Brooks Houck (top left, via Hardin County (Ky.) Detention Center) allegedly murdered his girlfriend Crystal Rogers (bottom right, via FBI). Joseph Lawson (bottom left, via YouTube screengrab/WHAS) and his father, Steven Lawson (middle, via Harrison County Sheriff’s Dept.), are accused of conspiring in the murder.
A lawyer for one of three men accused in the murder of a Kentucky mother of five whose body has not been found is seeking to dismiss charges or suppress testimony involving his client because he was promised immunity in exchange for his cooperation in the investigation.
Steven Eugene Lawson testified before two separate Nelson County grand juries and spoke to the Federal Bureau of Investigation before he was indicted last year for tampering with physical evidence by allegedly assisting in moving the abandoned car belonging to Crystal Rogers, who disappeared in 2015.
“I did not hurt Crystal and was not involved in hurting Crystal. I didn’t plan to hurt Crystal. I didn’t conspire to hurt Crystal. Those are his statements,” attorney Theodore Lavit told ABC Louisville affiliate WHAS.
Lavit said in the motion that the prosecutor and the police made it clear to his client from the beginning that he would get immunity if he cooperated with the investigation.
“The prosecutor stated from the very beginning that any statements made by Mr. Lawson were made as part of plea negotiations and could not be used against him,” the motion said. “The Court should not permit the Commonwealth to [revoke] its promise of immunity.”
The motion contained a timeline of conversations. In one, Hardin County Commonwealth’s Attorney Shane Young, appointed as special counsel in the Rogers case, told Lawson: “If you are 100 percent honest with us I am going to help you. I am going to help you. It’s on record, it’s on tape, whatever you say to me I am not going to use against you.”
“Mr. Lawson clearly exhibited a desire to achieve the immunity promised by Prosecutor Young and the detectives acting on his behalf,” the document states. “Mr. Lawson asked if what he said could be used against him. Mr. Lawson agreed to talk with the police after Prosecutor Young told him that his statement would not be used against him. Throughout the interviews, Mr. Lawson asked the police if he was telling them what they wanted to hear and telling them he wanted to be on their team. There is no question Mr. Lawson exhibited an actual subjective expectation to negotiate a plea at the time of the discussions.”
Young did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Law&Crime.
As Law&Crime reported, Rogers’ mother reported her 35-year-old daughter missing on July 5, 2015, after not hearing from her for more than a day, according to the FBI.
Lawson, his son and a third man — Brooks Houck, Rogers’ former boyfriend and father of her youngest child — face charges in the case, more than eight years after Rogers was last seen alive. Steven Lawson and his son, Joseph Lawson, were charged with conspiracy to commit murder and tampering with physical evidence after Rogers’ disappearance.
The day Rogers was reported missing, her red Chevrolet Impala — with her keys, phone, and purse — was found abandoned with a flat tire at mile marker 14 on the Bluegrass Parkway in Bardstown, Kentucky, the FBI said in a missing person alert.
The case took a darker turn 16 months later when Rogers’ father, Tommy Ballard, 54, who led search parties and collected evidence, trying to piece together the mystery of his daughter’s disappearance, was shot once in the chest and killed by an “unknown subject” on family property in Bardstown, in a murder that remains unsolved.
His wife, Sherry Ballard, believes someone silenced him.
“I think he would not have given up,” she told WHAS in November. “He would not have given up, and certain people knew he would not give up.”
Young suggested in October that Houck could be implicated in Ballard’s death, too, by a rifle sale linked to his brother, a former police officer.
“That could potentially be related to this case,” Young said. “We are waiting for testing to come back on the firearm we believe was used to murder Tommy Ballard, the firearm that was purchased from Nicholas Houck, who was using a fake name when he sold the rifle.”
Though Nick Houck has not been charged, the special counsel alleged that he and other family members “secretly brought in recorders and recorded the grand jury” investigating Rogers’ disappearance and presumed death.
“The question is why,” the special counsel said. “I think everyone in this courtroom knows why: to make sure everyone’s story is consistent.”
Four of Rogers’ children and her mother filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Brooks Houck.
Law&Crime’s Matt Naham and Marisa Sarnoff contributed to this report.
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