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BREAKING: Boyfriend Brooks Houck Arrested in Disappearance of Crystal Rogers
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Investigators have arrested Brooks Houck in connection with the disappearance of Crystal Rogers in 2015.

Court documents say he has been charged with murder and tampering with evidence, WHAS reports. His bond has been set at $10 million, and he was ordered to have no contact with Rogers’ family.

Houck, previously named a main suspect in the case, was Rogers’ boyfriend at the time of her disappearance, as CrimeOnline reported. The mom of 5 was last seen at his house, and her car was found abandoned with a flat tire on the Bluegrass Parkway two days later. Her keys, phone, and purse were inside the vehicle.

Rogers’ body has not been found.

Houck’s arrest follows the arrest of 32-year-old Joseph L. Lawson, who was charged with conspiracy to commit murder and tampering with physical evidence in the case. Lawson has pleaded not guilty.

The FBI’s Louisville field office announced Houck’s arrest Wednesday morning, saying it and Kentucky State Police arrested him “without incident on charges stemming from the Crystal Rogers investigation.”

“The Houck indictment remains sealed and additional details will be revealed during Houck’s arraignment in early October in the Nelson County Circuit Court,” the FBI said.

Rogers was reported missing on July 5, 2015. The indictment charging Lawson does not mention Rogers by name but says the crime took place in Nelson County on July 3 and/or 4. It says that Lawson ““agreed to aid one or more persons in the planning or commission of the crime or an attempt or solicitation to commit the crime when he, and/or, a co-conspirator intentionally caused the death of another.”

Lawson’s attorney, Kevin Coleman, said that the charges do relate to Crystal Rogers, but he declined further comment.

Lawson was indicted earlier this summer, but the indictments were sealed until his first court appearance earlier this month. His next appearance is in October.

A year after Rogers’ disappearance, Houck’s brother, Nick Houck, was fired from the Bardstown Police Department for interfering in the investigation. And 16 months after the disappearance, her father, Tommy Ballard, was shot and killed by an unknown gunman while hunting on his property.

After years of investigation by local and state police, the FBI took over in 2020 and conducted several searches, including a five-day search of a farm owned by Houck’s family last October — where Rogers was last seen. Evidence from those searches was sent to the FBI’s lab for analysis.

In January, Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron appointed a special prosecutor to investigate the death of Ballard and the presumed death of Rogers.

See more reporting from CrimeOnline on the Crystal Rogers case.

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[Featured image: Crystal Rogers/handout Inset: Brooks Houck/handout]