Inside Brooks Houck's jail phone calls: From hope to desperation after murder conviction

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- In the two weeks after Brooks Houck was convicted in the murder of Crystal Rogers, he made dozens of phone calls from the Oldham County Jail.

In the roughly 30 hours of phone calls, Houck talks about being in shock, a plan to use his son to hopefully get him out of prison and his desperation leading him to cry out to God.

Houck was transported back to the Oldham County Jail on July 9 following his conviction and almost 10 years to the day since Rogers went missing. The first call he made was to his sister, Rhonda.

Brooks Houck: "Right now, everybody is still in shock. And, of course, this is a terrible blow to the family. But we'll make it through this."

Rhonda McIlvoy: "I don't know. I just can't. It doesn't register with me yet."

BH: "That fast and to get the maximum penalty on all that with what evidence was presented — I'm telling you, something more is going on than what we're all aware of. You know that?"

RM: "Yes. Oh, I think so too."

He later talks to his mother, Rosemary Houck, about what he thinks was the most damaging part of the trial.

"The damage was done by Charley Girdley and false admissions, you know, from the Lawsons," he tells her. "That's what caused the problem."

Houck then suggests his mother get someone to talk to Girdley, something he also tells his brother — Nick Houck.

BH: "I might be in La La Land right now, just wishful thinking because I'm desperate right now, but, at the same time, it's certainly worth a shot."

BH: "We need this truth to come out. You understand what I'm saying?"

Nick Houck: "Yeah."

Houck said Girdley works for his former realtor, Ritchie Riggs. In the call with his brother, he suggested his son, Eli, who he shared with Rogers, go with them to talk to Riggs.

"Maybe have Eli even involved in talking to Ritchie, saying that kinda hit a little different if Eli was with you all and 'My dad is sentenced to life based upon what these people, these lies that they said,'" he said. "And we're desperate. We need any help that we can get."

On the witness stand during Houck's trial, Girdley told the jury Steve Lawson came to him saying Houck wanted to "get rid of his old lady" and that Girdley was the man for the job.

Houck also talked about selling off his property for Eli, which a judge ordered to stop pending a wrongful death lawsuit filed by Rogers' family.

Last month, Judge Charles Simms III, who presided over Houck's 10-day trial, ordered Houck not to transfer any property until at least after an evidentiary hearing scheduled for Oct. 8. The wrongful death lawsuit, filed by four of Rogers' children and her mother, Sherry Ballard, is still pending. The suit was filed in December 2023 and accuses Houck of responsibility in Rogers' death.

"I want to get as much, I want to get as much as I can for Eli," he said. "He should get my stuff. But, you know, my relationship with Eli is my problem."

At times, he got emotional during the calls when talking about the son he and Rogers had together.

"I sacrificed time away from Eli. I had 10 years with him," he said. "Those were the best 10 years of my life."

During the dozens of phone calls he made, Houck would go back and forth between feelings of desperation to hope. During a call with his girlfriend Crystal Maupin, she told him she got out of Bardstown after the verdict for her own safety. He also talked about their future.

BH: "But honey, I just don't feel like this is the end of me. I don't feel like this is the end of us."

Crystal Maupin: "I don't feel it either."

In another call with Maupin, he talks about never having been religious.

"Things have to be absolutely horrible and then, makes me feel bad to reach out to God then, at that point, because, you know, I'm desperate," he said. "Why didn't I reach out before?"

Houck also talks about staying hopeful during the appeals process, which he told his family could take two to three years.

On July 8, a Warren County Circuit Court jury found Houck and Joseph Lawson guilty in the 2015 murder of Crystal Rogers and recommended the maximum prison sentences: life in prison plus five years for Houck and 25 years for Lawson. Both would have to serve 85% of their sentence before being eligible for parole.

The trial was moved out of Nelson County because of the massive amount of media coverage over the past decade.

The jury of six men and six women found Houck, 43, guilty of murder (principal or accomplice to the crime) and complicity tampering with physical evidence.

His co-defendant, 34-year-old Joseph Lawson, who was charged with conspiracy to commit murder and tampering with physical evidence, was found guilty on both charges as well. His father, Steve Lawson, was convicted of the same charges and sentenced to 17 years in prison.

A final sentencing hearing for Houck and Joseph Lawson will be held next Thursday, Aug. 21.

Rogers, a 35-year-old mother of five from Nelson County, was last seen alive during the Fourth of July weekend in 2015 with her boyfriend, Houck. Days later, her car was found abandoned — still running — on the side of the Bluegrass Parkway. Her purse and other belongings were inside. Despite years of searching, she's never been found.

While there was no physical evidence, such as a body, murder weapon, crime scene or witness, the prosecution hammered Houck's actions in the days before and after Rogers' disappeared.

Houck acknowledged he was with Rogers from about 7 p.m. until midnight on July 3, 2015, at the family farm. She was never seen again. He took her to his family's farm that rainy night on what was supposed to be a special date, according to her friends.

Steve Lawson sentenced to 17 years in prison for role in Crystal Rogers' murder

Brooks Houck, Crystal Rogers went to family farm 'to get away' the night she vanished

Brooks Houck tells family in jail phone calls he's 'gonna die in here'