BARDSTOWN, Ky. — It’s been years since the original season of the "Bardstown" podcast brought national attention to the five unsolved homicide cases in Nelson County. Crystal Rogers’ disappearance was one of those cases.
Rogers, a Bardstown mother of five, vanished without a trace over the Fourth of July weekend in 2015.
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Episode one will be available to stream on Spotify and Apple Podcasts on Tuesday, March 26.
Rogers' boyfriend, Brooks Houck, said the couple spent the evening at the Houck family’s farm and then went home and went to bed.
In a police interview, he claimed she was gone when he woke up the next morning, but he didn’t call her or the authorities.
Rogers was only reported missing once her family was suspicious when they hadn’t heard from her.
WATCH HOUCK'S FULL 2015 POLICE INTERVIEW:
Days later, the family found Rogers' car on the side of the Bluegrass Parkway with a flat tire. Her keys, phone and purse were left inside, but there was no sign of the mother.
Rogers has been presumed dead for nearly nine years.
Shock and Confusion
At the start of 2023, Special Prosecutor Shane Young joined a web of agencies and investigators working in Bardstown. In the months after his arrival there were, for the first time in years, no visible signs of an investigation.
At least, none that we knew about.
Then in September of 2023, police announced a significant arrest in Rogers’ investigation.
Joseph Lawson, 32, had been charged with conspiracy to commit murder and tampering with physical evidence in Rogers’ death investigation.
His arrest stunned the community, but residents’ shock quickly settled into confusion.
Rogers’ boyfriend, Brooks Houck, had been named the main suspect in Rogers’ disappearance since she vanished, so who is Joseph Lawson?
At the time, the only connection was Joseph’s relation to his father, Steven Lawson, who worked for Houck.
While new details about Lawson’s connection to the case unfolded in court, the family of Jason Ellis watched closely and hoped it could be a sign of more to come in the police officer’s ambush-style murder more than a decade ago.
RELATED: Discovery in Crystal Rogers’ death includes evidence in two other unsolved Bardstown murders
Meanwhile, back in Kentucky, as the Nelson County community continued to react to Lawson’s arrest, more arrests were on the horizon and this time attorneys were willing to speak out.
Episode two of "Back to Bardstown" will be released on the WHAS11 YouTube channel on Monday, April 1. It will release on Spotify and Apple Podcasts on Tuesday, April 2.
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