LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Law enforcement officials searched an area of Nelson County on Wednesday in connection to one of three unsolved homicide cases in the area, Special Prosecutor Shane Young said.

Kentucky State Police and the FBI confirmed the search is being conducted on a farm on Thompson Hill Road. Young wouldn't confirm the specific details of the search but he was appointed in January 2023 to prosecute the deaths of Crystal Rogers, her father, Tommy Ballard, and former Bardstown Officer Jason Ellis, all of whom were killed in the last 10 years.

Rogers was last seen on July 3, 2015. The next day, her car was found on the side of the Bluegrass Parkway with her purse, phone and keys still inside. But there was no sign of the mother of five.

Her father, Tommy Ballard, was shot and killed in November 2016 while out hunting on family property with his grandson. While police initially called his death a hunting accident, Sherry Ballard, his wife and Rogers' mother, has said from the beginning that it was no accident. She believes her husband was murdered.

Ellis was on his way home from a shift in May 2013 when he was ambushed clearing debris from the road, shot and killed. Shell casings from a 12-gauge shotgun were found at the scene the day of the murder. His weapon was still in his holster.

Breakthroughs in the case

The FBI said its officers have "been laser-focused on our commitment to hold accountable those that were responsible for the disappearance of Crystal Rogers." Brooks Houck, the primary suspect in her disappearance, was arrested in September after being charged with complicity to murder and tampering with physical evidence, according to an indictment in Nelson County Circuit Court.

The indictment accuses Houck 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. 

Investigators then told him he was the main person of interest because he was the last known person to see her alive when they were at his family farm the night of July 3.

In the interview, 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.

After eight years of investigation, Houck was the second person arrested this year in Rogers' disappearance. Nelson County resident Joseph L. Lawson pleaded not guilty to conspiracy to commit murder in Rogers' case. 

The Lawson indictment, which does not mention Rogers by name, says the crime was committed in Nelson County on July 3 and/or July 4, 2015, when Lawson "agreed to aid one or more persons in the planning or commission of the crime or an attempt or solicitation to commit the crime when he, and/or, a co-conspirator intentionally caused the death of another." The maximum sentence for the conspiracy charge is 10-20 years in prison. 

This story will be updated.

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