'She vanished from Earth': Investigating Crystal Rogers's disappearance
While her boyfriend Brooks Houck was named a main suspect, he has never been charged in connection to Rogers's disappearance.
Author: Shay McAlister, Taylor Weiter
Published: 8:10 PM EST November 20, 2019
Updated: 11:29 PM EST November 20, 2019
BARDSTOWN, Ky. — More than four years after her disappearance, it is hard to find a person in Bardstown—or nationwide for that matter—that has not heard Crystal Rogers’s story.
The mother of five did not come home during Fourth of July weekend in 2015. At first, everyone assumed her phone died or she would return later. Those hours that she was gone quickly turned into days, days turned into weeks and weeks turned into years.
Though still considered a missing persons case, police are working under the assumption Rogers is dead—searching for a body or any answers that might bring closure to a family fractured by tragedy.
Parents’ Pride
Crystal Rogers was her parents’ pride and joy. To this day, her mother Sherry Ballard speaks about her the way any proud mom would their child.
“Just a really sweet girl,” Ballard said. “She would do anything for anybody. She looked at everybody the same…I couldn’t ask for a better daughter than her.”
Rogers was her parents’ first born, and Ballard said they were very picky about who they thought should be around their daughter.
“We wanted what was best for our daughter,” Ballard said. “And all the other relationships we didn't think were best for our daughter, so when she met Brooks, I think she saw the opportunity.”
Rogers had four children before she met boyfriend Brooks Houck, a man Ballard said was a polite, “Yes ma’am and “No sir” type of person.
“He's clean cut, you know he has his own business. He builds homes,” Ballard said. “I think she felt that as an opportunity that him and her dad would get along really good and she was bettering herself.”
Rogers and Houck moved in together and had a son, Eli. The two were together with their toddler the last night Rogers was known to be alive.
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'She vanished from Earth': Investigating Crystal Rogers's disappearance