a lot less than the $1 million Kerekes claimed. Kerekes and Cuadra capped their investment efforts in the escort business in 2005 by buying the house at 1028 Stratem Court meant to be the base for their growing enterprise. (75) “What Harlow and I built and