By Steve Huff

(Crime Library) — The afternoon of January 1, 2006, former House of Freaks band member Johnny Hott arrived at the home of the other half of the legendary indie rock band out of Richmond, VA, Bryan Harvey. Harvey and his wife Kathryn, owner of the popular World of Mirth novelty shop, were to host a chili cook-out for their friends that day. Hott had his own daughter along, possibly to play with Stella Harvey, age 9, or Ruby, age 4.

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Hott and Harvey were legends in the world of indie rock. Indie stands for "independent," and the term began to be used in the late 1980's to describe an eclectic breed of rock and roll that grew out of the alternative music popular in the early part of that decade. A rule of thumb for whether a band was considered 'indie' or not was if they'd been signed to an "independent" record label, as opposed to a major label Sony, Columbia, RCA being examples of the latter. Another way to quickly determine if a band was popular on the indie rock circuit was to see if they were popular on university-owned radio stations. College students since the '80s knew that the place to sometimes get a read on what might be coming down the pike in music was to tune into their own schools' airwaves, usually just broadcast to the few square miles surrounding the campus. The station might be staffed by student volunteers who barely knew their way around a microphone, but the music selection was guaranteed to be a world away from whatever was playing on top-40 FM stations.

Indie rockers age like everyone else, though, and by the time one-half of the two-member House of Freaks arrived at the red-brick Harvey home in the Woodland Heights subdivision on the first day of January, 2006, both Bryan Harvey and Johnny Hott were family men, moving smoothly from their days as icons of a sort into life as parents and involved members of the community.

Johnny Hott arrived to a house full of smoke, and no sign that a party was in preparation. Right away, he knew something was terribly wrong.

Firefighters found Bryan, Kathryn, Stella, and little Ruby Harvey in the basement of the home, bound, their throats slit. The Harvey family had been brutally, inexplicably murdered.

By January 1, 2006, many of the fans of House of Freaks, like the band, were also raising families and working steady jobs themselves. And many of them were blogging.

I wrote about the Harvey Family Murders in my weblog about crime, The Dark Side of Planet Huff.. Though I was not familiar with House of Freaks, I'd known of other popular indie groups, like Squirrel Bait, who shared many college radio playlists with House of Freaks, and somewhat indie groups who made forays into more mainstream airplay, like lounge-rockers Love Jones my former brother-in-law Ben Daughtrey, now a well-respected and award-winning documentary editor in Hollywood, played drums and did vocals for both groups. One thing that occurred to me as I researched was that the same demographic who once tuned in music by House of Freaks on their boomboxes in dorm rooms might now make up a large segment of the blogging populace.

Popular conservative weblogger Dawn Eden,  who writes a column about blogging and also edits for the New York Daily News, wrote the following to me about Bryan Harvey in an e-mail:

"I knew him personally. We met when he played in Steve Wynn's group Gutterball (...) at the Mercury Lounge (...)

[Bryan Harvey] had integrity... he was very kind to me and gentlemanly. He shared my love of obscure Sixties pop and had a deep knowledge of it himself...."

Harvey had a great sense of humor, as well. In 1999 he briefly formed something called The Heavy Elvis Experience. From the  geocities.com website:

"The Heavy Elvis Experience is Bryan Harvey, from House of Freaks (...) I hear that Bryan is the second coming of Elvis, and that his white jumpsuit was just drycleaned, and the peanutbutter stains came out real good. Coby is well... COBY, and the crew also includes Mike Lucas, and more. You can't miss 'em. If you do Heavy E will sit on you..."

There is a bizarre but funny photo of Harvey in an Elvis Presley-esque get-up, complete with foam-rubber fatsuit. The Elvis costume doesn't allow one to see that Harvey was a youthful, handsome man. In photos in various newspaper articles about the murders, he and the slender, pretty Kathryn Harvey look like what they apparently were bright, creative, and responsible young parents and professionals.

Next Page

Musician, Wife & Children Slain in Home

Stella Harvey — Delivered to Death

Harvey Family Murder Investigation Continues

Harvey Family Murders Full Coverage & Breaking News

For more daily crime news

Steve Huff can be reached via email at steve.huff@gmail.com .