Everyone is expecting a huge break in the search any minute now as the FBI and local police comb through a suburban subdivision with cadaver dogs, determined to solve a 6-year-old missing persons cold case. A mother of five vanished without a trace but police think they cracked the crime wide open.
Intensive search continues
An “emotional” Sherry Ballard talked with local news reporters about the ongoing search for her daughter’s remains. “I just pray that this is it.” On Wednesday afternoon she watched on as the FBI combed the entire neighborhood “for a second day,” looking for clues to the disappearance of her daughter.
Crystal Rogers has been missing since July 3, 2015. She was 35-years-old at the time. “I’ve kind of hyped myself up to not get too encouraged by it but at the same time, I can’t help but feeling like there’s a reason they’re doing it. I’ve got my fingers crossed and I’ve been praying really hard.”
Crystal Rogers may have been haunting the Woodlawn Springs subdivision all this time. Camera crews aren’t allowed near the search but they’re hovering around the perimeter and talking to anyone they can hand a microphone to.
“They’ve been very, very open with me and very good with communicating with me,” Ballard relates. “There’s certain things they can’t tell me, and I understand that. But they’ve been great with me.”
The subdivision is looking like it’s been infested by gophers. Between FBI investigators and the Nelson County Sheriff’s Department there was lots of activity.
They seem to be focusing their search on three particular homes. Yesterday, they hauled in sonar equipment to assist the cadaver dogs. Agents “dug at least 10 holes around one home.”
Car found abandoned
The mystery has troubled Bardstown, Kentucky since the young mother’s car was “found abandoned on the Bluegrass Parkway” two days after she went missing.
It had a flat tire. Her “phone, purse and keys” were still inside the car. Her romantic interest, Brooks Houck, has been suspect number one ever since. He was “the last person to see her.” The search for her or her remains has continued ever since.
Apparently the reason for all the mole-like digging this week is because “Houck owns a construction company that built three homes in the subdivision where the FBI is conducting the investigation.”
You can make a pretty good guess those are the three agents zoomed in on. The feds took over the investigation last year. They “came into Bardstown with a show of force, serving search warrants and conducting interviews.” This past July, they declared they were “in the final stages” of investigation.
Adding even more intrigue to the case, a “year and a half after Rogers disappeared, her father Tommy Ballard — who had dedicated himself to the search for his daughter — was fatally shot while hunting on his own property. No one has been charged in connection to this death.”
Judy Brady is a Woodlawn Springs resident. She “woke up to FBI trucks and tents near her block.” She had been “thinking of Rogers” at the same time. “It’s scary, but I want them to find whoever did this.” The suspect’s brother, Nick Houck, “was fired from his job as a police officer with Bardstown police” the same day Brooks Houck was named as a suspect.