Electronics aren't allowed in court, but our crews are taking handwritten notes to provide updates throughout the day.
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Crystal Rogers case: Trial updates
11:45 a.m.
Witness 32 was a digital forensics expert from North Carolina, Josh Hickman.
Hickman reviewed data extracted from Crystal Rogers' phone and provided jurors with a timeline of what she was doing on her phone on July 3, 2015.
For most of the night, between 7:39 p.m. and 9:23 p.m., Rogers' played mobile games. He said at 9:23 p.m., the phone's battery died. It begins powering on again around 11:57 p.m. before being manually turned off.
"Was Crystal Rogers playing on her phone on July 4, after midnight?" Prosecutor Teresa Young asked.
"No," Hickman said. "That phone was not in use."
Credit: Sydney Young
Josh Hickman, a digital forensics expert, reviewed Crystal Rogers' phone use the night of July 3, 2015. | July 1, 2025
In December 2023, authorities searched a property on Thompson Hill Road looking for evidence in Rogers' case. The next witness was Lon Spaulding, who lived next to the property.
Spaulding accused the property owner, Jeremy Thompson, of running an illegal dump.
"The digging, burying and burning of household items has happened for quite some time," he testified. "But that weekend [July 3-July 4, 2015] it moved to my side of the road."
He said it was "very odd," adding that he saw people digging with a "high lift," similar to a bulldozer late at night in the early morning hours of July 4, 2015.
10:45 a.m.
The prosecution picked up Tuesday's testimony with new details about Brooks Houck's grandmother's white Buick.
After authorities found Anna Whiteside's car, which she sold alongside Nick Houck, it was towed to the Louisville Metro Police Department's forensic lot for evidence processing. That's where investigators found a hair similar to Rogers' inside the trunk.
Terry Benjamin was the prosecutor's next witness. He's a K-9 handler who works for a nonprofit that assists with search, rescue, and recovery operations.
In May 2016, Benjamin was working with his dog "Ranger," who is trained to find bodies or body parts. The K-9 had participated in more than 300 searches and was "particularly adept" at finding human remains.
Credit: Sydney Young
Terry Benjamin, a K-9 handler who helps police locate human remains, testifies virtually on Tuesday. | July 1, 2025
He said even though Rogers had already been missing for over a year, that wouldn't have impacted the dog's ability.
"Scents can last hundreds of years," he testified.
Benjamin said he met a detective, who was working on Rogers' case, in Louisville and they talked about cadaver dogs and how they could be used. The next day, he met the officer at the small parking lot.
Benjamin testified that he didn't know what they were looking for, but the detective let him and Ranger search the lot.
He recalled there around 10 vehicles in the lot, but he didn't know they were looking for a car.
Credit: WHAS11 News
Anna Whitesides (left), Brooks Houck's grandmother, and Crystal Rogers (right).
"For human remains, he's taught to sit on the spot where he finds the strongest scent," the K-9 handler said, adding that the dog was "very interested" in one car.
"He sat at the rear of the white Buick," Benjamin said.
Houck's attorney, Steve Schroering, argued during cross-examination there's no training records for the dog. Those records were lost in a move, he said.
There was also no surveillance video of the search or pictures of the dog alerting to the back of the Buick.
Schroering also argued that some agencies, like FEMA, recommend dogs aren't trained in both live finds and human remains because it can give a false alert.
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