Two Families, Two Mysterious Murders And A Small Town’s Search For Justice

Prosecutors said Houck’s accounts to police, Rogers’ family and others, and on the Nancy Grace show, were inconsistent and contradictory — starting with his account of a low-key evening on July 3.

In fact, it was a stark contrast to the plans Rogers shared with friends and family that day.

Her longtime friend Kristina Holley testified that Rogers turned down her invitation to get pizza with the kids because Houck had wanted to spend a romantic evening alone with her.

Amanda Greenwell, Rogers’ cousin, told the court about a similar conversation she had with her that day at the local Walmart — the last time, prosecutors said, she was seen alive. 

“She said she and Brooks were going on a surprise date. She didn’t know what they were doing or where they were going,” Greenwell testified. “She was very excited.”

Instead, prosecutors claimed, he took her to the Houck family farm, where she was ultimately murdered.

“The surprise date was Crystal’s surprise ending,” the lead prosecutor reportedly told jurors in his closing argument.

Motive for murder

Court documents unsealed on July 15 shed new light on what prosecutors believe was Houck’s motive for killing his girlfriend. Although he told police he was faithful to Rogers and the couple were happy together, witnesses claim he shared that their relationship was rocky and that he’d slept with another woman just a month before Rogers disappeared.

According to witness statements, he also said he didn’t want to share custody or pay child support if they broke up. (After his trial, Brooks Houck’s sister, Rhonda McIlvoy, 38, filed a petition seeking full custody of Houck and Rogers’ son Eli, who has lived with her since 2023.)

Investigators didn’t spend much time speaking with Houck directly. Days after Rogers vanished, his interview with a detective at the sheriff’s office — which authorities later learned Houck had been secretly recording — was abruptly cut short. He answered a phone call from his brother, Bardstown police officer Nick Houck, who advised him to leave. (The police chief later fired Nick Houck for allegedly interfering with the investigation, lying to authorities and failing a polygraph test.)

Houck, who told Nancy Grace he was “100% innocent,” has continued to deny any wrongdoing. But authorities, Rogers’ family and the Bardstown community were suspicious from the start that he was involved in Rogers’ disappearance. Even after he was named as a suspect in October 2015 by the Nelson County sheriff — who said at the time that he believed Rogers was dead — no charges were filed against him. For more than eight years, Houck remained free and had full custody of the son he had shared with Rogers (an arrangement the Ballards unsuccessfully fought in court). 

But in September 2023, the FBI, which had been coordinating with state and local law enforcement agencies on the case, announced that Houck had finally been arrested. He was charged with murder and tampering with evidence and pleaded not guilty. His bail was set at a whopping $10 million, which a judge later refused to lower.

The court proceedings in this case have been complex and confusing, with long tentacles to other potential crimes and suspects. Houck was tried alongside Joseph Lawson, the son of his former employee, so prosecutors could demonstrate that the men worked together to commit the crime. However, Joseph’s father, Steven Lawson, was tried separately (and convicted) weeks before them, because a judge ruled that his “wildly inconsistent” and “ever-evolving” grand jury testimony in 2023 would prejudice his son and Houck’s case.Steven Lawson was largely convicted based on his testimony before a grand jury and on the stand in his trial this May that he had coordinated with his son and Brooks Houck to move Rogers’ car. According to prosecutors, Lawson told a grand jury in 2023 that Houck, who had previously hired him for construction projects, promised him more work if he helped move the car on the night of July 3, 2015 — which prosecutors said was evidence of premeditation.

Prosecutors in the Houck-Lawson trial alleged that Joseph Lawson not only knew Rogers had been killed but was involved in disposing of her body — in a gruesome way.

Charlie Girdley, a former employee of Houck’s, testified that Joseph Lawson told him that “no one would ever find” Rogers’ body because he planned to “pull her teeth” and “let the hogs do the rest.” Lawson also mentioned moving her body with a skid steer (a type of loader often used in construction for digging or moving heavy equipment), Girdley said.

Prosecutors said Lawson used Rogers’ own car keys to move her sedan the night she disappeared and Girdley’s testimony directly connected the keys to Houck.

Girdley testified he was picking up his week’s pay from his boss on July 3 when he saw Houck hand over Rogers’ keys to Joseph Lawson. He claimed Lawson told him that he was going to make some repairs on the car. Instead, prosecutors said, Joseph Lawson abandoned the car on the highway, where his father picked him up.

Lawson’s defense attorneys pointed out that Girdley’s hearsay accounts had repeatedly changed in numerous interviews with police and he was an unreliable witness. No physical evidence — DNA or fingerprints — was found linking either of the Lawsons to Rogers’ car, the defense noted.

A widening conspiracy

While prosecutors called Brooks Houck the “leader” of a conspiracy to kill his girlfriend and cover up the crime in a recently unsealed document, and focused on Joseph and Steven Lawson as co-conspirators, they believed there was more to the story.

They also named brother Nick Houck and their mother, Rosemary Houck, as “unindicted co-conspirators.” Neither has been charged with a crime, and prosecutors have not indicated whether they plan to pursue charges against them. They did, however, play a role in the prosecution’s narrative of what really happened to Crystal.

Shay McAlister, a dogged local journalist who has covered the case for years, including in the podcast “Bardstown,” highlighted passages of newly released court documents in which prosecutors allege that Rosemary Houck was involved in a plan to kill Rogers well before her disappearance.

Contractor worker Danny Singleton, a longtime employee of Brooks Houck’s, testified that Rosemary asked him whether he knew someone who could “get rid of Crystal.” She openly expressed her contempt for her son’s girlfriend, he said, according to prosecutors. Another witness told a grand jury that with Rogers gone, Rosemary Houck said her son with Brooks would now be “raised right.”

Prosecutors also suggested that Rosemary had been using a burner phone in the weeks before and after Rogers’ disappearance.

Investigators who obtained Rosemary’s phone through a search warrant said it showed no activity between June 16 and Aug. 4, 2015. During this period, they concluded, she must have been using a different phone — one they never obtained or found records of.

In addition, investigators found several recording devices hidden in Rosemary Houck’s closet. They allegedly contained secret recordings prosecutors said Houck family members made during grand jury proceedings — which Brooks’ sister admitted she had done when she testified at his trial — as well as private conversations between them that prosecutors said in court documents are further “evidence of the conspiracy.”

Now, awaiting sentencing from his jail cell, Houck has been accused by Rogers’ mother and adult children of working with his family to prevent them from recovering financial damages in a wrongful death lawsuit they filed against him after his arrest in 2023.

An attorney for the Ballard family said in a court filing that recorded jail conversations between Houck and his brother, mother, sister and current girlfriend show that he had been working with them to liquidate his assets before the civil lawsuit proceeds.

A judge issued a temporary injunction on July 25 barring him from selling property owned by him and his businesses, pending a hearing in October. According to court filings, he owns more than 80 properties with a tax-assessed value of $8.5 million.

But Crystal Rogers’ disappearance isn’t the only shocking tragedy the Ballard family has had to endure.