Crystal Rogers trial: 3 highlights from closing arguments as jury prepares to deliberate

Yahoo

08-07-2025

The fate of two defendants charged in connection to the disappearance of Bardstown mother Crystal Rogers is now in the hands of a jury after closing arguments concluded July 7.
The jury is tasked with determining whether 43-year-old Brooks Houck, Rogers' boyfriend at the time of her disappearance, is guilty of murder and complicity to tampering with physical evidence, according to the jury instructions. The jury will also determine whether Joseph Lawson, 34, is guilty of conspiracy to commit murder and tampering with physical evidence.
Judge Charles Simms III previously estimated proceedings would conclude July 8.
Lawson's father, Steven Lawson, was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder and tampering with physical evidence in May 2025 in connection to the disappearance.
Rogers, a 35-year-old mother of five children, went missing around July 3, 2015, from Bardstown. Her car was found a few days later abandoned on Bluegrass Parkway with her keys, phone and purse inside. Rogers' body has never been found, but she is presumed dead by investigators.
Here are three highlights from closing arguments:
In closing arguments for Lawson, defense attorney Bobby Boyd repeatedly returned to cell phone data prosecutors have used to back their theory that he drove Rogers' car to the location where police found it stranded with a flat tire two days later.
Attorneys for Lawson and Houck have offered an alternate story. Instead, Boyd said, Lawson and his father were retrieving a car that had been taken from them earlier the night of the disappearance and hidden at a residence on Boston Road, which is north of Bluegrass Parkway.
Data from Steven's phone shows it pinged several north-facing sectors on cell phone towers located near the thoroughfares.
Tim O'Daniel, a Louisville Metro Police detective who prepared reports on Steven and Houck's device locations, testified June 27 it would be "somewhat possible' for Steven's device to utilize the north-facing sectors while located on Bluegrass Parkway.
Boyd said it is 'completely possible' the location evidence supports the defense's alternate story. He urged the jurors to use the location evidence as their 'North Star.'
'Go back and cross-check anything you've got with that cell phone data,' he said. 'It's your most reliable witness.'
Attorney Brian Butler spent several hours making his final defense for Houck, casting skepticism on many of the prosecution's key witnesses and calling the case against his client 'garbage.'
Despite several law enforcement searches at various properties related to the case, no crime scene was identified and no physical evidence linked Houck or the Lawsons to a crime, Butler said.
He said significant pressure to land a conviction in the decade-old case led them to contrive a story through 'coercive' investigation tactics, with Houck being the target.
'They're just making stuff up because the case has hole after hole,' Butler told the jury.
What prosecutors lack in physical evidence, they have compensated for with incriminating testimony from several witnesses, whom Butler has attempted to discredit.
Butler called a September 2023 interview Steven's ex-girlfriend Heather Snellen gave to Kentucky State Police detectives 'outrageous' and 'coercive.'
During the interview, which lasted more than four hours, Snellen said she overheard the Lawsons talking in 2017 about moving a body on the Houck family farm — Rogers' last known location. She later wrote to KSP to inform them she felt pressured into talking about it and 'did not know anything,' though she reaffirmed that she heard the conversation in testimony June 27.
While prosecutor Shane Young agreed the interview with Snellen was tense, he argued the investigators were professionals who knew they were on to something.
During closing arguments for the prosecution, Young revealed what he believes led Steven to call Houck for roughly 13 seconds shortly after midnight July 4, 2015.
'That car getting a flat tire was a problem,' he said. 'That precipitated the phone call.'
Attorneys for Houck said Steven was asking about rental properties, but Young noted Rogers — who was running the rental arm of Houck's real estate enterprise at the time — was in the car with him at the time, according to Houck's testimony. Young questioned why Houck did not hand the phone to her if she was with him.
Attorneys for Houck and Lawson have referred to the location and phone call evidence as the 'lynchpin' of the prosecution's case.
Young countered that notion during closings, saying Houck's own written account of his whereabouts given during a July 8 interview is the case's true 'lynchpin.'
Houck told investigators Rogers returned home with him from the family farm sometime after midnight with their son and proceeded to play games on her phone. But phone data indicates her device was inactive starting around 9:23 p.m. that night, Young said.
'If Rogers did not come home, [Houck] is guilty of murder,' Young said.
Contact reporter Killian Baarlaer at [e-mail] or @bkillian72 on X.
This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Crystal Rogers murder trial: Jury to start deliberating