Crystal Rogers murder trial of Brooks Houck to be held in Warren County, judge rules
The murder trial for Brooks Houck, the former boyfriend of Crystal Rogers who is accused of killing her in 2015, and two others in the case will be held in Warren County, a Nelson County judge ruled Monday.
Rogers, a 35-year-old mother from Bardstown, went missing in July 2015. Her body has never been found, but Rogers is presumed dead. Police found her car on the Bluegrass Parkway with her phone, keys and wallet inside.
Houck, Rogers’ former boyfriend, was indicted late last year on charges of murder and evidence tampering, while Stephen and Joseph Lawson, a father and son, were indicted on charges of criminal conspiracy to commit murder and complicity to tampering with physical evidence. All three have pleaded not guilty, and their cases and charges remain separate from one another.
Houck has been the primary suspect in Rogers’ disappearance for nine years, and was arrested last September.
In March, Houck’s attorneys filed a request for a change of venue for his trial from Nelson County. They said widespread media coverage has had a prejudicial affect on Houck and potential jury members.
“While it is unfortunate that so many residents of Nelson County have prejudged the facts of this case and disregarded the presumption of innocence, it is unsurprising given the incessant and pervasive local media coverage of the disappearance of Crystal Rogers over the course of the past eight years,” court documents from March read.
Houck originally requested the trial be moved to Boyd or Daviess counties, though the order from Nelson Circuit Court on Monday said parties agreed to hold the trial in either Christian or Warren counties.
Rogers’ disapperance has been widely covered nationally, including on Investigation Discovery and a six-part series on the network, Oxygen. The motion from March also referenced large billboards located throughout Nelson County, which depict Rogers’ face, and claim Houck as the main suspect. The defense argued these billboards, as well as bumper stickers on cars advocating for Rogers, have tainted the ability to select a jury in Nelson County.
Sixteen months after Rogers’ disappearance, her father Tommy Ballard, was killed too.
In September, the FBI said agents were conducting another search in the case involving the killing of Rogers in Cox’s Creek, Kentucky. No additional information about the search was released at that time. Investigators previously conducted several searches related to her death, including on a farm owned by ex-boyfriend’s family.
Additional details in the case revealed this past summer allege that Houck asked Stephen Lawson to “point him in the direction,” of someone who could “kill Crystal Rogers,” and that he “wanted his wife gone.”
This is a developing story that may be updated.
This story was originally published October 7, 2024 at 2:18 PM.