29-05-2025
Steven Lawson trial: 4 takeaways from Day 2 of proceedings
Nearly 10 witnesses took the stand May 28 during the trial of Steven Lawson, the first of two trials to take place in connection with the disappearance of Crystal Rogers, the Bardstown mother who disappeared nearly a decade ago.
Throughout the trial's second day, the prosecution, led by Special Prosecutor Shane Young, elicited testimony and evidence against Lawson, 54, who has been charged with conspiracy to commit murder and tampering with physical evidence.
The defense, meanwhile, attempted to frame much of the recollections testified by people with interpersonal relationships with Lawson as unreliable because of the near decade that has passed since Rogers' disappearance around July 3, 2015 — in some case questioning witnesses about their history with substance abuse.
Here are four takeaways from the second day of proceedings.
The day started with former Nelson County Sheriff's Office Detective Jon Snow, who led the investigation from 2015-2019 before the FBI took over in 2020, returning to the stand after giving testimony May 27.
The defense questioned Snow about the evidence recovered from Rogers' car when police found it abandoned on the side of Bluegrass Parkway in Bardstown in 2015 with her keys, phone and purse inside. He told Zach Buckler, a defense attorney for Lawson, that Rogers' personal belongings were the only physical evidence of interest recovered from the car, but that the circumstances surrounding the findings were "amiss.'
Buckler went on to press Snow about a hairbrush that a private investigator who had been hired to assist a docu-series about the high-profile case found inside the car after it was released back to Rogers' family sometime after August 2015. The brush, Buckler argued, could have been used by a possible suspect. It, along with other hairs pulled from the vehicle, were never compared to samples from the FBI's CODIS database, which contains DNA samples for more than 23 million individuals.
"That avenue was never explored," Buckler said.
Young followed the defense's questioning by referencing two individuals who he said the commonwealth has suspected of somehow being linked to the case but have not been charged. Those individuals, Nick and Rosemary Houck, are relatives of Brooks Houck, who is charged with murder and tampering with physical evidence in the case.
Nick Houck was a police officer with the Bardstown Police Department at the time of Rogers' disappearance and was fired after allegedly interfering in the investigation, according to court records.
When asked by Young whether the possibility of there being additional suspects changes his views on Lawson's alleged involvement, he responded, 'Not in any way.'
The daughters of two of Lawson's past wives took the stand after Snow.
Lauren Hardin, daughter of Lawson's late ex-wife, Tammy Lawson, took the stand first. The prosecution's questioning centered on the purpose of a July 4, 2015 phone call Lawson made to Houck's phone just after midnight.
Lawson originally told investigators he made the call to ask Houck about a rental property for Hardin, but his explanation has changed since he made that statement.
At the conclusion of the proceedings on May 28, prosecutors played audio from grand jury testimony he gave on three different occasions in 2023. During his first appearance in May 2023, he told jurors the phone call was to tell him he had finished a job at a worksite. At his third appearance, he said the call was to inform Houck that the job of moving Rogers' car was done — a task he said he was enlisted to help with after Houck told him he "wanted his wife gone.'
Hardin testified that she was not looking for a rental property at the time, adding that she had previously rented from Houck and could have contacted him herself. Still, she said, it would be plausible for Lawson to inquire about the topic on her behalf.
Elizabeth Chesser, the daughter of Lawson's most recent wife and the mother of Joseph Lawson's child, followed Hardin on the stand. Joseph Lawson, Steven Lawson's son, is also charged in the case with conspiracy to commit murder and tampering with physical evidence.
Chesser said Lawson and her mother got together in late 2017, just months after Tammy Lawson died. She said Lawson told her in September 2017 that he was at one point planning to leave Tammy because she knew he "committed murder.'
"No evidence, no case,' she recalled Lawson telling her, which she said was a reference to the fact that investigators have never recovered Rogers' body.
Chesser did not realize any possible connection between Lawson's comments and the Rogers case until she recognized his voice while watching a docu-series, 'The Disappearance of Crystal Rogers,' in 2018, but she did not speak to investigators about the case until the following year.
Darren Wolff, a defense attorney for Lawson, was shocked by Chesser's inaction and cast skepticism on her story. He asked about her substance abuse during the time when the conversation with Lawson occurred, to which she said she had been sober for about two months before the alleged comments. Wolff also asked whether her consumption of a docu-series about the case may have influenced her memory.
'That's not something you forget,' Chesser said.
Both Steven and Joseph Lawson formerly worked for Houck, who is a prominent real estate entrepreneur in Nelson County.
Two witnesses called to the stand May 28 were former employees of Houck and testified about their interactions with Lawson around the time of Rogers' disappearance.
Stacie Cranmer, who built decks and installed insulation for Houck, was the first of those two witnesses. She testified she saw Lawson and Houck riding around a neighborhood in a truck where a job site was located on one of the days leading up to Rogers' disappearance, which was unusual for him.
When they finished driving around, Lawson was walking around the area where Cranmer was eating lunch. She asked him about why he was riding with Houck, to which he responded that Houck needed help to "take care of this girl,' Cranmer said.
Her testimony was similar to a statement she gave to the Nelson County Sheriff's Office in October 2015, Wolff said, but differed in that Cranmer said at the time Lawson mentioned the girl in question was using drugs, which Rogers had never been documented doing.
Charlie Girdley, another former employee for Houck, testified that he spent time with the Lawsons July 3 — the night Rogers was last seen on the Houck family farm.
Girdley said he and Joseph Lawson paid a visit to Houck after they got off work. Girdley picked up a check, he said, and Houck gave Joseph Lawson a set of keys. Girdley said he was told Joseph Lawson was going to perform maintenance work on the car.
Girdley also recalled a conversation he had with Steven Lawson. Lawson told Girdley that Houck came to him for help with getting rid of his "old lady,' but he told him that he was not the person for that request and pointed him to Girdley. Girdley said he laughed off the comment.
The defense countered this testimony again by questioning Girdley about his struggles with substance abuse. Wolff also asked Girdley about why he did not mention those details until 2023 when he was arrested for unrelated reasons, despite being interviewed by investigators in 2015 and 2016.
Girdley said he did not want to get in trouble for something he was not involved in.
Following a series of witnesses who had known Lawson personally, two witnesses in law enforcement discussed cell phone records linked to Lawson.
Tim O'Daniel, a detective with the Louisville Metro Police Digital Forensics Unit, said the Kentucky State Police approached him in 2022 to analyze information from Lawson's cell phone.
His analysis found that on the night of July 3, Lawson's device traveled toward the area where Rogers' car was found before traveling back in the opposite direction. The analysis, however, cannot 'specifically pinpoint where a device is' — only the general area, O'Daniel said.
Melissa Dover, a crime and intelligence analyst with the Elizabethtown Police Department, testified about a report she prepared about calls exchanged between Steven, Joseph and Tammy Lawson that night. Several calls were exchanged between the three phones, Dover said.
Her report also found that a call between Houck and Lawson a few days later on July 9 was deleted, though precisely when is unclear.
Contact reporter Killian Baarlaer at kbaarlaer@ or @bkillian72 on X.
This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Crystal Rogers murder case: Steven Lawson trial continues
