BARDSTOWN, Ky. — Crystal Rogers' former boyfriend Brooks Houck will make his first court appearance this week after being charged with murder in the Bardstown mother's 2015 disappearance.
Houck has been charged with murder and tampering with physical evidence in connection to the FBI's investigation.
On Thursday, he is expected to be in Nelson County Circuit Court on the new charges during an arraignment hearing. Because Houck is being held in a different county, the appearance could be over video conference from Hardin County.
At the arraignment, the judge will tell Houck the charges brought against him and advise him of his rights. There will be no evidence presented or heard during this court event.
During the arraignment, a motion will be heard to reduce Houck's $10 million bond to $500,000 -- with the special condition of a GPS monitor with work release -- if that bond is posted.
Houck's attorneys argue the current bond is "unreasonable and oppressive" and called him a "low risk defendant."
The public court hearing is set for Thursday, Oct. 5 at 1 p.m. at the Nelson County Courthouse.
The FBI officially took the lead on the Crystal Rogers case in 2019 but did not make their involvement public until one year later, in 2020. That year, special agents served dozens of search warrants at multiple properties with connections to Brooks Houck and his family.
The following years they completed searches in former Houck construction sites and on the Houck family farm. The agency said they found multiple “items of interest” and sent those items to the FBI crime lab in Quantico, Virginia. The agency never revealed the findings.
But on Sept. 20, a grand jury heard evidence against Houck related to multiple criminal charges including murder and tampering with physical evidence.
Typically, during grand jury proceedings, the prosecutor on the case would present the evidence by interviewing law enforcement officers. In this case, that would have been Special Prosecutor Shane Young interviewing Kentucky State Police and the FBI.
The grand jury, made up of a panel of Nelson County citizens, was instructed to decide if there is sufficient evidence to go forward with prosecution of the charges against the defendant at the circuit court level. In this case, the grand jury decided there was enough evidence and Houck was indicted on both charges.
According to the indictment, the charges stem from an incident on the weekend of Fourth of July 2015. That was just days before Rogers' car was found abandoned on the side of the Bluegrass Parkway with her keys, phone, and purse left inside.
Federal investigators accuse Houck of intentionally causing the death of Rogers and destroying, concealing, mutilating or removing physical evidence in connection to the crime.
He was arrested one week later, on Sept. 27 while at a work site in a neighborhood outside of Bardstown, Kentucky. He has since been booked into multiple jails, taking three different mug shots with two in orange jumpsuits.
Brooks is currently being held in the Hardin County Detention Center.
Make it easy to keep up-to-date with more stories like this. Download the WHAS11 News app now. For Apple or Android users.
Have a news tip? Email assign@whas11.com, visit our Facebook page or Twitter feed.