The Motive Is Now Fully Revealed

Well…I was right again.

You remember, way back when lots of people were saying they just did not see a motive for Harlow and Joe to have committed this crime? And since they saw no motive, they MUST be innocent, regardless of the evidence against them? Sigh..I certainly do…I labeled the phenomenon “motive-on-the-brain.”

The truth is, motive is NOT a necessary element to proving a crime. We don’t know exactly why Harlow and Joe killed Kocis? WHO CARES! It doesn’t matter, go with the facts. If all the facts point to Harlow and Joe, then BOOM, they did it. End of story. Stop losing sleep over motive, it is not as all important as you motive-on-the-brain people seem to think it is.

But you know, many people following this case just HAVE to have their clear-cut motive. Drama queens that we are, I guess, we all want to be told a bedtime story, where the protagonists are all transparently driven. And if the facts pointed to someone without an obvious motive? Ehhhh, those pesky facts can just be chalked up to black helicopters or some such.

In the face of all this nonsense I made a prediction, early on when little was known about Harlow and Joe. While I admitted their motive for the crime was rather opaque right now, I predicted that over time it would become clear, as additional facts trickled in.

And like I said above…I WAS RIGHT!

Just like in the movie Fargo, where at the beginning of the movie the motive for Jerry to kidnap his wife is rather opaque…as the movie progressed, the motive became clear.

As of this week, and despite the efforts by people to cover it up…the motive of Harlow and Joe for the murder of Bryan Kocis has now been FULLY REVEALED.

And just like I said, the revelation came gradually. At the time of the arrest, the police gave a “gay porn rivalry” as the motive for the murder. The motive-on-the-brainers back then hooted in derision, calling it the “Velvet Mafia Reloaded.”

I suppose that may have seemed a bit far-fetched back then, initially. After all, what would a bunch of probably hetero police investigators know of the inner workings of the gay porn industry? But then, the affidavit goes public, and we get introduced to Police Informants #1 and #2. And then comes the prelim…and we actually get to see and hear Police Informant #2, Justin Hensley.

Justin Hensley’s testimony at the prelim is devastating. He lays the motive flat out, no weasel words:

“A former roommate of Kerekes and Cuadra, Justin Andrew Hainsley, testified he once heard the two describe Cobra Video — owned by Kocis — as their biggest competitor in the adult film industry. He said the two discussed Lockhart, saying the pair wanted to recruit him to work for their Web site, but Lockhart, who went by the stage name Brent Courigan, was under contract with Kocis’ company.“So the only thing standing in the way was Mr. Kocis,” Hainsley said.”

The motive-on-the-brain Harlowites were understandably distraught at this.

But they did not give up. First, they attacked Justin Hensley, saying he had a “deal” (a claim later proven by me to be false).

Second, they simply went into denial, saying regardless of what Hensley testified under oath to…the motive just did not make sense to them. Like a broken record, they kept repeating this over and over and over and over.

And you know, even I would have to admit that even with Justin Hensley confirming the motive…something seemed missing. Harlow and Joe thought they could get 6-7 figures, OK, well…I too would like to acquire 6-7 figures. I would also like a Malibu beach house, with Lukas Ridgeston as my houseboy. But would I murder someone in cold blood for any of these things? No. I am happy enough as is in my life, such that none of those material things above would EVER motive me to commit such a brutal death penalty offense.

So, for Harlow and Joe to have acted as they did, something else had to be there. Methamphetamine use? Perhaps, but there has been no clear evidence of this (yet). Harlow and Joe were simply psychopaths? No prior crimes of such nature from them, so one would have to assume no to that. So what could the missing puzzle piece be?

Well, about a week ago, that missing piece of the puzzle fell into place: DEBT. Massive debt. Debt WAY beyond whatever income ability they had to pay off, in the months just prior to the murder. The true picture of this staggering debt came in a recent exchange between comments to an Elm post, and a PC post in response to it.

Now, the interesting thing about this final puzzle piece is that it was hidden in plain sight. PC had written of Harlow and Joe’s debt on many different occasions, usually in connection with reporting on the forfeiture proceedings. But it was not until last week that PC had summarized ALL of Harlow and Joe’s debt in one easy to read balance sheet. And not only that – very important details about the nature of that debt was revealed for the very first time. More on that later.

The other reason this debt posting came as such a shock was that we all had been the subject of a massive disinformation campaign by the Harlowites concerning the nature of this debt. The Harlowites had admitted there was close to $1 million in debt, BUT they always explained it away with the spin that they had a lot of money coming in, and the debt was manageable. Harlow and Joe were current on their bills until the arrest, they claimed numerous times, this last Elm post being the latest such incident. This time, however, I decided to call them on this…just like I did when they were spinning “Justin Hensley has a deal.” And what happened was, PC made his debt post in response…and in doing so literally blew that oft-repeated Harlowite talking point clean out of the water.

It turns out, PC had some never revealed info concerning Harlow’s debt, namely, his late payment info:

"Accounts that were late on or before May 2007:
American Honda Finance: 30 days late for March, April & May 2007
DAIMLERCHRYS: 30 days late for February & May 2007
BMW FIN SVC: 30 days late for February, 60 days late for May 2007
Chase 2: 30 days late for April, 60 days late for May 2007
GMAC Mortgage (2nd Mtg): 30 days late for March & May 2007
Chase: 30 days late for May"

As you can see, the Harlowite talking point that “They were not behind in any of their payments before their arrests” turns out to be a bald faced lie.

The Harlowites then tried to save face and construct a fall back position, saying “They were not behind in any of there payments before the murder.” Skoff. Even that was a lie. Fact is, the first 30 day late notices above appear in February, meaning the due dates for those payments were in January…very probably before the murder, or certainly right about the time of it. But once again, new revelations about the nature of the debt makes it clear that Harlow and Joe were in deep insolvency months before the murder, well beyond their ability to pay.

According to credit info provided by PC, Harlow was WAY over limit on most of his credit cards; here is the breakdown on that:

Chase 1: $50,000 limit - $55,071 owed = $5,071 OVER LIMIT
Discover Fin: $4,000 limit - $3626.00 owed = $374.00 available
BofA: $18,000 limit - $40,117.00 owed = $22,117 OVER LIMIT
Chase 2: $100,000 limit - $119,113 owed = $19,113 OVER LIMIT
AMEX: $11,556 owed; AMEX is squishy when it comes to credit limits, however, it looks like they were finally cut off (see info concerning Joe's frantic call to credit card companies below).

Except for a piddling sum left on Discover, all their cards were maxxed out...nay, WELL over the limit. There is only one conclusion you can make from all this…in the MONTHS prior to the murder, Harlow and Joe were running a credit card Ponzi scheme. They were robbing Peter to pay Paul (or, in this case, B of A to pay Chase Manhattan), taking cash advances on one card to make minimum payments on other cards, in addition to whatever other spending whim Joe might have had at the time.

And according to an anonymous informer over on Elm blog (you know, I wasn't planning on using "former escort's" claims here, BUT, I have just received independent confirmation...from a surprising source, I might add...of much of what “former escort” says; so, I am going to be cautiously trustful of what he has to say, for now), Joe had been frantically making phone calls to Harlow’s credit card companies, pleading for these over limit credit extensions. Again, this all occurred MONTHS prior to the murder.

So, “They were not behind in any of there payments before the murder” is also essentially a lie. If you need to borrow more just to make your minimum payments, you are, in reality, NOT making REAL payments on your debt. In fact, you are merely adding to it, making the situation more desperate.

Just to give you all an idea of how bad this debt was, and that there was simply no way they had the income to manage this debt…if we assume $4000/mo was the payments on their two mortgages (a conservative estimate I derived from a mortgage calculator), the total *minimum* payments due for Harlow and Joe in May were:

Cars: $6,627.00
Credit Cards: $17,103.00
Mortgages: $4,000.00

Total = $27,730.00

Now, just for fun, lets see if Harlow could manage this debt on his escort income alone. If we assume Harlow charges $200/hr, that means that to simply keep up with just the *minimum* debt payments in May, Harlow would have to “work” for:

27,730 divided by 200 = 138.65 hours

…over a one month period. Thus for May, Harlow’s legs would have to be in the air on average of approximately 4.5 hours a day, day after day, for 31 consecutive days.

I doubt even the so-called “Studwonder” possesses that kind of endurance. So no, Harlow (nor Joe) were not going to hump their way out of debt. They obviously needed a sudden, massive boost in their "Boybatter" web site operations, which by this time had no doubt begun to lose steam in a VERY crowded online porn market. They needed some razzle-dazzle to attract a new wave of subscribers, and (thanks to Justin Hensley) we know for a fact they saw Brent Corrigan as their savior in this regard.

And there you have it: Debt; massive bone-crushing debt, clearly beyond their income to pay off. This is the missing piece to the motive puzzle.

So you see, Harlow and Joe were not facing a choice between contentment and making 6-7 figures; it was a choice between extra-humiliating bankruptcy and making 6-7 figures.

This is important. Think about what we know of Harlow and Joe’s character (especially Joe’s, who seems to have dominated this relationship). They were “normally rather "flashy" and flamboyant, enjoying exotic vehicles, extravagant dinners, and making contacts for their escort business and pornographic video business.” They “collect expensive Rolex watches as well, and own approx five or six.”

And how do you suppose this went over with their peers in the small and insular Virginia Beach/Norfolk gay community? “Harlow and Joseph (aka Trent) are both known to be arrogant assholes around here in Norfolk/VB” one commenter on Towleroad opined. Another wrote: “Knowing both Joe, and Harlow. They are not respectable people… they got caught, and I hope that they pay the price.”

Comments like these shows that their wealth-flaunting arrogance made them somewhat reviled in their own home town. Thus, the humiliation of a bankruptcy would have thus been an especially bitter pill for Harlow and Joe to swallow, as their many enemies in the local gay community would have been THRILLED to have a schadenfreude moment at their expense.

So you see, the real choice before them was not a normal life, or making 6-7 figures…but rather, the UBER public humiliation involved in descending back to their white trash origins…or making 6-7 figures. And knowing what we know of Joe’s unstable personality in particular, the former was NOT an option for him.

Like I said…there’s your motive! Notice that it is not all financial…in fact, I would say the emotional element (i.e., to avoid shame) was probably a greater motivation than the strictly financial greed element, all things considered. Emotionally “arrogant assholes” are always quite desperate to avoid falling off their public pedestals.

Harlow and Joe thus had motive UP THE WAZOO for this crime…thanks to this valuable new debt info; there is simply no denying that fact now.

And you know what? I STILL have more to say on all this! But this post has gone on long enough, so I’ll save it for a “Part II.: A Little Bedtime Story” which will be written with all you motive-on-the-brainers in mind. I will trace the commission of this crime, looking at it from Harlow and Joe’s perspective and motive (which we now know). Thus a speculative narrative; however, every point will be supported by KNOWN FACTS (as opposed to relying on black helicopters and imaginary government conspiracies).

Not only that...but this new debt info is also incredibly useful in explaining much of their bizarre post-murder behavior, which I will trace through as well.

This new debt revelation was TRULY the last missing piece to the motive puzzle. I can see now why Elm was so desperate to change the subject when it came up, and why the Harlowites now threaten legal action against anyone who mentions it.