Cellphone data, new testimony contradict Brooks Houck's timeline given to police

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. (WDRB) -- A digital forensic expert testified Friday that Brooks Houck was at his family's farm most of the day Crystal Rogers' disappeared, contradicting a statement he gave police about his timeline on July 3, 2015.

The evidence presented by Detective Tim O'Daniel, a digital forensic expert with the Louisville Metro Police Department, was likely the most damaging so far against Houck, who is on trial for the murder of Rogers.

Houck and Rogers went to the farm that night from about 7 p.m. to midnight, and she was never seen again. In a written statement to police, Houck claimed he went to several businesses while working that day. But in court Thursday and early Friday, the owners of some of those businesses said they didn't see Houck, and one even said the office was closed.

O'Daniel testified Friday that Houck was at his family's farm from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. July 3, 2015, according to his analysis based on GPS, WiFi and cellular data stored in Google location records. Houck's defense team didn't challenge this evidence. A surveillance video presented to jurors earlier in the trial also showed Houck's truck heading to his family farm during the day July 3.

Sketches of Brooks Houck and Joseph Lawson's Trial

Rogers' disappearance has been a mystery for nearly a decade since she went missing. She is presumed dead.

O'Daniel — a retired U.S. Marine who created LMPD's Digital Forensic Unit in 2021 — testified Houck then went to a lumber store after 4 p.m. and was home from about 4:43 p.m. until 7:05 p.m. July 3, according to his analysis.

Houck then went back to the farm, O'Daniel testified, at 7:24 p.m. and stayed until 11:57 p.m. O'Daniel called the technical analysis in his testimony "very accurate."

This was the fourth day of Rogers' murder trial, which is expected to last about two weeks. Houck is charged with complicity to commit murder and tampering with physical evidence and faces up to 25 years to life in prison. His co-defendant, Joseph Lawson, is charged with conspiracy to commit murder and tampering with physical evidence, facing up to 25 years behind bars.

The trial was moved from Nelson County to Bowling Green because of the massive amount of publicity the case has drawn.

There has been very little evidence presented against Joseph Lawson, and O'Daniel testified he wasn't provided Lawson's phone to perform an analysis.

The detective told jurors he was provided the phone of Nick Houck, Brooks' brother. O'Daniel told jurors Nick Houck's phone didn't register on any cell towers between July 2 and July 4, 2015, meaning it could have been shut off or somewhere where it couldn't get a signal.

Nick Houck, who was a Bardstown Police Department officer at the time, has been referenced several times already during the trial and was called an "unindicted co-conspirator" by the prosecution. He was fired from the Bardstown Police Department in October 2015 for interfering with the investigation.

The phone for Steve Lawson, Joseph's father, was also analyzed by O'Daniel. Steve Lawson was found guilty of conspiracy to commit murder and tampering with physical evidence on May 30 for his role in Rogers' slaying. He faces a recommended sentence of 17 years when he is sentenced Aug. 6.

Defense attorneys for Houck have argued that neither of the Lawsons had anything to do with Rogers' murder. During his trial, however, Steve Lawson admitted he was guilty of tampering with physical evidence for helping his son move Rogers' vehicle after she disappeared. Joseph Lawson drove Rogers' car, and his father picked him up when the vehicle had a flat tire, leaving it on the side of Bluegrass Parkway, he testified.

Before they left, Steve Lawson said he reached into Rogers' car and moved the driver's seat forward — because Rogers was short — and removed a miniature Louisville Slugger bat his son carried around regularly. At his son's urging, he called Brooks Houck around midnight and told him the job was done, Steve Lawson said.

Since he was tried separately, Steve Lawson's testimony won't be allowed to be shown to jurors in this trial.

The defense is trying to clear the Lawsons of wrongdoing at least in part because they tie Houck to Rogers' disappearance.

O'Daniel testified Friday that Steve Lawson called Houck at 12:07 a.m. July 4, and the call came from near the area on the Bluegrass Parkway where Rogers' car was found later that day, phone records show. Defense attorney Brian Butler, who represents Houck, argued in his cross-examination of O'Daniel that Steve Lawson could have been on Boston Road, which runs parallel to Bluegrass Parkway, rather than up on the freeway, where Crystal Rogers' car was found after she disappeared.

In their opening statement, the defense claimed Steve Lawson went to get a car taken by his ex-girlfriend that night, which was near where Rogers' vehicle was abandoned, but he was on a different parallel road. The cell towers on the Bluegrass Parkway, where Rogers' vehicle was found, were the closest towers, they have said.

This defense wasn't brought up in Steve Lawson's trial last month.

The prosecution has maintained cellphone evidence from that night shows Steve Lawson on the Bluegrass Parkway, where Rogers' car was found running the day after she disappeared. Butler tried o discredit some of O'Daniel's testimony, saying Joseph Lawson called his father three times between 11:06 p.m. July 3 and 12:03 a.m. July 4, and not one of those calls showed up in the cellphone tower data where Rogers' vehicle was found.

The jury was also shown a picture in which you can see Rogers' car broke down right near a cellphone tower.

Earlier Friday, a former girlfriend of Steve Lawson, Heather Snellen, testified she was at Lawson's home in 2017 when she overheard Lawson and his son talking about "moving a body at the Houck farm."

Snellen acknowledged she was on drugs at the time, which were supplied to her by Joseph Lawson.

Under questioning from prosecutor Shane Young, Snellen admitted she didn't tell police about what she heard, despite being interviewed by the FBI in 2021, because she "didn't want to be involved" or get in trouble for her drug use.

In 2023, she was interviewed multiple times by Kentucky State Police investigators and, at first, didn't tell them about the 2017 conversation. But she later changed her story in a separate interview and told KSP about the statement. However, on Oct. 27, 2023, she provided a written statement to KSP saying she "felt she was being pressured into saying things" and didn't know what happened to Rogers other than what she'd seen on TV.

Asked by Young why she sent the statement to KSP, she said she wanted to "distance herself from the case" because she was scared. Snellen maintained she heard the statement during testimony in front of a Nelson County grand jury.

"The truth is I overheard Steve Lawson and Joseph Lawson talking about moving body at the Houck farm with a skid steer," Snellen testified Friday.

Snellen also testified about a car she took after breaking up with Steve Lawson in 2014, though she said they argued well into 2015 about who should get it. The car has been a through-line of the trial so far, with the defense using it to explain Steve Lawson's whereabouts July 4.

Snellen testified Friday she left work early July 3 — at 10 p.m. in the middle of a 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. shift — and, after being picked up by her ex-husband, saw her car on the way home, used a spare key fob she had and drove it to someone else's home on Boston Road. The next day, July 4, she testified she went back to the car to clean it out and found needles, blankets, a tourniquet, a big bag of soiled wet clothes and a Louisville Slugger bat. Steve Lawson testified in his trial that he removed a Louisville Slugger bat from Rogers' car after he left it on the Bluegrass Parkway with his son, Joseph.

The purpose of her testimony, in the prosecution's narrative, was to prove Steve Lawson couldn't have gone to retrieve that car on Boston Road, as the defense claims, because Snellen had the car July 3 and July 4.

However, much of her most damning testimony was discredited by the defense under cross-examination.

Using a transcript of her interviews with investigators, Butler revealed that after Snellen told KSP investigators the story about her car, they continued asking her for more information, to which she replied she didn't know anything else. Butler said KSP investigators screamed at her to remember more.

Butler said Snellen was being investigated by Child Protective Services at the time, and, in a transcript of her interview with KSP provided in court Friday, one investigator threatened to charge her or have her child taken away.

"Your life is pretty good," one investigator told her, according to the transcript. "It can stay that way if you tell us everything you know."

Snellen finally left the interview after more than four hours of being grilled by KSP, and, when she got up to leave, a trooper got in her way and said "I don't want to have to take your little boy from you," according to the transcript.

Among the other quotes from KSP troopers during their four-hour interrogation of Snellen.