The weak links
What we know about the accused co-conspirators and how their decisions led to some key evidence, lingering questions
Who? What? When? Where? Why?
It’s the 5 W’s taught on the first day of News Writing 101 in J-school.
Over the decade since Crystal Rogers disappeared in July 2015, the “who” has focused on Brooks Houck and some of his family members. Steve and Joey Lawson’s names came to the fore relatively recently. Who are these men, and why did they (allegedly) take part in a conspiracy to murder a 35-year-old Bardstown mother of five children? Here is what I have been able to piece together using trial testimony, other media reporting and publicly available information.
The alcoholic and the addict
Steve Lawson
“I was a raging alcoholic,” is how Steve Lawson described himself when he took the witness stand in his May trial where he was convicted of conspiring with Houck to murder Rogers. “I drank so much back then, I didn’t keep track of the days.”
He testified he was drinking early in the day that Rogers went missing, July 3, 2015. He was drinking that night when he went to pick up his son who was driving Rogers’ car when it broke down near mile marker 14 of the Bluegrass Parkway. And he continued drinking the following day as he spent hours on “Thompson Ridge,” a Cox’s Creek farm that Steve described as a “chop shop” for stolen cars and in late 2023 was the site of a large FBI search as part of the investigation.
Steve was surrounded by close friends and family who were also affected by substance abuse. Several witnesses who testified against him acknowledged their own addiction to methamphetamine, cocaine and opioids. The son of the owner of Thompson Ridge, Steve’s drinking spot, had a long court history of drug-related charges and is said to have died of a drug overdose in November 2022 at the age of 46. Steve’s wife died July 4, 2017, also reportedly of a drug overdose.
Steve was 44 years old when Rogers went missing. He had a 10th-grade education and supported himself doing odd jobs in construction. That was how he linked up with Houck, he said, who needed some work done for his construction and rental businesses.
Joey Lawson
That circle of vice around Steve extended to his son, Joey, who was 24 but already burdened with drug addiction — and a court record to match — when he drove Rogers’ car down the BG.
The father mentioned several times his son’s drug addiction and their strained relationship.
“I don’t always like him. But I will always love him,” Steve told the jury.
When Joey was indicted in December 2023 on conspiracy to murder and tampering with evidence, he was confined to a wheelchair as a paraplegic and serving time for previous convictions. He was paralyzed in 2021 after a motorcycle wreck. His court history ranges from fourth-degree assault and burglary to felony possession of methamphetamines and persistent felony offender. A report by WDRB’s Jason Riley found Joey had a history of abuse against women going back to 2009.
WDRB’s examination of Joey’s arrest reports and court appearances found several instances of serious threats toward women, including:
In 2015 he hit and kicked a woman, threatening to kill her and everyone she loved after chasing her through town. He later called her and said she would “Be his next victim.”
In 2021 he was accused of putting a gun to a woman’s head and telling her it was time to die.
On the witness stand, Steve said his son was using drugs intravenously in July 2015, which Steve used in part as his own defense when he claimed he had no knowledge of the alleged plot to murder Rogers and Joey’s part in moving the car.
“He was too busy shooting stuff in his arm,” Steve said. “My son had been doing a lot of dope, I wasn’t getting much answers out of him.”
Plot undone by ‘Close enough’ plan B
Prosecutors convinced one jury that there was a plot to murder Rogers and that Steve was part of it. Joey goes to trial next week on a similar conspiracy charge.
As to the details of the plot, prosecutors acknowledged there is much they do not know. But one thing they feel certain of: Leaving Rogers’ car on the side of the highway was not part of it. While it took nearly 10 years, it was that decision that could prove all of the alleged conspirators’ undoing.
Prosecutors say when the car’s tire went flat, the conspirators were scrambling for a “Plan B.”
It looks like their approach boiled down to: “Close enough.”
We don’t know where Joey was headed in the car. But when the tire went flat, he called his dad. There was a flurry of calls between Steve, Joey and Steve’s wife that night, according to phone records submitted as evidence during Steve’s trial.
And then Steve made the fateful decision to call Houck, just around midnight of July 4. It lasted about 13 seconds, and Houck and Steve have given differing versions as to the purpose and content of that call. Prosecutors had their own interpretation.
“That (call) must have scared the hell out of Brooks Houck,” assistant prosecutor Jim Lesousky told the jury. “They stumbled. They made a mistake.”
“They’re trying to figure out: ‘What’s Plan B?”
For all we know, driving the car along the BG might have already been a back-up plan. Steve testified that Joey showed up at the Thompson Ridge chop shop earlier that day, and the father told his son to get the car off of the property because he didn’t want to cause problems for the the owner. The pair were likely not thinking too clearly that night, anyway. Steve testified he started drinking early that afternoon, and that Joey had gone at some point to get high. Steve said he continued drinking throughout the night, so by the time Joey called him from the side of the BG, Steve was probably a good seven to eight hours into his bender.
It was Steve’s call to Houck that caught investigators’ attention only days after Rogers’ disappearance. Houck was in an interview with former Nelson County Sheriff’s Detective Jon Snow when Houck even called Steve to ask him what the call had been about. Prosecutors say that interrogation-room call was a set-up planned in advance to try to undo the damage of Steve’s call the night of the crime.
Cell phone, purse raise suspicion early
Steve and Joey’s decision to abandon Rogers’ car alongside the highway and leave her purse and cell phone in the car only compounded their mistake.
The most charitable interpretation of that decision was to make it appear as if Rogers had been driving, broken down and then grabbed by someone that night.
But as Snow mentioned to Houck in his interrogation, it “makes no sense” why Rogers’ purse and phone would still be sitting in the car if she had broken down and then sought help. Even if some stranger had come along and she had gotten out of the car, she would likely have grabbed her purse and phone. Same logic if she had set off walking on her own to look for help.
It seems the decision to leave her personal items was intentional. Steve acknowledged he grabbed Joey’s miniature baseball bat out of the car before they left it, and he moved the seat forward to make it seem as if she was the last person driving. That points to an intent to cover up their presence and create an impression that Rogers had been the last person in the car. The only reason for leaving the items would be to reinforce that impression. That intention seemingly backfired on them, though.
The items’ presence in the car could also bear on the upcoming trial. Steve has said Joey got Rogers’ car from Houck, to move it or work on it or for some other reason. The timeline is still somewhat unclear. But here is what does not line up, as far as I can tell:
Rogers is believed to have gone to the Houck family farm on July 3 and never returned.
Investigators say (publicly in the past, at least) that they have corroborated through video that Houck went to the farm earlier that day and returned around midnight.
Joey was driving Rogers’ some time during that day, roughly around the same time that Rogers and Houck were supposed to be at the family farm.
So that leads to some new questions:
How did the Lawsons get Rogers’ purse and keys? If the same logic holds that she would not go anywhere without her purse and keys, isn’t the same true for a trip to the farm?
If Joey had Rogers’ items before her alleged trip to the farm, then did Rogers even go to there? Or if she did, was she alive when she went?
If she did go to the farm willingly, then how did Joey get her phone and purse?
Joey and Houck are scheduled to go to trial Tuesday. Perhaps prosecutors will provide more clarity to those questions, either through past interviews with the suspects or through the extensive geolocation evidence they have collected from cell towers.
The decisions that night, by a father and son with serious substance abuse issues who were likely under the influence, could prove to be the weak links in the accuseds’ defense.