FBI wraps up 3-day search for Crystal Rogers at properties once owned by Brooks Houck's family

NELSON COUNTY, Ky. (WDRB) -- For a third straight day, dozens of federal agents searched two rural Nelson County properties that were once owned by members of Brooks Houck's family in the latest investigation into Crystal Rogers' death.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation arrived on Whitesides Road on Tuesday, setting up tents and bringing more than two dozen vehicles to assist in the search. The properties were both once owned by family members of Brooks Houck, who was the last person seen with Rogers and was charged in her murder last year.

Just off Whitesides Road, a rural residential road between Fairfield and Highgrove in Nelson County, sits the two properties once owned by Anna Whitesides, Houck's grandmother, and Nick Houck, his brother, as recently as 2018, Nelson County PVA records show.

Both properties were in the Houck family dating back to 1900, records show, but have since been sold off.

"FBI Louisville is conducting a search in Cox’s Creek, KY as a follow-up to tips received related to the Crystal Rogers investigation," a spokesperson said in a brief statement Wednesday.

Doug Kouns, who spent 22 years as an FBI agent, said this type of search is painstaking work.

"It's very meticulous. It's very time consuming. It's exhausting," Kouns said Thursday. "They are there with what I assume is the evidence response team. I was part of an evidence response team, and it's generally a group of agents and support staff that have additional specialized training in processing these sites ... And they also have additional technology and tools and resources that assist them."

Nelson County Sheriff Ramon Pineiroa said in a brief interview Wednesday that investigators were there to find a body. The investigation has lasted more than nine years, and though Houck and two others currently sit in jail on charges related to Rogers' death, legal expert Jeremy Rosenthal said Thursday that trying a murder case without a body is challenging.

"It doesn't mean it's impossible, but it just means the prosecution has to be extremely creative in how they charge the case and how they prove it without a body," he said.

Just before 4 p.m., the FBI finished their work on the properties. They'll return Friday to clean up the equipment.

Rogers was last seen with Houck during the Fourth of July weekend in 2015. Her car was left running on the side of Bluegrass Parkway with her phone and purse still inside. She's presumed dead, but her body was never found.

Search History

This search on Whitesides Road was at least the ninth that the FBI, Kentucky State Police or Louisville Metro Police have conducted since Rogers' disappearance. It centers around two properties owned by members of the Houck family.

Anna Whiteside owned a 3-acre plot on Whitesides Road until it was sold in May 2018, according to the Nelson County PVA. Back in 2017, another of Whitesides' properties, on Pulliam Avenue near downtown Bardstown, was searched by KSP investigators. Troopers were seen removing five bags of evidence from the house and then leaving in a white SUV.

And Nick Houck, who was fired from the Bardstown Police Department for interfering in the Rogers investigation, owned a 5-acre property on Whitesides Road before selling it in 2018, property records show. Nick Houck now owns the Pulliam Avenue house that KSP searched in 2018.

The special prosecutor in the case, Shane Young, said in a court hearing last October that the investigation into the murder of Rogers is also an investigation into the death of her father, Tommy Ballard. And Young mentioned Nick Houck as being potentially involved. 

Less than 18 months after Rogers went missing, Ballard was shot and killed in November 2016 while hunting with his grandson on family property in Nelson County. Young has said that during the state's investigation, a rifle was purchased from Nick Houck, who was using a fake name. Young said it's the same caliber as the gun used in Ballard's death and so far matches four of the five criteria they were looking at in comparison.

At the time, Young said investigators were waiting for further testing on the gun. 

The other searches — which ranged from June 2015 to December 2023 — have combed the far reaches of Nelson County, from downtown Bardstown to the edges of the county in nearly every direction. Sometimes, investigators found evidence they sent off for testing. Most of the time, they came and went without reporting anything of note.

July 3, 2015

The investigation began more than nine years ago when Rogers' car was left running on the side of Bluegrass Parkway with a flat tire and her phone and purse still inside. The mother of five seemingly vanished into thin air.

After he was arrested last year, Brooks Houck's indictment accused him of "acting alone or in complicity with another" committing the offense of murder of Rogers. He's also charged with tampering when he "destroyed, mutilated, concealed, removed or altered" physical evidence, according to the indictment.

Joseph Lawson, 32, pleaded not guilty last September to criminal conspiracy to commit murder and tampering with physical evidence in the Rogers case. He is not charged with Rogers' murder, but prosecutors instead charged him with conspiracy, meaning they believe he was involved in some fashion with whomever killed Rogers.

The maximum sentence for the conspiracy charge is 10-20 years in prison.

In addition, the indictment charges Joseph Lawson with complicity to tampering with physical evidence when he "destroyed, mutilated, concealed, removed or altered physical evidence." The maximum penalty for that charge is one to five years in prison.

Steve Lawson, according to a Dec. 6 Nelson County indictment, agreed to "aid one or more persons in the planning or commission" of the death of another and then "destroyed, mutilated, concealed, removed" or altered physical evidence on July 3 or July 4, 2015, when Rogers disappeared. Steve Lawson did part-time construction work with Brooks Houck and talked with him by phone shortly after Rogers' disappearance.

Ted Lavit, who once represented Steve Lawson, told WDRB that that Steve Lawson's son, Joseph, "drove Crystal's vehicle west on the Bluegrass (Parkway) to, I believe it was Mile Marker 14 or 16, where he had a flat tire."

Lawson, who worked for Houck, "does not dispute" he was at the location where Rogers’ vehicle was found.

"Lawson further admitted that Brooks Houck was trying to find someone to get rid of Crystal Rogers," the prosecution said in court records. "Other witnesses have offered evidence indicating that S. Lawson and Houck spend an inordinate amount of time together immediately preceding Rogers’s disappearance."

In addition, witnesses came forward saying Lawson told them that Houck was trying to recruit him or someone else "to get rid of Rogers."

Attorneys for Brooks Houck and Joseph Lawson said they weren't aware of Wednesday's FBI search in Nelson County.

9-Year Investigation

The case has taken several wild turns since 2015, and it's included several members of the Houck family and touched even more members of Rogers' family.

In a police interview interview, Brooks Houck said that he, Rogers and their 2-year-old son, Eli, left the family farm around midnight the night of July 3. He said when they got home, he went straight to bed, and Rogers stayed up playing games on her phone. He said that when he woke up on the morning of July 4, Rogers wasn't there.

Over the years, the Houck family farm, and the homes of Brooks Houck and his brother, Nick, have been searched multiple times, along with a storage unit belonging to Rogers. In 2021, FBI agents spent more than a week in a Bardstown neighborhood and said they found "multiple items of interest" that were "potentially relevant" to their investigation after they zeroed in on the driveway of one home, which was built by a construction company owned by Houck.

Evidence found was sent to the FBI lab in Quantico, Virginia, the FBI said. 

Then in October 2022, federal agents conducted a a five-day search at a Bardstown farm owned by Brooks Houck's family. 

Nick Houck, once a Bardstown Police officer, was fired in October2015 for interfering with the investigation. He failed a polygraph test, accused of lying about questions related to Rogers' disappearance.

Brooks Houck was named the main suspect in the case not long after Rogers' disappearance, and more than eight years later, in September 2023, he was arrested for her murder.

"In my heart I know he's 100% guilty," Sherry Ballard, Rogers' mother, told WDRB in July 2020, speaking of Brooks Houck. "And I just think to myself, your day is coming."

Houck has pleaded not guilty. He is in jail on a $10 million bond awaiting trial set for next year. 

Crystal Rogers Coverage:

• FBI searches 2 properties once owned by Brooks Houck's family in Crystal Rogers investigation
• Steve Lawson told confidential informant Brooks Houck had nothing to do with Crystal Rogers' murder
• On 9th anniversary of Crystal Rogers' disappearance, 3 men sit in jail charged with her murder
• Attorneys for Brooks Houck allege investigators promised immunity to co-defendants to 'get Brooks'

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