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Is Crystal Rogers dead? FBI conducts searches in Bardstown in 2015 disappearance case

FBI's Louisville bureau announced the search in Crystal Rogers' case via Twitter

BARDSTOWN, KENTUCKY: The FBI is searching a subdivision of Bardstown in connection to the mysterious 2015 disappearance of 35-year-old Crystal Rogers.

The federal agency's Louisville bureau announced the search via Twitter on Tuesday morning, August 24. “Based on information collected over the last year by the federal investigation into the disappearance of Crystal Rogers, FBI Louisville is now conducting several searches in the Woodlawn Springs subdivision,” the post read.

This comes as MEAWW previously reported how a missing lesbian couple found dead at a Utah campsite was "spooked" by a stranger and how a missing teen mother's body was found naked in a freezer with 50 stab wounds.

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A WHAS reporter tweeted that federal agents also used cadaver dogs to aid searchers in the Bardstown subdivision.

While it's unclear what inspired agents to search the Woodlawn Springs subdivision, an FBI Louisville spokesman told The Courier-Journal that they will be in the area “definitely all day today, but [the] ultimate timeline will be dependent on what is found. We will be there as long as it takes.”

Rogers, a 35-year-old mother of five, went missing on July 3, 2015, from Bardstown in Nelson County, which is about 40 miles south of Louisville. Authorities discovered her car abandoned in Bluegrass Parkway two days later, with personal items like her purse and phone still inside. However, there was no trace of Rogers in or around her vehicle.

Rogers' father Tommy Ballard, who had dedicated himself to the search for his daughter, died a year and a half after her disappearance. He was mysteriously shot while hunting on his own property, and no one has ever been charged in his death. That said, the only suspect in Rogers' disappearance has been her boyfriend at the time, Brooks Houck, who has also never been charged. The two share a child together. When Rogers vanished, Houck never found it to be odd as Roger would often spend the nights at her girlfriends' homes.

When Houck was interviewed and questioned by the police, he had received a phone call from his brother Nick, an officer with the Bardstown Police Department who had told him that investigators could be trying to "trip him up." Post this call, Nick was eventually fired from the police for "interfering with the investigation."

Houck was also accused by Rogers' family of not taking her disappearance seriously enough which led him to do an interview with Nancy Grace. During the interview, he admitted that the relationship between him and Rogers had been 'strained'. However, he denied that he had anything to do with her disappearance. 

The FBI took over from Kentucky State Police and the Nelson County Sheriff's Office last summer as the lead investigator into Rogers's disappearance. In August 2020, over 150 federal agents served search warrants at three sites owned by Houck and his family members.

The FBI became involved in the case after the discovery of human remains in July 2020, in a creek bank along a tributary of the Beech Fork River — around four miles from the farm where Rogers was last seen. In November, however, the agency revealed that the remains did not belong to her.

If you have information related to the disappearance of Crystal Rogers, please call the FBI tip line at 1-800-CALL-FBI or visit www.crystalrogerstaskforce.com.