(Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania) The jury in the Harlow Cuadra murder trial begins deliberations today on whether the 27-year-old should receive the death penalty for the killing of Cobra video owner Bryan Kocis.

Cuadra was found guilty of killing Kocis last week. Cuadra’s former lover and business partner, 35-year-old Joseph Kerekes, already is serving life after pleading guilty last December to second degree murder after making a deal with prosecutors.

Cuadra and Kerekes saw Kocis as a business competitor; the pair wanted a male model who was under contract with Kocis.

Assistant District Attorney Michael Melnick has called on the jury to impose the death penalty.  In his summation, Melnick told the court that Kerekes is a murderer but that Cuadra played a “predominant role in this homicide.”

Among the witnesses Melnick called to testify in the penalty phase Friday were Kocis’ parents, who described their son as ” loving, caring [and] generous.”

“You have to know Bryan, if only you knew Bryan the way we did, he was very private,” Joyce Kocis testified. “He was the type of person who did things for people.”

Michael Kocis said he has not had a full night’s sleep since his son died.

“I’m going to try and get through this,” he told the court, wiping tears from his face.

He said that ” [Bryan was his] first and only son” – an Eagle Scout and a deacon at his church who also donated money to groups that helped battered women.

Cuadra’s attorney, Joseph D’Andrea, called on the jury to spare his client’s life.

He argued that Kerekes was a controlling man who manipulated Cuadra.  He also told the jury that Kerekes was the principle in the killing and that Cuadra’s role was getting Kerekes into the house and in helping hide evidence.

D’Andrea also pointed to Cuadra’s service in the U.S. Navy and told the jury that he had no prior criminal convictions. He also argued that Cuadra had been a victim of sexual abuse as a child by his stepfather.

Cuadra’s brother, Jose, testified that the abuse occurred in the bed he shared with his brother and that when he was 16 his brother left home.

They lost touch and were only reunited when he and his sister found Cuadra on Myspace.

Kocis’ body was discovered in his home by firefighters responding to a blaze in the rural house in January 2007. More than 80 percent of his body was covered by third-degree burns and police said the fire had been set deliberately to destroy evidence.

An autopsy found that Kocis died of massive blood loss after his head was nearly sliced off. He suffered between 28 and 29 post mortem stab wounds before his home was torched.