Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan: Bardstown, Kentucky - Unsolved Murder Capital

Episode Date: May 26, 2024

Mother of five,  Crystal Rogers is last seen July 3 by her live-in boyfriend, Brooks Houck. Crystal Rogers mother, Sherry Ballard, reports her missing on July 5. Later that day, Crystal Rogers red Chevy Malibu is found abandoned on the Bluegrass Parkway. The car has a flat tire, but Rogers' keys, phone and purse are still inside. 16-months later, Crystal Rogers is still missing and her father, Sherry Ballard's husband, Tommy Ballard, is murdered in the early morning hours as he prepares to go hunting on his own property with his 12-year-old grandson. Ballard is shot from an undetermined distance, but his property backs up against the Bluegrass Parkway. It's a fast getaway in either direction for a gunman. On this episode of Body Bags, Joseph Scott Morgan and Dave Mack explore the disappearance of Crystal Rogers and the murder of her dad, Tommy Ballard.  Plus, Joseph Scott Morgan  explains how prosecutors can prove Crystal Rogers was murdered,  even though they haven't found her body. Subscribe to Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan : Apple Podcasts Spotify iHeart Transcribe Highlights 00:12.12 Introduction of growing up with PaPaw Morgan03:34.36 Discuss Crystal Rogers missing, her father Tommy Ballard murdered06:15.27 Discussion of Bardstown Kentucky 07:46.82 Discussion of why Brooks Houck didn't report Rogers missing08:13.81 Talk about Crystal Rogers car found on Bluegrass parkway15:45.34 Talk Rogers car found with flat tire, she is still missing18:16.83 Discussion of Brooks Houck, suspect, brother is police officer21:13.58 Discussion of police letting Houck talk to his brother on phone26:27.16 Talk about tracking dogs pick up Crystal Rogers scent at farm, but not at her car31:09.10. Discussion 16 months after Crystal Rogers vanishes, her dad, Tommy Ballard killed34:36.43 Discussion of how bullet twists the skin39:02.99 Discussion of Tommy Ballard hunting, murdered on his own property40:52.53 Discussion of murder charges without a body43:45.73 Conclusion - waiting for trial   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan. Look, y'all, I know I talk about my childhood periodically on Body Bags, and everybody has good and bad in their life. Everybody. It doesn't matter who you are. Nobody's immune to it. But in my childhood, the good times stand out to me more so than the bad.

And I could complain about the bad if I wanted to. But at this point in my life, I like to think about the good. And one of the really cool things about my childhood is that I spent a lot of time with my maternal grandparents and my grandfather, who I called Papaw, Papaw Morgan. I love that man. He's a big man, real big man. He still raised mules, if you can imagine that, for people that would, there were actually a group of guys that would buy mules from him that wanted them to pull wagons. And there was actually one old man that still preferred a mule-drawn plow over a tractor. But when I had free time with my papaw Morgan, one of the things that he would take me to do, too, actually, was to fish for bluegill, that's a brim, with cane pole.

And number two was to go hunting. Now, the thing about this is that in my family, everything my family did was for subsistence. They had a huge garden. And it's not like it was a hobby. They had to have a garden. And it was massive. And they worked in it all the time. When they went hunting, it wasn't like it was a pleasure trip.

My grandfather would probably look back and laugh at these guys that paid thousands and thousands of dollars to go out and hunt from a helicopter. He did it so that he could put food on the table. Now, one of his primary things that he would hunt for, and I know many of you guys will recoil over this, was squirrel. My grandmother could take squirrel and she would make squirrel and rice. And it was one of the best tasting things in the world. Now, as I've gotten older, squirrel is not necessarily in my repertoire anymore, as it were. But I remember going out in those piney woods in North Louisiana with my papa, walking along, five, six, seven years old. And no, he didn't give me a gun. I just walked along with him.

And his eyes were always toward the sky, looking in the tops of those trees. And he'd bag a squirrel every single time. And that was pure joy to me, just being with him, learning from him, covering my ears from the sound of that 12-gauge shotgun going off. But today, we're going to talk about a case that involves two deaths. One you're very familiar with, Crystal Rogers, and the other, maybe not so much, but just as important in this case is Crystal Rogers' daddy, who went by the name Tommy, Tommy Ballard.

He was actually shot and killed while walking through the woods with his 12-year-old grandson. And it's for that reason I really wanted to talk about this case today. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan, and this is Body Bags. The older I get, Dave, the more I would desire to have a time machine. I wish I could go back in time and see my papa or my granny again. I wish I could, to sit at my granny's kitchen table. And they had a very, very tiny house. Their kitchen table was their dining room as well.

We would have Christmas meals and Thanksgiving meals in the same room where they were being prepared. You know, but it was a joyful scene. It was always warm. And everybody would sit around the table and we'd talk about things. I remember sitting next to my granddaddy and he would actually, the way he would complain, he would complain about coffee because he liked it strong. My granny's name was Pearl. He'd be sitting there and I think she did this on purpose. He's a big man.

She'd make him drink out of these little tiny, tiny coffee cups with a saucer and if if the coffee wasn't strong enough he'd say earl you run out of coffee oh my goodness and so you know that was that was kind of his way and it had to have chicory in it by you know in louisiana chicory is a thing that developed back you know i think probably pre-civil war but they would make you know, I think probably pre-Civil War, but they would make, you know, Southerners would make coffee out of anything. And it had, it's horrible taste to me. I don't like it. I know some of you guys will take offense to that too, probably, but I just don't like chicory coffee. Whenever I hear the name Pearl used as a Southern woman's name, I, the Beverly Hillbillies and Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, you know, Earl, Earl, Pearl, don't give your love to Earl.

I just remember that. But Bardstown, Kentucky, if you look it up, you're going to find out there is a number of stories about Bardstown. Beautiful town in Kentucky. The sad part is that most of the stories that you read are going to be of unsolved murders. Oh, Lord. Not unsolved deaths. We're talking unsolved murders. Oh, Lord. Not unsolved deaths. We're talking unsolved murders. In this case, we're right off the top mentioning Crystal Rogers and her father, Tommy Ballard.

Now, Crystal Rogers' body has never been found. Tommy Ballard died 16 months after Crystal went missing. And the only thing we know for sure is that he didn't kill himself because his gun had not been fired. That was something that was bandied about at first. Yeah. In the cases we're talking about today, the FBI had to be called in. And oftentimes that is the case when you might have a conflict internally. The FBI has to be invited in.

They don't just come in and take over. Right. And we had in Bardstown, Kentucky, you have Bardstown Police Department and you have the Sheriff's Department. In this case, Crystal Rogers and Brooks Houck had a two year and a half year old toddler that they biologically were the parents. And Crystal Rogers had four other children and they were living together under the same roof as husband and wife brooks how and crystal rogers now crystal rogers went missing her car was found on the side of the road two days after she was reported missing we're talking about in 2015 around the fourth of july holiday 2015 when crystal rogers went missing it wasn't brooks how that reported his partner live-in partner. They

cohabitated. That's what boggles my mind. He didn't report her missing, Joe. She was reported missing by her mother. Because when Brooks Houck is in Bardstown and he sees Crystal Rogers' mother and she said, hey, Brooks, I haven't talked to Crystal. Where is she? He said, I don't know. I haven't seen her. What? Don't y'all live together? What? What? What do you mean you haven't seen her? And Brooks just goes on about his merry way like nothing's up. Crystal Rogers mother goes, well, I'm reporting her missing. And she goes right to the police station right then. She knows something is up because this is not how she has a relationship with her daughter. They talk every day. They see each other all the time. I mean, this was a very small town. They knew one another, okay, in terms of friends and family. And not seeing somebody, not talking to somebody is an unusual occurrence. And saying, I don't know, is not a good answer. Yeah, you're right. And it's that familial circle, you know, that you and I talk about so often, Dave. If there's anything that disrupts that, and a lot of it depends upon the other people within that circle and how acutely aware they are of the situation that's going on with, you know, the dynamics of a couple and that sort of thing.

Is there anything that kind of stinks, you know, that just doesn't line up? And look, man, when you begin to think about how first off she had not had contact with her mother right and you've got the person in her life that okay let's face it is the most intimate relationship that you probably have they have a two-year-old child together oh boy yeah and they're domiciled together yeah you know To top things off, you had mentioned something. And this roadway is going to come up a couple of times. And remind me, Dave, if I'm ever heading up to Kentucky, which, by the way, I love that state. It's one of the most beautiful places.

The farms. Oh, my gosh. It's striking when you're up there. But if I'm going up there, remind me to stay off the Bluegrass Parkway. Do not ride Bluegrass Parkway, Joe. No. Especially around Bardstown. Get off and walk. walk get a mule do not drive on that highway i know it's like you know that keeps coming up and you know when you have a person that is missing and you have their

vehicle found along the roadway first off when you walk up to the vehicle police officer's going to check and see well check one box is anybody in it and if it's absent any sign of life or maybe somebody that's sleeping or maybe something really bad you're thinking maybe they're deceased and they're laying inside the visible space which by the way is a principle within law. When you, if a police officer can walk up and actually evidence something inside of a vehicle, that's immediately cause for them to want to explore further. And sometimes if somebody's in danger, they don't necessarily have to have a warrant at that moment in time because it's the idea that it's an emergent situation. I actually worked a case, and you might find this interesting, of a fellow that was,

we found dead on the highway, dumped in the middle of I-285 in Atlanta on a ramp. And this guy had been brutalized. He was shot multiple times, including in the head. It turns out that this fellow was at the Final Four in Atlanta. He had tickets to the ballgames, games. He got robbed by two guys. They took his car, and they were later caught in Ohio for speeding or breaking center line. And guess what the cop wound up seeing when he walked up to the car and pulled him over?

It's like that scene from Pulp Fiction where Marvin gets shot in the head. And they said, man, why'd you shoot Marvin? And the whole back of the interior of that car is an Ohio State trooper. I'll never forget this, was just blasted with blood deposition. Oh, he'd been killed in the car. In Atlanta, and they had driven his car to Ohio. Man. So, you know, when you're- They should have called Mr called mr wolf the wolf could have taken care of that man oh the wolf's on it huh

yeah so when you you get up you know a police officer walks up to a vehicle now obviously that's a that's a stop when you find a car abandoned on the side of the road and how many times do you ride down the road dave and you might see a car sitting on the side of the road, and it's been there for a while, and you're thinking, has anybody ever stopped to take a look at that car? What's going on with that? And why is it still here? Why have the authorities not had it removed? Because it's obviously a hazard. It's dangerous, you know, to have these things on the shoulder of the road.

But they're going to check inside of it, and they're going to look for any evidence. What stood out to you relative to when they got to her car and they began to inspect it? The fact that it was found after she's reported missing, okay? Yeah. Bluegrass Parkway is a busy thoroughfare. It would have been noticed, I would have thought, before this, okay, if it had been there. So that's number one. Number two, the car is found with a flat tire by Marl Marker 14 on the Bluegrass

Parkway. The keys are still in the ignition and her purse and cell phone are inside. If the keys are in the ignition, her purse and cell phone are inside the car and there's a flat tire if you assume that she had a flat tire and pulled over and then had to leave to go get help she would have left with her keys her purse her cell phone just normal stuff that we would grab to leave so immediately you know it appears to me to be a staged scene because of the stuff that's left behind because all you're left with is she had a flat tire and somebody came along and kidnapped her grabbed her and threw her in their car and took off what lady is going to leave behind her possessions particularly things

like a phone that can keep you safe yeah at least you you have the ability at your fingertips to dial 9-1-1 or right hit speed dial and hit somebody that can take care of you. You're just going to wander off on this roadway, which kind of painting a picture here. For those of you that might not be familiar, when you see the Bluegrass Parkway, it varies in lane size periodically. But for the most part, it is a state road that has four lanes. You've got two on one side going one direction. You've got two on the other side. It's going to have a median, and it's going to have shoulders on the side of the road.

And every now and then, you'll come across a bit. It's not like necessarily being on an interstate per se, but it's a well-traveled area. You're going to catch the attention. When you think about kidnapping, you think about somebody going off the road. You remember recently we've covered this horrible case out of Oklahoma where these women were taken down. And that's kind of an out-of-the-way location. Right. We're not talking about that with the Bluegrass Parkway.

We're talking about, you know, this thing's got traffic on it. I mean, there are people moving back and forth. I think it runs kind of from the southwest up to the northeast and so it's it's a way to get from point to point that you would see semi-trailers on i mean you'd see campers on everyday traffic on it's not like a farm road like in Oklahoma. Right. And that's why I'm saying if her car was found two days after she's reported missing, there should have been based on the traffic and based on who's driving along the bluegrass parkway on a regular basis, somebody would have seen the car. They would have reported it.

Hey, I just saw a crystal scar. It's not like they don't know one another. So there's a lot here to be concerned with but based on her car is found with a flat tire and all of her personal belongings inside two days after she's reported missing and by the way she's still missing she went missing in 2015 they have not found crystal rogers joe i know and that's that's that's a huge chilling piece to this day is that after all of these years, she's nowhere to be found. And I've got to ask you a question.

Do women, like Crystal Rogers, just merely vanish, vaporize, disappear into thin air? I think not. In forensic science, we do what we do in order to identify, collect, and analyze evidence. We generate reports and we present it to those interested parties to do with as they wish. When I'm thinking about a car like this that's found along a roadway, I'm going to want to know if the owner, the primary operator is absent from that vehicle. What wound up bringing this vehicle to a halt in this particular location? Is there damage to the vehicle? I think that you had mentioned, Dave, that there was a flat tire. Forensically, I'd want to know about the origin of that flat tire because, you know, you can catch a nail and Lord knows I've caught things off of roadways,

angle iron, all kinds of stuff that have, you know, split very expensive tires from me created. Or has a tire been punctured like on the sidewall by something that, I don't know, ice pick, knife? Was it slashed? You know, we've heard stories of people going through apartment parking lots, you know, where they'll take a knife and a razor and slash people's tires. And so there's a lot to be gleaned. But if you've got people that are living together, if you're looking for a suspect, there is like DNA evidence that's within the cabin of a vehicle that you would expect to find within that vehicle.

It doesn't mean that those people might not be associated with what they're missing, but you would want to find something that is going to be an outlier maybe or perhaps somebody that's unexpected unidentified dna or blood evidence that's contained within here and i just don't know to this point that they really ever opened up about that dave there are a lot of issues surrounding the disappearance of crystal rogers and the murder of tommy ballard her father 16 months, that have to do with cross-section of police, sheriff's department, Kentucky State Police, and the FBI. And I don't throw that out there in a minimalistic way, because first things first, Brooks Houck,

he is the significant other of Crystal Rogers when she goes missing. They're living together. They have a two-and-a-half-year-old toddler, and they have Crystal Rogers for their children. Brooksoks how is the male parent of the household and when she goes missing he doesn't report her missing her mother has to report her missing now brooks how would be the first person you would want to talk to hey man tell us what happened. Yep. His brother, Brooks Houck, has an older brother named Nick. Nick Houck. Nick Houck works as a police, at the time, as a police officer for the Bardstown Police Department.

So keep these separate. The Bardstown Police Department and the Sheriff's Department are two separate entities. They don't always work together. Sheriff's Department serves an entire county. Bardstown Police, Bardstown City. The Sheriff's Department is in charge of this case due to where everything was found. And so Brooks Houck is brought in for an interview. What happened, Brooks?

Tell us about, you know, when did you last see Crystal Rogers? Because he is the last person to see her. He is having a conversation with Sheriff's Department investigator. And during the interview, Brooks Howick receives a phone call from his brother, Nick, the police officer with Bardstown Police Department. Now, Joe, when we actually have the interview, you and I have both watched the interview with Brooks Houck and the Sheriff's Department where he lays out his story, which we're going to share with you.

But during the interview, Nick Houck calls Brooks Houck and Brooks Houck asks, hey, you mind if I take this? I need to take it. And so he answers the phone. We only hear Brooks Houck's side of the conversation. Yep. But I'm going to tell you, to me, it sounded scripted.

It sounded planned out. It sounded like Brooks Houck was trying to get his version of events on the record without ever being challenged. He knows everything's being recorded and so there was one thing that he says on this phone call with his brother nick he says nick i don't think she ran off with another man and you're not going to convince me of it they're not going to convince me of it you know and i'm like so he's laying the guilty party always lays out another option for where the person is yeah Yeah. And so he lays that out there. But then he he says, well, I'm just here to help.

I just they need my help. I just want to help him find her. And if you say I need to leave because they're going to jam me up, I'll leave. If you're telling me to leave, I'll leave. And so he has the excuse. Hey, my brother, the police officer just told me to end this because you guys are going to try to frame me. And he leaves. Not before the police tell him, well, you're the main suspect. You got holes in your story,

man. Nick Hout, by the way, the older brother lost his job by doing that. Yeah. It seems staged to me, at least. It reminded me of back when Saturday Night Live was something that I watched during the days of John Lovitz. He did an over-the-top presentation of being an actor, and he would do his hand up in the air and say, I am an actor, you know, like that. And it's kind of smacked of that.

Oh, yeah. And listen, let me kind of interject this into the conversation. I thought you were going to go with Morgan Fairchild. No, no, no, not that one. No, I wasn't going to do that one but the idea that he's he's bold enough to have this conversation and some people i've heard actual people that have criticized the police officer for allowing to take that phone call let me tell you something police are about harvesting data information and anything that you say, anything that you say, anything that you

say or do, where it's being taped or recorded, it has potential utility for their case. So, the fact that he allowed him to have this conversation, if he had said, no, put it away. We're talking right now. We want to continue this conversation. We wouldn't have, even though it was a one-sided conversation that he was having on the phone, we wouldn't have that. It wouldn't be documented. And I think for investigators, and certainly now in the wake of, you know, lo these many years later, we have the FBI that's involved in the case.

You think those guys have looked at that video and listened to it? That video was four days after her disappearance, by the way. It was not even a week. It was four days. Okay. They've got Brooks in there. Four days after she goes missing. And they're getting him his story.

This is the first thing police have to do you're a suspect because you're in the relationship with her but you got your last person that saw her you know and we need to know where you were what you two were doing and they're going to get that story and this is the story you're held that's why attorneys say do not talk to police ever because whatever you say is now your story yeah that's my story and i'm sticking to it okay you're anything you change from here on out proves you're a liar right so and that's the way that's the way it would roll roll on but you know looking at this on the flip side as well you know we talked about the intimacy level of intimacy with this

relationship brother let me tell you something if if this was my precious wife i i'd you know first off they'd have to keep me chained to the chair because i'm going to be out beating the bushes looking i'm going to be up and down up and down that parkway out there the bluegrass parkway which you and i have both now, uh, sworn off of, uh, I'm going to be beating the bushes out there and I'm going to be looking, I'm going to assemble friends. I'm going to do everything that I can and look, let the hide come with the hairs. They say, I'm going to be going through this area as rigorously as I possibly can to try to track down this person that I've got a child with, that I've shared a life with. But the problem is, Dave, is that we don't see this coming through. We don't see that kind of

evangelical zeal here. And for an investigator that's digging into this, and when you've got somebody that I'm sure they picked up on pretty quickly. It seems to be kind of play acting, if you will. There are a lot more unanswered questions to come. In Alabama, we're known here, and to maybe a lesser degree, Alabama has quite the reputation, though, for severe weather. It's part and parcel of living here. And, you know, we deal with tornadoes and all those sorts of things. But the old adage that comes to mind for me when you talk about storms, I know it's a metaphor for life, but the idea of lightning never striking twice in the same location. There's some truth to that, I think, both as a metaphor.

And there are people out there who have been struck by lightning multiple times. But for the most part, to have two critical events happen in such close proximity. And I'm talking about Crystal Rogers. And I'm talking about her daddy, Tommy. Dave, what are the odds that this could actually occur? And again, here's our favorite roadway again. I've got to say it again. Bluegrass Parkway.

The Bluegrass Parkway. You know, these two events happen in proximity to this roadway. That's why it seems cursed to me almost. It is. And to get to Tommy Ballard, Crystal Rogers' father, 16 months after she's missing. Now, I want to go back very quickly brooks how in a relationship with crystal rogers they have a two and a half year old toddler now as part of his story for what he was doing when they last saw each other brooks how told police that he actually he and crystal rogers were at his mom's farm. Okay. At Brooks house, mom.

And at midnight, we're talking in the middle of the night. That's what he told. They were just out walking around. Now the officer is at the toddlers, two and a half years old. Who goes out to a farm in the middle of the night with a two and a half year old? Nobody,

because they can't walk really without, you know, you can't see there's just a lot wrong with his story but you have to look at his story and and figure out what's he trying to spin is he trying to set himself up as being at the farm property in the middle of the night in case somebody saw because that's what it sounds like. Now, early on, they brought out tracker dogs to these different sites that Brooks Howick has mentioned, including the farm, because they wanted to track Crystal Rogers.

Did they pick Crystal up out at the farm? Well, they did. These dogs tracked Crystal Rogers out at Brooks Howick's mom's farm without any trouble at all. But you know what they didn't do? The dogs were the same dogs that tracked Crystal Rogers body out at the farm. They were also brought to her car on Bluegrass Parkway to see, did she get out of that car and walk? Those same dogs malfunctioned and couldn't pick up a scent. So they can pick her scent up at the farm,

but they can't pick her scent up at her car on the Bluegrass Parkway. What does that tell you? Okay. So here we go. We know she was at the park because we know that's what they were told. We also know that Nick Houck tells his brother Brooks, get out of there. Don't talk to the sheriff's department. So now Nick Houck, wait, why are you telling your brother to not do this? This is an unwritten rule. You don't do this, man. So now Nick Houck is in trouble with his boss. He's also now a suspect because why is he doing this with his brother? So here we go. They can't find Crystal Rogers anywhere. They've got signs they keep putting up and you know what somebody goes around town and takes these signs down joe crystal rogers is missing they have this huge bourbon festival bartstown is like the bourbon capital of the world right

bartstown kentucky for crying out loud and they have thousands of people that come into bartstown and the people they were really trying to find crystal rogers help us find she's missing this mother of five 35 years years old, is missing. Please help. And they're putting signs everywhere so that everybody, the thousands of people that come to the festival will be able to help us find Crystal. But you know what? Somebody, somebody is taking the flyers down, taking the signs down right before all these thousands of people get it. They're taking them down.

Who would do that? What kind of monster takes those down who could be that bold or who could be who could be that emboldened in order to do this and the fact that you know she seems literally to vanish into thin air i think relative to the car did the dogs actually as you had said malfunction yeah out there they had to have or or or was the car driven out there without her presence and they've worked before so what has happened in between those times where they don't you know they don't get a hit. And it's not like you're talking about a single animal. Yes, more than one. Yeah, what are the odds now when you begin to think about this? If she had a flat tire and you would expect that she would have gotten out of the car

to at least look, hey, what's going on? Right. And so you would have that. They didn't pick up anything, Joe. Nothing. The same dogs that picked her up at the house. It's fascinating when you think about that relative to what's and she's not unfamiliar with this area right okay this is kith and kent you know she's grown up here she's got people here you know that she's going to know where to go or you you know, know how to get access to help.

She has a phone. Her cell phone is found in the car for crying out loud. You mentioned earlier she could have called 911 if anything, you know. But I want to get to something very quickly because Nick Houck, Brooks Houck's older brother, he's a police officer, Bardstown Police. He tells his brother, leave that. Don't talk to the cop anymore. So after that, his boss brings him in. They read him the riot act. By the way, Nick Hauk gets fired three or four months later.

We can't tolerate this because they set him up for a polygraph. They bring in Brooks Hauk, Nick Hauk. We're going to get you guys on polygraph. You're telling the truth. Okay. No worries. So Nick Hauk comes in and he fails miserably on this polygraph test. And they basically call him out. You know, we know you know more than what you're telling us. And he is told Nick Hauk is told we use luminol on the trunk of your squad car and it lit up like Chernobyl. That's the phrase they use. It lit up like Chernobyl. So I don't know if they were saying that in truth or if they were saying it to trip him up. I don't know.

But we do know this. Crystal Rogers still hasn't been found. And 16 months after she goes missing, her dad, Tommy Ballard, he's with his, it's early in the morning. He's with his 12-year-old son, grandson rather. And they're going to go hunting. A pretty common occurrence for those who like the outdoors that live around bardstown kentucky so tommy ballard has his hunting rifle and his 12 year old grandson and they're on their own property right yeah and somehow in the early morning hours if i'm not mistaken it was around 6 a.m yes and somehow some way

tommy ballard is shot in the chest from a rifle that can't be seen from anywhere yeah what was let me hang on let me ask you something real quick first blush here what does that tell you about the individual that fired this weapon? Lying in wait. Yeah. And it also goes to familiarity, doesn't it? Oh, buddy. Yeah.

So that you have to know points of access. Here's another bit here that's kind of. Points of access is a really good phrase. It is. It truly is. And you have to understand the utility of those perspectives. When we're working a shooting scene from a reconstruction standpoint, we consider, say you've got Tommy who has been shot, you're going to pull these kind of lines of sight

that, like a wagon wheel, the spokes of a wagon wheel kind of radiate out from his body. Okay. But you have to consider, and this is something that we assess at autopsy, kind of the angle from which this round struck him. That's where the grandson's testimony, our statement, let's put it to you that way, put it out you that way put it you know put it out there that way what position were you and granddad in when you were walking and he fell because you

might actually depend upon the distance he may have seen him fall first before he heard the report of the weapon or he may have heard the report of the weapon, he's going to turn his head and then witness his grandpa maybe gasp, grasp his chest, or just fall over graveyard dead right there on the spot. So, you know, one of the things that you try to assess at a scene, and once you can establish that point, the directionality of the bullet, that's one of the things that we always try to do. You know, you hear about our assessments at autopsy where we talk about, we'll say, well, it's from front to rear, ground travels from front to rear.

It goes from high to low, which means maybe you're in a position of dominance and firing down on a target or from below to above. Maybe it lifts from right to left of the decedent. It originated to his right side. And we can actually look at these injuries and give you an idea. But here's the problem with this particular injury that this man has sustained, Dave, is that the range is indeterminate. Because it's not like somebody walked up to him and fired this round into his chest where we're going to have soot

deposition and all of those things that we'd look for relative to close gunfire. This is fired at a distance. So the only thing that you're really going to have is this kind of a braided area around the round. And you know where this originates from? You'll see it. It's kind of red, irritated little area that's around the actual injury itself. And it's because the bullet is spinning through the air and it literally twists the skin like that. That's all you see on these indeterminate rounds. You can actually see that in the skin?

Yeah, yeah, you can. And microscopically, you can pick up. I've never heard that before. Yeah, you can pick up and take sections of it. And it's demonstrated pretty well. But you can see it with, I'll tell you, you can see it with a hand lens a magnifying glass you can actually take it and see it like that once the wound is cleaned of blood and that sort of thing but the only thing that it really tells you is that it's from an indeterminate distance once you get away you

know beyond some people have a variety of different parameters they put on it. You think about 36 inches is generally about the maximum distance. So anything within 36 inches, you might have shot at getting soot deposition. So out beyond about 36 inches, brother, you can get nothing. And so it's not going to tell you how the range of fire, but we know that no one was approximating him with this weapon. Like some mystery person appeared in the woods as they're walking down this path and, and fired that round. Here's another thing too, that's interesting about this is that Dave, you know, we were talking about, we're talking about the roosters are just waking up. All right.

This is early, early in the day. How is a killer going to know about the timetable involved when you exit out of your home with your grandson? You talk about total disregard. This ranks right up there with one of the more callous things that we've covered because you're literally murdering this gentleman in front of his 12-year-old grandson. Just let that sink in for a second. Is this something that's going to leave his mind? You remember how I was talking about early on? I was talking about memories that I had walking through the woods with my papa. I still remember it to this day.

My grandfather was not murdered. This is a time that is marked in this child's mind forever and ever. Amen. was my papa i still remember it to this day my grandfather was not murdered you know this this is a time that is marked in this child's mind forever and ever amen you know moving forward and so who's familiar enough with the schedule that tommy would have had who and going back to crystal who's familiar enough with her schedule to get her off the road if you will and and out of the regular rhythm right rhythm you're talking about a lady that has children five kids yeah she's she has a very regimented world this idea that her parents grandparents you've got brothers and sisters you know that if you're the person in charge baby baby, you got to keep a tight timetable.

And the more elements, children, that you have in the picture, the tighter your time is. You don't have time for foolishness. So you have to be able to understand who in her world, who in Tommy's world would have had enough of an awareness of what their daily routine was. And back to Tommy, I know I'm kind of running back over the same path here, but there's so much to unpack with this case. When you think about Tom alone, who in the world would have known that on that particular day at that particular time, he would have exited from his house with his grandson and begin to trek off into the woods to hunt. From that location, by the way. From that specific location. Who would have known it?

And by the way, that specific location, but right up against the Bluegrass Parkway. Access and opportunity. And showing up with the tools. Showing up with the tools to do the job. Being familiar with the terrain. Is there a place you could go and hide? Well, yeah.

I mean, look look do me a favor don't believe what i'm saying next time you're riding down the road and you're on a four-lane highway a state highway look on either side look at the brush line that's there you can't see what's on the other side now you might come across a field every now and then where it's cleared out but for the most part you're going to see pine trees. You might see an occasional oak tree, but you're going to see low level brush, which if you want it to create a hide, you know,

if you put it in the terms of, and let's just face it, this is an assassination. I think where it's planned, you have an opportunity to do it. This isn't like some random round. Now, is it Dave that just traveled out of nowhere and happened to strike this man in the chest?

And it happened on November 19th. So we're talking about the early morning hours of a cold November morning in Kentucky. Yeah. And this is right at the time of year, at least down here in the south, where most deer season, whitetail season kicks off. You know, so you're in that area. Well, he's going out. I guess he's going to try to bag a deer with his grandson. That's probably what they're going to try to do.

And they're out there. They're in motion. This is property that he knows. I don't know. Maybe he's got salt blocks out on his property. Maybe he has a specific area where, you know, deer are going to walk into his field of view and he'll be able to take a deer and his grandson will be able to witness it. I don't know.

When you look at this, it says Ballard was preparing for a hunting trip with his 12 year old grandson on family property next to the bluegrass parkway in bardstown kentucky an unknown subject fired one shot and hit ballard in the chest and instantly killed him yeah the um gun that they the rifle they believe that was used in the murder of Tommy Ballard was once owned by Nick Houck. Holy smokes. The older brother of Brooks Houck. This story continues.

Brooks Houck has been arrested and charged in the murder of Crystal Rogers, even though they haven't found her body. Now, Joe, I have a question. How do you do that? What do they do with you? Do you come into play where the police sit down and say, OK, Professor Morgan, we haven't found the body, but here's what we do have. Can you is there any way you believe this person might still be alive?

What do we do here? And we got the body of Tommy Ballard. We do not have the body of Crystal Rogers. Yeah. And unfortunately, well, I'll say unfortunately, this is from a practicality standpoint there's nothing really that the medical examiner can do in that circumstance if you don't have like we we we play into our world plays into a missing individual where they are declared dead if say and here's the term i use people people get frustrated with it sometimes but when you have a copious amount of blood at a scene

one of the things that will ask the medical examiner is this much blood that we're seeing at the scene is this compatible with life and you might look at it and there's really, if you have a big blood stain, there's no way to actually calculate the volume. Okay. On carpet and anywhere else. We can speak to that and say, yeah, this volume of blood might not be compatible with life. Today with Crystal, we're not talking about a volume of blood. We're talking about a woman that has just vanished. And how do people vanish? I think one of the most interesting things about

Crystal's disappearance and continuing absence, as you had mentioned, rightly, that she's been declared dead at this point in time. This is a homicide. He's been charged with homicide. And you do not charge with somebody with homicide if you do not believe that subject to, in fact, be dead. So one of the interesting elements is, how do you make a body disappear? Do you have access to heavy equipment? Do you have access to, say, for instance, I don't know, tools to create cement with? Do you have access to the ability to render down a body? And when I say that, I'm talking about dismemberment. I'm talking about fire. Do you have the willpower and the tools and the ability to do that?

And still, since we're talking 2015, Dave, as of this recording right now, it's 2024. A lot of water's passed under the bridge. There's been a lot of people looking for. There are rewards out there. There are rewards for both Tommy and for Crystal. And to this point, we don't know really any more than we have when she went missing. But I can tell you this, the police are still investigating. And hopefully, at some point in time, we're going to see more evidence come to light.

We'll be keeping an eye on this case moving forward. I can guarantee you that because this is one of the biggest mysteries that I've covered in some time, and we're going to travel down to Bluegrass Parkway one more time. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan, and this is Body Bags. This is an iHeart Podcast.