Man arrested in connection with 2015 disappearance and murder of Crystal Rogers
Tom Wood
Featured Image Credit: KSP/Family Handout
A man has been arrested in connection with the 2015 disappearance of Crystal Rogers.
Rogers, a mother of five from Kentucky, disappeared in July 2015 and has never been found, she is presumed to be dead.
The FBI in Louisville has since announced via a statement that Rogers’ boyfriend at the time of her disappearance, Brooks Houck, has been arrested on charges relating to the case.
Local news outlet WKYT reports that court documents show Houck faces charges of murder and tampering with physical evidence.
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The FBI Louisville office said in a statement on X that Houck was arrested ‘without incident’, and will be arraigned in the Nelson County Circuit Court in early October.
The FBI and Kentucky State Police said that they had worked alongside ‘other local and federal law enforcement partners’ in their efforts to ‘hold accountable those that were responsible’ for Rogers’ mysterious disappearance.
Local TV outlet WLKY reports that Houck and Rogers both grew up in Bardstown, Kentucky.
The pair are believed to have been in a relationship at around the time Rogers went missing, and Houck is the father of one of Rogers’ children.
The news channel said that Houck is the ‘only suspect ever named’ in connection with Rogers’ case, but that he’d never been charged until now.
Several members of Houck’s family have also been connected with the case in the intervening years, including his brother and grandmother.
The state of Louisiana said in 2016 that it believed Houck’s grandmother’s car to have been used to dispose of Rogers’ body, although she refused to testify in court.
Houck’s brother was dismissed from his job at the Bardstown Police Department within a year of Rogers’ disappearance for interfering with the investigation, WLKY reports.
One of the defendant’s friends was also charged with many counts of perjury early on in the investigation, eventually pleading guilty to lesser charges.
The FBI also last year searched the farm at which Rogers was last seen alive, which is owned by the Houck family, the news outlet reports.
Earlier this month, 32-year-old Joseph Lawson – another man from Bardstown - was reportedly arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit murder as well as tampering with physical evidence.
He will also appear in court in October.