Money Crimes with Nicole Lapin - Crystal Rogers: The Flat Tire on the Bluegrass Parkway

Episode Date: September 8, 2026

On July 3, 2015, 35-year-old Crystal Rogers was supposed to have a date night with her boyfriend. The following morning, she was missing. Two days later, her car turned up abandoned on Kentucky's Bluegrass Parkway. There was a flat tire, keys in the ignition and her purse was still inside. But there was no Crystal. What followed was a decade of investigation, an FBI takeover, grand jury battles, and arrests for murder and evidence tampering. But Crystal's body has never been found. And her family is still fighting for answers.For more, follow The Final Hours wherever you listen to podcasts: https://pod.link/1872821250If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Scams, Money, & Murder to never miss a case! To hear episodes ad-free, subscribe to Crime House+. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. Scams, Money, & Murder is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios.🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of Reddit, Crime House 24/7, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Murder True Crime Stories, and more wherever you get your podcasts!Follow me on SocialInstagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaYouTube: @crimehousestudios

Hi listeners, it's Vanessa. Are you the type to fall down an internet rabbit hole and not come up for hours? You'll love Crimes of Reddit, a new crimehouse original with Sabrina Deanna Roga and Alexis Linkletter. Every week, one host brings real true crime stories from Reddit, while the other reacts completely blind. No prep, no spoilers, then they swap. It's the feeling of sending your group chat a threat at 2 a.m. that starts with, You have to see this. Except Sabrina and Alexis. are in the chat with you. Follow Crimes of Reddit on Apple Podcasts and Spotify or subscribe

at Crimes of Reddit Pod on YouTube. This is Crime House. You're watching footage from inside a police interrogation room in Nelson County, Kentucky. It's dated July 24, 2015. The video is grainy, barely clear enough to make out the clock on the wall. A man sits in the frame slightly off center. His Bardstown Police uniform shirt is hanging off of his shoulders. But this officer isn't asking the questions. He's answering them.

If you listen closely, you can hear the low hum of a computer running polygraph software. Just beyond the camera's view, a series of sensors runs through the machine to the officer, tracking every shift in his breathing and pulse. The polygraph examiner asks, quote, do you know where she is right now?

Are you hiding any information about what happened to her? The officer answers no to both. You can't see it on camera, but somewhere off screen, a needle jumps and a heart rate monitor climbs. When it's over, the examiner doesn't hesitate. He tells the officer, quote, deception indicated 100%. He's talking to Officer Nick Hout, and the her in question is 35-year-old Crystal Rogers. But Nick isn't just some cop with a badge and a hunch. His brother was the last one to see Crystal alive.

Three weeks before this, she went missing. Her car turned up abandoned on a nearby highway, and her family's search has turned into a nightmare with no end. Every year, over half a million people go missing, and that's just in the United States alone. Most of those stories barely get a headline. Some don't even get a tip line. And when cases do get media attention,

we only get the broad strokes. But for those of us who have lived these true crime cases, we know the devil's in the details. This is the final hours, a Crime House original powered by Pave Studios. I'm Sarah Turney. And I'm Courtney Nicole. Every Monday, Sarah and I will be looking at the final hours of someone's disappearance

to see if there was anything hiding in plain sight. Each episode all offer insight on what those close to the victim might have experienced. Courtney will use her expertise to give more context into the investigation itself. Crimehouse exists because of listeners like you. Want even more? Join Crimehouse Plus and get every episode of the final hours in the rest of the rest of rest of the Crimehouse lineup, ad-free and early, plus at least two bonus episodes every month. To join, go to CrimehousePlus.com, or if you listen on Apple Podcast, tap Try Free at the top of the

final hour's show page. As always, this show is made and recorded by humans, not AI. This episode, we're discussing the disappearance of Crystal Rogers, a 35-year-old mother of five from Bardstown, Kentucky. In July 2015, Crystal vanished after a night out with her boyfriend, Brooks, Hogue. Days later, her car was found abandoned on a nearby highway with her keys and purse still inside. And despite her family's relentless search for answers, Crystal still hasn't been found. In a town where everybody knows your name, it's easy to feel like nothing bad could ever happen to you. That's Bardstown, Kentucky. Picture rolling hills, tobacco barns, and church steeples poking up over the tree line. Back when this story started, it was the kind of place where you could leave your doors unlocked.

let your kids ride their bikes until dark, and trust the people around you have your back. For years, the local homicide unit didn't have a single case to work. That breeds a certain kind of trust. And trust is exactly what's at the center of Crystal Rogers case. But before we show you why, let's talk about Crystal and the person she was. Crystal Rogers was born on April 4, 1980, the first child of Sherry and Tommy Ballard. Two more kids followed, and the Ballard's raised all three of them right there in Bard's That was the only home Crystal ever knew. Ardstown was the place she grew up, the place she went to

school, and the place where she started building her own life too. In 2001, when Crystal was 21, she had her own baby, a daughter named Kylie. Over the next three years, she had three more kids, two girls. And finally, in 2004, a baby boy named Trenton. Crystal's kids were her entire world. She worked hard to make sure all four of them had everything they needed, and she was fiercely No matter how much she had on her plate, Crystal was there for them. But after Trenton was born, things shifted between Crystal and his father. She needed a new place to live, especially with four little kids depending primarily on her. And that's how she met 30-year-old Brooks Hauk, her new landlord. To say that Brooks and the rest of the Hauk family were well-known in Bardstown

would be an understatement. They ran a huge home-building rental and real estate business with more than 70 properties. Brooks helped run the company, and his older brother Nick was a police officer in town. At one point, Brooks even ran for sheriff. So yeah, the Hauk name carried some real weight around town. I don't know, Sarah, I think when a family has this much power and such deep roots in the community, they can potentially get away with a lot of things. Whether that's fair or not, people naturally give them the benefit of the doubt, especially when they're well connected to people in positions of authority like Nick. Yeah, I mean, it's definitely something that I think you have to keep in consideration whenever this pops up in a case. When we have a very prominent family that's well known in a town, you have to think about whether or not that plays a factor in the case.

You never want to assume that, but I do feel like it kind of goes without saying, especially with how deep rooted they are in this community. And unfortunately, in this case, I think we're going to see a lot of that. Yeah, and I think with power and wealth just comes, you know, especially a better legal defense. they have more resources to be able to get ahead of things if they committed a crime. Well, here's something else about Brooks. It wasn't long before he became more than just Crystal's landlord. The pair started dating in 2012,

and a year later, 33-year-old Crystal found out she was pregnant. She gave birth to her fifth child, and Brooks is first, a baby boy. But around that time, Crystal started noticing something different in Brooks. It was like the second he had a biological child of his own, his outlook shifted. According to some reporting, Annie Elise did in her podcast seriulously, Brooks apparently got distant,

and he made it clear that Crystal's other four kids were her responsibility and her problem. And reportedly, that showed up in these really small everyday ways, like groceries. Most people, when they lived together, buy them for it the whole family. But Brooks would buy groceries for just himself and his biological son, leaving Crystal to feed her other four kids herself. A lot of that resentment supposedly turned. trickled down from Brooks's mother, Rosemary. Apparently, she wasn't thrilled that her son was raising a family with a woman who already had four kids with somebody else.

Have you seen this a lot, Sarah, in either other true crime cases or in your personal life? Because I feel like I definitely have in my personal life as well. Yeah, I would say mostly in my personal life, which I'm mad. Like, this is awful. This is an awful way to treat children. And they notice it. And I think that that's the hardest part. It's one thing to make some type of financial agreement with your partner about feeding the kids,

but it clearly is affecting the children. If they go into their own refrigerator and there's things that are off limits, that breaks my heart. Same. And not only will it cause, like you said, cause problems between the two adults in the relationship, the kids will 100% notice. I know some people might think, well, they're young and they won't pay attention, but kids definitely notice every little thing. And blending families is as hard enough as it is.

But when one parent blatantly treats some kids one way and the other kids differently, it just makes everything so much harder and it's so frustrating to see. Yeah, I mean, I come from a big blended family. His, hers, ours, theirs, right? Like, I'm the only one with my set of parents out of six kids. And even though my father is a terrible man and a convicted domestic terrorist, Courtney, he did not do this to his children. It's insane.

Like, what type of evil person does this? I don't know. All I have to say is Crystal and all of her kids deserve so much better. And honestly, one last little note, of course, leave it to the mother-in-law to have something to say about Crystal's past. I feel like that is just so cliche that the mother-in-law doesn't like the new girl or the new woman in her son's life. And I just feel so bad for Crystal and all of her kids. By July of 2015, tensions between Crystal and Brooks seem to boil over. They were still together, but they were fighting constantly about the way Brooks treated the older kids.

But Crystal wasn't ready to give up on the relationship just yet. So when Brooks offered to take her on a date on July 3rd, she was excited about it. It would be a chance for the two of them to reconnect away from the kids before the 4th of July festivities began. And the weekend started out pretty normal. On Friday the 3rd, Crystal's friend Christina Hawley stopped by to chat just before lunchtime. Then at 4.36 p.m., another friend saw Crystal and her youngest son at Walmart. Soon after, a witness saw Crystal hauling her Walmart bags into her house.

By this point, Crystal was working for the Halk family business as a bookkeeper. So around 5 p.m. on the 3rd, she was out showing one of their rental properties to a potential tenant. By 5.30 p.m., Crystal was back home. And somewhere between 5.30 and 7 that night, she and Brooks got into another argument. It was the same old fight, her telling him off for treating her four children differently than their son. It was a sore spot in their relationship that never seemed to heal. I just feel so bad for Crystal. I mean, I have been in her shoes where you so desperately want, like, somebody to change, and they just won't.

And it's like things that shouldn't even be happening in the first place. And then on the flip side of that, you have her so excited to go on this date. And that just breaks my heart for her. Like, it just shows, like, deep down, she really wanted to make things work with him. And it's just unfortunate. Yeah. I mean, I get it. They have a new baby together.

She wants to make it work. She's trying to give it another chance. and I think that that's a really admirable quality. And it's hard, right? Because I think hindsight's 2020. You know, we can see this from a totally different view than her right in that moment. Yeah, and the fact that they kept having this exact same argument

tells me it was like a really deep-rooted issue that was honestly never getting resolved. Crystal kept telling Brooks that he wasn't treating everyone fairly, yet nothing ever seemed to change. And I feel like investigators, they always pay attention to recurring conflicts like that because they can point to bigger problems in a relationship. And like I said, even though Crystal was excited for this date, that's actually pretty common.

A couple can look completely fine on the surface while serious issues like this one are happening behind closed doors that nobody would know about. Yeah, and let's be real. I think a lot of us have been there where we have that same fight over and over again. And the other person promises to get better and you think that maybe they are and then you're right back at square one. I just feel for her. Even so, at around 7 p.m., Crystal, Brooks and the Sun, they shared, climbed into his truck, and drove to the Hauk family farm on Pascal Ballard Lane. Apparently this was part of the date night Brooks had planned for them, a quick moment to show their son the new calves on the farm. They arrived around 7.24 p.m., just as the day's rain clouds

were starting to break up. They walked the property together for the wet summer grass with their son following along, and for that moment, they seemed to be like any other young family. Now, the next part of the story comes entirely from Brooks' own account. He claimed that they made it home around midnight. If there was more to the date night, it's not on the record. But he claimed they all piled into the bed together to co-sleep right after they got home. Brooks crashed not long after. He even remembered Crystal laying next to him in bed, playing some kind of game on her phone

right before he drifted off. Cut to the next morning. Saturday, July 4, 2015. Across Bardstown, families were waking up to the start of a holiday weekend. Coolers were being packed, girls were being fired up, and kids were already asking when the fireworks would begin. But inside Crystal in Brooks's home, something was wrong. Crystal was nowhere to be found. I'm Claire Buckley, and if your idea of relaxing is listening to seriously unsettling stories before bed,

then you are going to love my podcast pretty scary. From terrifying true crime, haunting ghost tales, creepy alien encounters, and anything weird, It's the stories that leave you staring at the ceiling afterwards, questioning absolutely everything. Lock your doors, get comfy and prepare to dive into the darkness. Just search for Pretty Scary with Claire Buckley. It's just after 7 a.m. on the 4th of July 2015. Brooks Halk wakes up next to his two-year-old son. But someone's missing. Crystal, there's nothing that could explain her absence.

No last minute text. No note. thrown on the nightstand. But Brooks isn't panicking. He gets his son dressed and out the door in time to beat the morning rush at McDonald's. At 7.28 a.m., Brooks brings his son back to the family farm, the same one that three of them had visited not even 12 hours earlier. As the morning goes on, though, something starts to feel off. At 9.06 a.m., Brooks calls Crystal. No answer. At 11 a.m., Crystal's oldest daughter, 14-year-old Kylie, texts her mom. It's in regards to the date she was supposed to have with Brooks last night.

She says, quote, I hope you guys had fun last night. Love you. But Crystal never responds. Brooks tries calling again at 12.18 p.m. Still nothing. The next morning, Sunday, July 5th, Crystal's mom Sherry runs into Brooks at a gas station and asks how Crystal's doing.

Broke says he hasn't seen her in a while. And that's when Sherry and Kylie compare notes. They realize nobody's heard from Crystal since Friday night the 3rd, and her social media is dark. Sherry does the only thing she can think of at that point. She reports her daughter missing. But Sherry and Crystal's dad, Tommy, don't wait around for police to get started. They begin looking for her right away,

and it's Tommy who discovers the first major clue about her disappearance. On July 5th, he finds Crystal's car, her maroon 2007 Chevy Impala abandoned near Mile Marker 14 on the Bluegrass Parkway. It's unlocked with a flat tire. Her keys are still in the ignition, and her phone and purse are sitting right there inside. Sherry and Tommy know that Crystal wouldn't just take off willingly. She's a devoted mom, and her parents know, without a doubt, that she'd never walk away from her kids. Plus, she's not going to get far without her phone or wallet.

There's one other detail that sticks out to her family too, something the police, initially overlooked. Crystal was petite, so she always drove with her seat pulled up close to the wheel and leaned back. But when they find her car, the seat is pushed back and sitting straight upright. To her family, that's all the proof they need. Somebody else has been behind that wheel. I can't even begin to imagine how terrifying that must have been to see that. Like, they know her daughter. They know how she typically drives her car. And right away, this screams red flag. Like, that had to be so terrifying. Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, good. on them for immediately comparing notes and realizing that something was wrong. I think that those

first, I mean, we know, right, that those first few hours are absolutely crucial. So shout out to this family for taking action immediately. Oh, for sure. And I also think that's why it's so important for families to give their perspective, because in this case, they immediately notice that car, like that driver's seat. It wasn't in the right position. I feel like police might not catch those little details because they don't truly know the victim, but the family does. So I think it's so important for families to step in and give their perspective. Yes, and important for detectives to reach out to these families and value their perspective, right? Like, you can throw any of that information away if you feel like it's not relevant to the case, but why not ask? And I say that

because we know that not all departments really do that. They don't always involve these families. So I know that we have law enforcement listening. I hope that anyone out there listening right now can realize just how important it is to get these little tiny details that could give you more information about something like a crime scene. Also, I wanted to say as a mom to three little kids myself, I connected with Crystal on such a deep level. I'm not saying that moms never leave because sometimes they do, but everything about Crystal points to someone who always put her kids first. It just to me really does not seem like she would willingly walk away, and I am on her family side. While the Ballard family is tracking down Crystal's car, Brooks calls Crystal a third time that

evening. He also reaches out to her aunt and cousin asking if they've seen her. But in the Ballard's eyes, Brooks isn't doing enough to try to find her. They even call Brooks and his family out publicly for refusing to join the search parties. So that same night, July 5th, Brooks is called in for an interview with Nelson County Sheriff's Detective John Snow. Brooks tells the police that he'd spent July 3rd the day before Crystal went missing, running errands. He mentions filing eviction notices for several rental properties that day. But when police look into them, the circuit clerk has no record of it. He also mentions a specific employee who did some trim work with him that day, but records show that the employee didn't work at all on the third. What Brooks doesn't mention, and the police

find out later after digging through his phone, is that he made another stop that day, a solo trip to the family farm, a couple hours before the evening trip with Crystal and his son. But why was he trying to hide that. Well, Brooks' next interview on July 8th is even more jarring. By that point, Snow has dug up something else in Brooks's phone. At 12.07 a.m. on July 4th, five hours after the couple arrived at the farm, Brooks got a call from an unknown number. Bricks admitted to getting a call on the drive home, but claimed he didn't know whose number it was. So Snow tried something. He told Brooks to call the number back, right then and there, in the interview room. That's when Brooks magically seemed to remember who the number belonged to, Steve Lawson, one of his own employees.

Steve picked up right away, and Brooks asked him, quote, why'd you call again the other night at midnight on the fourth? That's when Steve reminds him that he'd asked about renting one of Brooks's houses, which made sense given the Hauk family business. What didn't make sense was what Steve said next. According to him, Brooks said he couldn't give Steve a definitive answer until he had spoken with Crystal. That's when Snow's ears perked up. According to Brooks's account, Crystal was with him at the time in the car, so why not ask her then and there? Snow asked Brooks that exact question, but Brooks just sputtered out excuses that don't add up, and the length of the call doesn't add up either. It lasted only 13 seconds, nowhere near long enough to talk through

renting a house. To Snow, the whole exchange between Steve and Brooks sounds rehearsed. Well, believe it or not, that's not the only phone call during Brooks's interrogation. Brooks also gets a call from his brother Nick, telling him point blank to stop talking to the police, which is especially odd considering Nick himself is a police officer. But before Brooks leaves, he lets one more comment slip, and this one really sticks with snow. He calls himself a single parent. Now, Crystal's only been missing for four days, and they had no evidence that she was dead, so that does feel presumptuant. to say the least. The whole thing leaves Snow suspicious enough to order Brooks a polygraph, and the results

come back inconclusive. After that interview, Brooks is named a person of interest, and Snow compensates his phone. That's how investigators learn something else interesting. He'd interviewed someone to take over Crystal's role at the family business before she went missing. I don't like this one bit, Sarah, all of this behavior from Brooks, it screams red flags to me. Yeah, call it circumstantial. I don't care, right? This is very suspicious to me, but I do like John Snow. I know, I know. I feel like is approaching this in, I don't want to say like an unconventional way, but like a different way, like a unique way, like telling him, oh, if you don't remember this number, well, call it right now. We can find out together and like magically he remembers. That was really, really cool of him. And I feel like it's good to have somebody like that on your side in a case like this.

I love like a good, slightly sassy detective who's working for the victim. I love it. I mean, Brooks lied about the morning farm visit. He fumbled on his alibi. And then I think what bothers me the most is that he referred to himself as a single parent when Crystal was only missing. Like at this point, there was no evidence to suggest anything like horrible happened. And to me, that just feels like a pretty big slip. And I think it just points to something a lot deeper going on. Yeah, I mean, this is fresh when he's interviewing, right? Now, I've been interrogated. I've been an interrogation room for like six hours before. It's not fun. It sucks. You don't always understand what's going on. But this is like so different than slightly remembering something wrong or slightly changing

your story because your brain maybe just like fumbled something. These are things that he clearly omitted. And I think that's what's concerning to me. Oh, for sure. And I don't know for Nick's call. Do you have any thoughts on that? I mean, I think it's weird. I think that if somebody's missing in your family that you would want to help any way you can, especially being a police officer. So I don't think this call was handled in the most tasteful way. But if I am playing devil's advocate, I mean, he was a police officer. So maybe he was just trying to tell his brother to lawyer up and use his rights. Maybe that's kind of why he was saying, stop talking to police. I don't love it, but I can at least see that that being like a possibility. Yeah, no, I agree with you. I think good, solid advice

for pretty much everyone is don't talk to the police without a lawyer. I don't. I don't care if you're innocent or if you're guilty. It's just solid advice. So I don't really take that one to be huge in this case. I think that any police officer, any lawyer would tell you to get a lawyer before you speak with police. So this wasn't a huge red flag to me, but I understand in like the larger context of this case how it could be concerning. Well, by July 9th, the media has gone a hold of the story and Brooks is catching real heat. So he sits down with Nancy Grace to give his one and only media interview. She asked why he didn't report Crystal missing the second he noticed she was gone. Brooks said he wasn't worried when he woke up alone since Crystal had a habit of running off to her

cousin's place whenever they fought. Except by Brooks's own account, they hadn't fought after the farm visit. They'd simply come home and gone to sleep. And when police talked to Crystal's dad, he says he only knew of one instance when she'd run off to her cousin's house. Not exactly the pattern Brooks had described. By that point, police are suspicious of Brooks. and Nick for inserting himself into his brother's interrogation. But as soon as investigators reach out to Nick, he lawyers up and stops cooperating. The only thing he agrees to is a polygraph a few weeks later,

and he fails, epically. When the examiner tells Nick his results, he explodes, swearing and yelling at the examiner right there in the room. It isn't exactly the behavior you'd expect from a police officer. Investigators find even more disturbing information when they interview employees at the house business. One says that Brooks and Nick's mom, Rosemary, had approached him about finding someone to, quote, help get rid of Crystal. Another employee shares something even more heinous.

But this time, it's not about the Halk family. It's about Joseph Lawson, the son of Steve Lawson. The same Steve Lawson, who said he called about the rental the night Crystal disappeared. According to this unnamed employee, Joey once said he'd get rid of Crystal's body in a very graphic way we won't share here. That awful visual left investigators wondering, was there a much bigger picture here that they were missing? One that included not just Brooks, but also Nick, Rosemary, Steve, and now Joey?

Well, by September 2015, two months after Crystal's disappearance, Bardstown police are fed up with Nick's behavior. They suspend him. A few weeks later, he's fired altogether for interfering with the investigation. Specifically because of the call he made, made to Brooks during his interrogation. Then in October, three months after Crystal went missing, the sheriff's office publicly named Brooks as the main suspect.

Detective Snow believes they have enough circumstantial evidence to indict Brooks right then and there. But the prosecutor disagrees. There's no murder weapon, no confession, and most importantly, no sign of Crystal anywhere. Without the go-ahead from the prosecutor's progress slows. Crystal's family has their own theories about what happened, and they seem to align with the police. But the evidence to prove it is just out of reach. But Sherry and Tommy aren't going to accept anything less than complete justice for their daughter. They launch their own investigation, paying out of pocket for canine teams and water searches.

They even hire their own private investigator, and it doesn't take long for the PI to find something critical. In 2016, the Ballard's investigator finds that witnesses reported, a white Buick at the Hauk family farm on the night Crystal disappeared. They said it was parked in a strange out-of-the-way spot, so the family starts tracking it down to see who it belongs to, and eventually they trace it. Someone in Bardstown does have a white Buick, but it wasn't Brooks or Nick, or Steve or Joey, or even Rosemary. It was another person in the Hauk family, the brother's grandmother, 82-year-old Anna White Sides. And in May of 2016, right as investigators started asking about the car,

she sold it to a dealership in Louisville. The timing feels more than just a coincidence to the Ballard family, so they bring the information to the police. That same month, authorities issue a subpoena for Anna to testify in front of a grand jury about the car, suggesting it may have been used to dispose of Crystal's body. But Anna refuses to testify, invoking her Fifth Amendment rights against, self-incrimination. This puts the case at another frustrating standstill. By fall 2016, more than a full year has passed since the Ballard's last saw their daughter,

but they haven't given up hope. In fact, they feel like they're on the cusp of a huge break. Tommy in particular is relentless. He's been the last year building up his own case file with every tip that has ever surfaced. If he wasn't out searching, he was home at the computer working the case. I think it's so sad when I hear about families having to resort to hiring their own private investigator just to get movement on a case when clearly there's something darker at play. Yeah, I feel like a family should never have to do that, but I definitely understand why they do. I mean, I think it also gives you another piece of mind that like you're doing absolutely everything you can to find your person. Like Courtney, I can tell you, my sister's case file is like 3,000 pages long.

and what I did was complete like an entire timeline based off of those documents. So in addition to the 3,000 pages, I have like a 200-page word doc that's my own timeline of my sister's case. And I feel like for me, it's just helpful because I have that information to go back to. And it gives me peace of mind that I have the complete picture. So I get it. I wish families didn't have to do it, but I think that there's so many reasons that they do and a lot of advantages to doing it.

Oh, for sure. I also don't think people realize just, how much work that is to go through. Like, I feel like even if you separate yourself from the case and you're in law enforcement working on a case, that's a lot of work that goes into it. But then when there are no answers and the family then comes to it and they're doing that exact same thing, kind of like you were, like that is so much work. And it's so tiring, like physically but also mentally. And I think a lot of people don't realize that. Yeah, no, for sure. It is a ton of work. I mean, I read my sister's case file like an encyclopedia. You know what I mean? It took me weeks to get

through. So shout out to all the families out there who do this, because I think more often than not, they are putting together their own documents in these cases. I also want to ask, in your personal experience, Sarah, has searching for your sister created any tension within law enforcement working on her case? And do you think that's typical in a lot of missing person cases if you've experienced it? So I think it depends on the detective. I have some detectives that, you know, that have worked my sister's case that have given me accolades for that. You know, good job, you've done great work, blah, blah, blah. And then I think with some other detectives, they feel like I was kind of stepping on their toes. And I think that's what it comes down to. When I talk to all these families,

it just depends on what type of detective you get. But in my experience, usually the best detectives are just happy to have more information and glad that you're engaged in the case. Then on November 19th, 2016, 54-year-old Tommy takes a break from investigating Crystal's death to bring his grandson, then 12-year-old Trenton, out hunting. For a moment, it's just the two of them, holding on to a little piece of normalcy after so much upheaval. Then, out of nowhere, a single bullet tears across the brush and strikes Tommy Ballard in the chest, killing him instantly.

The moment a body is found, the clock starts ticking. 48 hours. That's how long detectives have before the trail begins to go cold. From A&E and Crime House, this is the official podcast from the famous true crime series, The First 48. Step inside the critical window, the interrogations, the dead ends, and the breakthroughs that crack a case wide open. I'm Carter Roy.

Each week I revisit a landmark homicide investigation with the depth you know and immersive long-form storytelling built for your ears. Real detectives, real cases, real stakes. This is the first 48. New episodes every Thursday. Listen to and follow the first 48 on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen to podcasts. It's the morning of November 19, 2016, and Tommy Ballard has just been shot on a hunting trip with his grandson Trenton. When the police get there, Trenton explains everything as best as he can. He says that right after he and his grandfather turned into the hunting area, Tommy noticed something.

Tommy threw out an arm pulling Trenton back behind him, took the rifle off his shoulder, and looked toward an opening in the trees. That's the moment he was shot. Police go back to the spot Trenton described, and they find a small clearing cut into the trees, one that seems deliberate. And yet, they still call it a, quote, hunting accident. Sherry doesn't buy that for a second. She's sure that Tommy lost his life because he was getting too close to the truth about Crystal. By this point, Sherry's living through something that's impossible to imagine.

Her daughter's been missing for over a year and presumed dead by the police. Her husband of decades was gunned down, and his killer is still on the loose. And on top of everything, she hasn't seen her youngest grandson in months. While she has custody of Crystal's oldest four children, Brooks is doing everything he can to keep Crystal's youngest child away from her side of the family. And unfortunately, even another suspicious death doesn't do much to speed up the investigation. It takes almost another year for the police to look into the Hauk family again. In July 2017, state investigators find something that leads them to search their grandmother, Anna White Sides' home.

And they go there looking for guns and ammunition tied to Tommy's death. But when nothing comes of it, progress grinds to a halt. For nearly three years, Crystal and Tommy's cases are stagnant, at least from the public's perspective. No new searches, no new interrogations, and no new leads. Then, finally, the Ballard family gets the news they've been hoping for. In August 2020, the FBI steps in and officially takes over both Crystal's disappearance and Tommy's death, and they make sweeping changes right away. First, they reclassify Tommy's death.

To them, it's no longer a hunting accident. It was a homicide. After researching the story, Sarah, I actually found that it takes quite a bit for the FBI to take over a case. Usually the local agency has to request help, or the case has to be complex enough that federal resources are needed, kind of like in this case where now you have two suspicious deaths and seemingly no answers. I do think a federal takeover can signal that investigators believe there's something bigger going on, and it honestly never hurts to have a fresh-of-set eyes on a case. Yeah, especially when there's a family member involved that was former police at this point, right?

I think it's totally appropriate for the FBI to come in. Oh, for sure. And I just want to say I feel so bad for this family. Like first having to go through Crystal's disappearance, likely foul play was involved, and likely from somebody very close to them, they just can't prove it. And then, you know, fast forward, they're just trying their best to move forward. And then Tommy gets gunned down. And his grandson, 12 years old, witnesses this.

Like, so now not only is this boy's mom still missing, but now he just witnessed his grandpa dying. Like, that is just horrible. And this should have never happened. Yeah, it's so sad for Trenton. And also, like, this doesn't do anything to take the heat off this family, right? I feel like at this point in the case, everything is really, really heating up. And they just look more suspicious than ever. Oh, for sure.

Even if they weren't involved, they do look bad. And the fact that the police went back to this location and it looked like a clearing was deliberate and it wasn't just like a natural clearing. Like, this does not look good for the Halk family. And also, I feel like the FBI reclassifying Tommy's death as a homicide, ended up being a major turning point in this case. Oh, absolutely. I mean, my goodness, now you have one member of the family missing and the other one has been killed. It's huge.

From there, things start to pick up speed. Federal agents execute search warrants and conduct more than 50 interviews around Bardstown. They go back to Brooks's home and Nick's home. They comb through the Hauk family farm and search the storage unit where Crystal kept her things. They even get her car back from Sherry, which she'd been holding onto for this exact moment

and towed away for further testing. In 2021, they searched a sub-reged, division Brooks has built homes in. In 2022, they go back to the family farm, this time with cadaver dogs, drones, and excavating equipment. The search lasts five straight days. The FBI never discloses exactly what they found in all of that, but it must have been huge, because in September 23, someone's finally arrested in connection to Crystal's murder. It's Joey Lawson, the man who made those disturbing comments about disposing of Crystal's body. He's indicted for conspiracy to commit murder and tampering with evidence. Just days later, Brooks is

indicted too. He's arrested on September 27th on murder and tampering charges and hit with a massive $10 million bond. At Brooks's bond hearing, prosecutors drop an absolute bombshell. Through the grapevine, they'd gotten word the gun used to kill Tommy was put up for sale in Nelson County, so they sent an undercover officer to buy it. Someone showed up and sold it to them under a fake name, and it didn't take long to figure out who that seller really was. Nick Houtk. The rifle's caliber and ballistics match four out of five criteria for the gun that killed Tommy, but for reasons that aren't entirely clear, Nick isn't arrested. Instead, the next indictment is for Steve Lawson. In December 2023, he's arrested for conspiracy to commit murder. That makes

three men facing charges in Crystal's death. Prosecutors also named Nick and Rosemary as unindicted co-conspirators, meaning police think they were involved but can't or won't charge them yet. The trial drags through pretrial motions for over a year. The case is so high profile that it has to be moved out of Bardstown and prosecutors decide to try Steve separately from Brooks and Joey. Two years later in May 2025, Steve's trial is finally underway. The next month, jury selection starts for Brooks and Joey's joint trial. In opening statements, prosecutors lay out their theory. They say that Brooks recruited the Lawson's to help kill Crystal. Afterward, Joey drove her car out to Bluegrass Parkway to make it look like she'd run off. And about that infamous 13-second phone

call just after midnight, the one Steve said was about rental properties? Well, on the stand, he finally admits the truth. He called Brooks to say that the job was done, meaning that he'd staged Crystal's car. Prosecutors also bring in witnesses who say that all three men had talked about their involvement in the murder. They also show the jury a hair consistent with crystals that was found inside of Anna's white Buick. But to be clear, Anna herself has never been charged with anything in the case. Still, the defense argues there's no physical evidence tying the men to any crime scene. In fact, they don't have a crime scene at all. No body, no murder weapon, no confession, and no clear motive. But in the end, the prosecution pulls off the near impossible. A no-border,

murder conviction. Not once, not twice, but three times. On May 30th, 2025, a jury finds Steve Lawson guilty on all charges. On July 8th, Brooks and Joey meet the same fate. Over the next couple of months, the sentences are handed down. Steve gets 17 years, Joey gets 25, and on September 17th, 2025, more than a decade after Crystal disappeared, Brooks is sentenced to life in prison. I don't know. I don't get what one woman could do to make three men work together and do this. It's just evil. Exist.

I mean, sorry, like being in true crime for so long, like literally exist, right? I feel like sometimes there doesn't have to be a motive outside of being annoyed or just wanting a different life, unfortunately. It is just awful. And I think that no matter how amazing these convictions are, even that they happen 10 years later, it's still just, It doesn't bring crystal back. I'm sure this provided the family a small portion of closure, but unless they can physically bring crystal back, it's hard to say whether or not this case will ever truly feel finished.

Yeah, I mean, you know me. I feel like justice is in the eye of the family or the loved ones of the victim, right? So, like, if they feel like this is justice, I'm behind them 100%. And I think I just really love to see when no body homicides make it to trial. because although they are really hard to get to that threshold to get to that point where there's even a trial, statistically you are a little bit more likely to win without a body when you get to that point. I learned that through my sister's murder trial. There's a wonderful expert out there.

His name is Tad Tobias. He goes around the country training law enforcement about nobody homicide. So just kind of like a fun fact, by the time you do get to that point, you're a little bit more statistically likely to win a case without a body, which I think is, one of the biggest misconceptions in true crime. I know, and then in this case, it happened three times, which is just crazy. Yeah, I mean, it sounds like the prosecution did a great job in this case.

But the story isn't over yet. Months later, it comes out that Brooks and Nick told their sister, Rhonda McEvoy, to wear a hidden recorder during her testimony to the grand jury. Police believe the entire Halk family was comparing notes to try to keep their stories consistent. Recording testimony to a grand jury is illegal. But by the time police find out, the one-year window to charge her has already closed. But that loophole changes. In February 26, Kentucky lawmakers passed the Crystal Rogers Act,

which increases the statute of limitations to charge someone with illegally recording testimony from one year to 10. And then just a couple months ago, there was one more massive update in Crystal's case. On June 4, 26, Nick was finally arrested. The charge was perjury, lying under oath. Investigators haven't revealed exactly how Nick perjured himself. If he's convicted, he's facing up to five years in jail. He's pleaded not guilty, and his trial is set for this November. After Nick's hearing, Sherry said she's hopeful the truth is going to finally come out about both Crystal's disappearance and Tommy's murder.

More than anything, her biggest hope is to find her daughter's body and finally give her the burial she deserves. With the case this complicated, with so many people and so many members of the same family tangled up in it, it's hard to piece together exactly what happened. Even after the convictions, prosecutors still don't know exactly how or why Crystal was killed. All any of us really know for certain is this. Around 7 p.m. on July 3rd, 2015, Crystal climbed into Brooks' truck with him and her youngest son. They drove out to the Hauk family farm, pulling in by 7.24 p.m. It had rained on and off all day, so that thick, sticky July humidity clung to everything.

When they pulled onto the farm, it started sprinkling again. The Crystal didn't let that stop her. She walked the grounds with her son as it drizzled, showing her little boy the baby calves. And that's the last clear picture anyone has of Crystal Rogers alive. But somewhere out there, someone knows exactly what happened to her. Crystal's body has never been found. She was 5'9, around 150 pounds, with light skin, lawned hair, and blue eyes. She has tattoos of stars on the top of her left foot, a tattoo of a footprint on her back,

and one of the Disney character Tigger on her ankle. Tommy Ballard's killer has never been brought to justice either. Investigators believe his murder is tied directly to what happened to his daughter. If you have any information about Crystal or Tommy, call the FBI tip line at 1-800-Call-Four. FBI. Contact your local FBI office or submit a tip online at tips.fbi.gov. The FBI's Louisville office is offering a reward of up to $10,000 for information leading to an arrest in Tommy's case. Thank you for listening to the final hours. If you have any other details about Crystal Rogers case, please share it with us on social media. We want to hear from you. Your thoughts,

condolences, and feedback are what make this community so special. At Crimehouse, We value your support. Share your thoughts on social media and remember to rate, review, and follow the final hours to help others discover the show. And to enhance your listening experience, don't forget to join Crimehouse Plus at crimehouse.com. Or if you listen on Apple Podcast, tap try free at the top of the final hour show page. The Final Hours is hosted by Sarah Turney and me, Courtney Nicole, and is a Crimehouse original powered by Pave Studios. This episode was brought to life by the final hours team. Max Culler, Ron Shapiro, Alex Benadon, Lori Marinelli, Natalie Pertsovsky, Sarah Camp,

Alyssa Fox, Elena Johnson, and Russell Nash. Thank you for listening. I'm Sarah Turney. And I'm Courtney Nicole. We're the host of the Crime House Original podcast, The Final Hours. Crime has impacted both of our families, teaching us how the last conversations, the missed red flags, can change everything. On the final hours, we examine the moments before.

a disappearance and the questions that never got answered, a podcast that puts the moments before it disappearance under a microscope. Listen to and follow the final hours, available now wherever you get your podcasts. Hi listeners, it's Vanessa. Are you the type to fall down an internet rabbit hole and not come up for hours? You'll love Crimes of Reddit, a new crimehouse original with Sabrina Deanna Roga and Alexis Linkletter. Every week, one host brings real true crime stories from Reddit, while the other reacts completely blind. No prep, no spoilers, then they swap. It's the feeling of sending your group chat a thread at 2 a.m. that starts with, you have to see this. Except Sabrina and Alexis are in the chat with you. Follow Crimes of Reddit

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