Timeline: A look at the Crystal Rogers case since 2015, including FBI involvement
Monday, federal agents were sent to Bardstown to conduct a search related to the unsolved disappearance of Crystal Rogers, a 35-year-old Kentucky mother who went missing in July 2015.
Rogers’ case, along with the subsequent and still unsolved homicide of her father, Tommy Ballard, have drawn national attention. Their deaths are part of a string of killings that have been unsolved since 2013, when a police officer was ambushed while removing tree limbs from a Bluegrass Parkway exit.
We’ve compiled this timeline of previous Herald-Leader coverage of Crystal Rogers’ disappearance, including a look at the FBI’s ongoing involvement in the case, which began in July 2020.
July 5, 2015 – Rogers, a mother of five children, is first reported missing by her mother, Sherry Ballard, according to the FBI. She’d disappeared two days earlier and hadn’t been seen or heard from since.
Brooks Houck, Rogers’ boyfriend, is believed to be the last person to have seen her on July 3, 2015. From early on in the case, law enforcement viewed Houck as a suspect, though he has never been charged in connection to Rogers’ disappearance.
The day she was reported missing, Rogers’ Chevrolet Malibu turns up abandoned along the desolate Bluegrass Parkway with a flat tire. Her keys, phone and purse are discovered inside, according to the FBI.
Aug. 11, 2016 – Nick Houck, a fired Bardstown police officer and the brother of Brooks Houck, is served a search warrant in connection to Crystal Rogers, according to an archived clipping of the Kentucky Standard that ran in the Herald-Leader.
Nick Houck was fired from the Bardstown Police Department for interfering with the investigation, the Kentucky Standard reported. Nick Houck reportedly called his brother when he knew Brooks was being questioned by local law enforcement.
The local sheriff’s office served the search warrant at the home of Houck’s grandmother, Anna Whitesides. Nick Houck, along with his mother, who was at the home at the time, reportedly offered no resistance when the warrant was served.
Nov. 19, 2016 – Tommy Ballard, 54, Rogers’ father, is shot by an unknown assailant while preparing for a hunting trip with his 12-year-old grandson on family property next to the Bluegrass Parkway. Ballard is hit in the chest and dies instantly, according to his FBI homicide victim profile.
After his daughter first went missing 16 months earlier, Ballard created Team Crystal – a group of Bardstown locals dedicated to finding the missing woman and bringing her home.
Ballard’s murder is the latest in a string of unsolved Bardstown killings, according to an archived Herald-Leader report.
Before his death and Rogers’ disappearance, Bardstown officer Jason Ellis was ambushed and killed in 2013, and Kathy Netherland and her daughter Samantha were murdered in 2014.
Aug. 18, 2019 – A partially built home owned by Brooks Houck, a suspect in the 2015 disappearance of Rogers, is destroyed in a fire, according to an archived Herald-Leader report citing the Bardstown Fire Department.
The fire department investigates the sudden blaze as a case of arson.
Although he owned several rental properties and at the time was building the Wheeling Avenue home, Brooks Houck is not a suspect, Fire Chief Billy Mattingly reportedly said at the time. Only the framing of the home was complete when the fire occurred.
July 24, 2020 – The Nelson County Sheriff’s Department calls in federal agents to help retrieve possible human remains – leading some in the community to believe they could belong to Crystal Rogers.
The remains are shipped to the FBI’s lab in Quantico, Va., for testing. Ultimately, the remains are found not to be those of Rogers, per a Herald-Leader report at the time. They remain unidentified.
August 2020 – The FBI officially takes the reins of the investigation into the disappearance of Crystal Rogers. As they do, the agency executes search warrants at various properties owned by her boyfriend and his family members.
More than 150 state and federal law enforcement officers execute nine federal search warrants. Those officers also conducted more than 50 interviews as part of the investigation, FBI officials said.
The search warrants pertained to three properties belonging to the Houck family. Law enforcement was authorized to search Brooks Houck’s home, his brother Nick’s home and a family farm.
No arrests were made when the FBI executed the search warrants, and the agency would not comment on what was retrieved from the properties. However, media reports from the scene report agents seized firearms from each of the homes, along with boxes and filing cabinets.
Also in August 2020, the FBI released new surveillance photos, asking for the public’s help in identifying the drivers of the vehicles in the photographs.
One photograph shows what appears to be a white SUV and a red SUV driving near My Old Kentucky Home campground, while a second photo taken at 3:45 a.m. July 4, 2015, shows an unidentified vehicle on Balltown Road close to the Paschal Ballard Road intersection.
Later that same month, the FBI conducted new searches in the Woodlawn Springs neighborhood.
About 15 of 290 homes in the Woodlawn Springs neighborhood were built by Houck Rentals LLC, records from the Nelson County Property Valuation Administrator’s office showed. The company is owned by Brooks Houck.
On the fourth day of the search, FBI agents discover an “item of interest” in the investigation of Rogers’ disappearance though agents don’t disclose what the item is, according to a Herald-Leader report at the time.
Oct. 17, 2022 – The FBI conducts a search at the Houck family farm. The search is expected to last “multiple days,” according to an FBI spokesperson.
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