LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- It's been nine years since Crystal Rogers was last seen alive.

This anniversary is the first where three men are in jail, charged with killing her.

From the very beginning and over the course of time, the past nine years have been filled with heartache and suffering. 

"It doesn't get easier as the time goes by," Rogers' mother, Sherry Ballard, said last year.

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.

"We would have never expected this," Ballard said on the first anniversary of her daughter's disappearance.

Her boyfriend at the time, Brooks Houck, was the last person to see her alive. 

In an interview with a detective shortly after Rogers' disappearance, Houck said "My whole family's name is trashed for something that's completely, not even tied to me."

Brooks Houck's brother, Nick Houck, was fired from the Bardstown Police Department for interfering with the investigation. 

"I don't give a s*** what your d*** computer said, I'm telling you I've been 100% honest with you," Nick Houck responded when an investigator told him he'd failed a polygraph test, lying about questions related to Rogers and her disappearance.

Brooks Houck was later named the main suspect in 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," Ballard told WDRB in July 2020, speaking of Brooks Houck. "And I just think to myself, your day is coming."

Houck currently sits in jail on a $10 million full cash bond, but he's not the only one behind bars.

Father and son Steve and Joseph Lawson are also in jail for their involvement. There have also been conflicting stories about their connection to Rogers' car and belongings being abandoned on the Bluegrass Parkway with a flat tire.

Rogers' father, Tommy Ballard, was shot and killed 16 months after her disappearance. He never believed his daughter was in her car before it was found.

"I new she wasn't there, I knew she hadn't been there," he told WDRB a year after her disappearance.

Steve Lawson's attorney, Ted Lavit, said his client picked up his son Joseph, who was the one driving her car.

"He received a phone call from his son that he broke down, he went out there and picked him up and there was a flat tire," Lavit said Dec. 21, 2023, at Steve Lawson's arraignment.

According to court documents, a jailhouse phone call revealed the Lawsons had picked up Rogers' car from a neighborhood where investigators tore up a driveway, searching for any sign of her in 2021.

"Crystal's car was brought to the Thompson farm by Joey and my client, this was late at night, told Joey Mr. Thompson would not appreciate and does not want this car out here," Lavit said during a hearing on June 12 this year.

That's the same farm where Steve Lawson told investigators he saw his son and another man digging and burning shortly after Rogers disappeared.

Her family said that while every court hearing leading up to trial is painful, it's one step closer to justice for Rogers.

Brooks Houck is scheduled to appear in court Monday, where his attorneys will argue to have his case separated from the Lawsons.

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