Gay-X Babylon

What is it about crime and gay porn stars that fascinates me so? Perhaps it’s that these two particular and sordid subject matters together in my mind create an unusually intoxicating bouquet of evil? Or maybe I’m just a sick fuck?

Either way, I was captivated when the story broke about two “escort/pornstars” were arrested in the brutal slaying of 44-year-old Cobra Video owner Bryan Charles Kocis. I was glued to the internet bouncing from sites drinking in all the sleazy facts. Kocis had his throat slashed and was stabbed 28 times and a fire was set to hide the evidence. The two lads arrested were Harlow Cuadra (25) and Joseph Kerekes (33), known for nude modeling and tied to a Norfolk, Virginia male escort service. Their lame motive was tied into getting Kocis’s popular porn model Brent Corrigan under their own contract. Corrigan (aka Sean Lockhart) was even wired by the police to help implicate the dynamic duo and they were eventually convicted of murder after a sensational trial. Their sordid tale inspired the movie King Cobra. Kerekes later admitted, in an interview from prison: “We were blurred and blinded by greed, and we thought we were Gods.”

You’ve got to admit, becoming a gay porn star is an unusual career choice. When you’re a seven-year-old boy in America your options are: fireman, doctor, cop, TV weatherman, or undertaker to choose from. Rimming a stranger on camera is not an option. True, many who gravitate toward that business come from screwed up families, and have suffered abuse. It’s also a short shelf life- you’re washed up pretty quick as fans move on to the next adult-film wonder. So escorting and nude dancing is a pretty bleak future. It’s a wonder more tragedies like this don’t occur.

Marcus Allen (aka Timothy Boham) was arrested in November of 2006 near the Mexican border and charged in the gunshot killing of Denver businessman John Paul Kelso, 43. Allen, the dark-haired, boyishly handsome, star of Little Big League, Through The Woods and Ripe was said to have issues with “gay” people. The murder was reported as a robbery attempt gone awry because he apparently needed money for his pregnant girlfriend.

Tim Barnett (aka Bradford Thomas Wagner) makes for a bizarre story. The blonde, muscle-bound, hunk starred in many films from the 90s like An Officer And His Gentlemen, The Abduction series for Falcon and was known for being an enthusiastic “bottom” on camera. Leaving the industry, he headed to Colorado to sell real estate, but was arrested in June of 2004 as a suspect in the rape of seven women. He hanged himself with a bed sheet in his prison cell on July 13, 2005, before the matter could be settled at trial.

Vince Cobretti (aka Theodore Cox) was a striking Italian cutie seen in such X-rated faves as Bad Boys, Commercial Sex, Hard Rock High, Good Samaritan. He later started popping up in low-budget Ropes McGurk bondage videos before heading to Rhode Island, where, according to a former gay-bar owner, “he would go with old men and when he got to their house…he would rob them.” Cobretti was charged with the brutal beating of Rhode Island school district chairman Edward Boucher and served time for the crime.

David Meza (aka Mario Romo), who performed for Sean Cody and Sketchy Sex, was arrested after killing his wealthy Texas “benefactor” Jake Clyde Merendino, in hopes of inheriting the millionaire’s estate (of which Meza was prime beneficiary). Merendino had lavished Meza with expensive gifts like sports cars and motorcycles and dreamed of retiring with the gay-for-pay escort. When Merendino’s body was found in a Mexican ravine, his throat was slit and he had been stabbed over 20 times. Meza had a double life with a pregnant girlfriend, who knew nothing of Meza’s porn past or his relationship with Merendino, who he said he worked for as a bookkeeper.

Tim Lowe was the Tom Cruise look-alike who rose to fame in the 80s with Davey & The Cruisers, Boot Camp and Jerry Douglas’ incest classic Fratrimony. Lowe left the business, got married, fathered a son and tried for a “normal” life until 1992, when he met a 52-year-old Allen Kinkead while dancing at the Campus Theater in San Francisco. Lowe soon moved into Kinkead’s Haight district apartment. According to Lowe, on January 4, 1993, he got into a fight with Kinkead that turned physical. Kinkead fell, had a massive heart attack and died. Lowe’s girlfriend (stupidly) convinced him to stage the place like a robbery, so they tied the body to a chair and headed out of town in Kinkead’s red 1991 Trans Am. After Lowe’s captured, he cooled his heels in jail for almost a year and half before he pled guilty to involuntary manslaughter and agreed to 18 months in a drug-rehab program. He briefly returned to porn in the mid-90s, appearing in the weirdly autobiographical 1994 film Lowe Down, and I caught him nude dancing during that period at the Show Palace on Eighth Avenue.

Luka Magnotta, Canadian porn star and escort, was given a life sentence for the brutal murder and dismemberment of a student (Jun Li). He even videotaped himself eating the corpse with a knife and fork. He also sent body parts to politicians and schools and enclosed a poem with one that read, “Roses are red, violets are blue, the police will need dental records to identify you. Bitch.” (You need to see the three-part series on Netflix Don’t F**k With Cats for more on this psycho).

Ted Cox (aka Michael Kelly) was the short, studly star of such films as He-Devils and Pay To Play, and he also used to appear on the Robin Byrd cable TV show. He had a big, freaky-looking tattoo on his right shoulder and kept adding more ink to his body with each film. Michael Frank, a man Cox was seen having dinner with in New York, was later found dead, stabbed 22 times. Cox was arrested and spent a year in Rikers before he was able to prove a solid alibi for the time Frank was murdered.

I was obsessed with Cox, and actually saw him on the street in the East Village during a Wigstock festival many years ago. He had his shirt off and tucked into the back of his pants, and he looked cocky and sexy. I followed him as he stopped to talk to friends. I’ll never forget the illicit thrill I had that day- stalking him up and down streets for several giddy hours. I wonder now what it was that held such a dire fascination for me? Maybe it was the allure of his criminal past that kept me close on his trail, with my eyes fixated on his tattoo, shimmering in the light before being swallowed up by the boisterous, bewigged, crowd?