‘Where is Crystal Rogers?’ Trial of man accused in KY mother’s disappearance begins
Sherry Ballard couldn’t get her daughter to respond to texts or phone calls in the early evening of July 3, 2015.
Crystal Rogers, the Nelson County mother of five, was also not responding to texts and calls from her kids.
On July 5, Ballard, shaken, confused and determined, headed to the Nelson County Sheriff’s Department to report Rogers missing.
But before she made it to the sheriff’s office, she spotted Brooks Houck, Rogers live-in boyfriend and the father of her youngest child who was then 2. She eventually got Houck to pull over at a gas station, and she asked him if he had seen Rogers, Ballard tearfully told a Warren County Circuit Court jury Tuesday.
Then she saw her then two-year-old grandson in Houck’s backseat. She knew something had happened to Rogers.
“My daughter never left that baby,” Ballard said.
Ballard’s testimony came on the first day of the trial of Steve Lawson, 54, of Chaplin. Lawson has been charged with tampering with physical evidence and conspiracy to commit murder.
Lawson is the first of three men who have been charged in Rogers’ 2015 disappearance to go to trial.
The two other men charged in Rogers’ disappearance are her former boyfriend Houck and Joseph Lawson, Steven Lawson’s son.
Rogers’ body has never been found.
Rogers disappearance was unsolved for nearly a decade and is one of the most notorious unsolved missing person cases in Kentucky.
Houck is charged with murder and tampering with evidence, while Joseph Lawson is charged with conspiracy to commit murder and complicity to tampering with evidence.
Nelson County Circuit Judge Charles Simms III previously decided to sever Steven Lawson’s trial from the trial of Houck and Joseph Lawson because of statements he made that are inadmissible in court. The joint jury trial for Houck and Joseph Lawson is scheduled to take place in late June.
The trials for all three suspects are being held in Warren County.
Lawson helped move Rogers’ car
Special prosecutor Shane Young said Lawson, who occasionally worked for Houck, helped his son move Rogers’ car likely sometime on the evening of July 4., 2015.
Rogers’ car was found on the Bluegrass Parkway on July 5. Her phone, purse and car keys were still in the car. The trunk also had toys and drinks in a cooler.
Young said the last time Rogers was seen alive was on the evening of July 3 when Rogers, Houck and their son went to Houck’s farm.
Shortly after midnight on July 4, Lawson called Houck, phone records show.
Young said Lawson changed his story multiple times about what that phone call was about.
When Houck was interviewed by Nelson County Sheriff’s deputies shortly after Rogers’ disappearance he called Lawson in front of detectives after police questioned who called Houck after midnight on July 4.
During that interview, which was videotaped and shown to the jury Tuesday, Lawson can be heard telling Houck they spoke about finding rental homes for Houck’s daughter.
Lawson than later told Nelson County Sheriff’s Detective Jon Snow he couldn’t remember what he and Houck spoke about and that he sometimes drinks too much and calls people late at night.
“He gave various stories,” Young told the jury during opening arguments Tuesday.
Guilty of moving the car but not murder
Lawson’s lawyer Darren Wolff said Lawson is guilty of tampering with physical evidence, but he is not guilty of a conspiracy to commit murder.
Lawson reached into Rogers’ car and moved the seat so it would not look like his son had driven the car, Wolff said.
But that’s the only thing Lawson is guilty of, Wolff said.
There are holes in the prosecution’s case, he said.
It was an overreach to charge Steve Lawson with conspiracy to commit a murder. The case is still under investigation, Wolff said. An investigation should be finished before someone is charged with a crime, he said.
Sadly, Rogers body has never been found.
“Where is Crystal Rogers?” Wolff said. “We all want to know what happened.”
This story was originally published May 28, 2025 at 4:00 AM.
