‘I think they are getting close.’ Crystal Rogers’ mother waits for results from FBI search
Sherry Ballard, the mother of missing Kentucky woman Crystal Rogers, has received phone calls similar to the one she received Monday morning: It was the FBI informing her they were conducting a search at a Bardstown farm in connection to her daughter’s disappearance.
Rogers has been missing since 2015, and the FBI, along with other law enforcement agencies in Kentucky, have conducted several searches for evidence in her disappearance. Ballard hopes this is the last time she gets a call about a search.
“When they called me this morning, I can’t tell you the emotions that I had with that,” Ballard said to reporters at the Nelson County Sheriff’s Office Monday. “I pray that they find my daughter and bring her home.”
The FBI has been the lead agency investigating the disappearance of Crystal Rogers since August 2020. Officers executed search warrants in Bardstown the day that the FBI announced it was leading the case. More than a year ago, the FBI conducted additional searches in Nelson County and recovered key items. But Rogers has yet to be found and no arrests have been made.
The FBI announced the latest search in a tweet Monday, in which the agency said it was “conducting judicially authorized activity at 345 Paschal Ballard Lane.”
Records from the Nelson County Property Valuation Administrator’s office show the property is a farm belonging to the Houck family. Brooks Houck, Rogers’ boyfriend at the time of her disappearance, is believed to be the last person who saw her.
Law enforcement named him a suspect early in the case, but he has never been charged with anything in connection to Rogers’ disappearance.
Authorities have searched the Houck farm before, most recently in August 2020. Local law enforcement also searched the property two months after Rogers was reported missing.
Ballard said she was unsatisfied with the previous search of the farm and happy that the FBI is on the scene again.
Ballard said Rogers was at the farm often.
“It’s such a huge farm. It takes so long to go through something like that,” Ballard said. “I guess as a mom, in the back of my mind, I’m always thinking, ‘could she still be there?’ Until I find her I’m just never going to be happy with that farm.”
An FBI spokesperson said Monday that it’s unclear how long the search will last, but the agency is “planning for multiple days.” The FBI declined to comment on what it was looking for in this latest search.
Local law enforcement officers were on-scene at the farm Monday to restrict access while the FBI searched.
“Our family just needs answers and I think they are getting close,” Ballard said. “Do I mean are they going to make an arrest today? No I don’t want somebody to think I’m saying that because that’s not what I’m saying, but I think everyday they’re getting closer.”
