The defense began calling witnesses Wednesday in the Crystal Rogers murder trial in Bowling Green.
The sister of the main defendant, Brooks Houck, took the stand and told jurors about the speculation and accusations her family has received since Rogers' disappearance a decade ago.
Her brother was living with Rogers, a Bardstown mother of five, when she disappeared on July 3, 2015. Houck and Rogers had a child together and their relationship was, by all accounts, strained. Houck is charged with murdering Rogers, though her remains have never been found. He's being tried alongside Joseph Lawson,sd who is charged with conspiracy to commit murder and tampering with physical evidence.
Houck’s sister, Rhonda McIllvoy, testified the family came under suspicion immediately after Rogers went missing. She spoke about being stalked and threatened to the point that McIllvoy, her husband, and three children moved to North Carolina for two years before returning to Nelson County.
McIllvoy spoke of helping care for her nephew Eli, the son of Houck and Rogers. She told jurors he was born with an eye condition that causes light sensitivity and said that’s the reason Houck tinted the windows of his truck.
Prosecutors questioned why he waited to get the tinting until the day before Rogers went missing, alleging Houck tinted the windows to hide that no one was in the passenger seat when he left the family farm around midnight on July 3, 2015, the place investigators believe Rogers was killed.
According to earlier witnesses for the prosecution, Houck's mother Rosemary didn't approve of her son's choice of Rogers as a girlfriend. McIllvoy told jurors that her mother and Rogers weren’t tight, but their relationship wasn’t toxic.
"It wasn't a super close relationship, but I never saw any huge blow up or arguments," she said.
McIllvoy testified being out of town with her husband and children the day Rogers went missing, and not returning home until bedtime. Jurors were shown photos she provided of the family's outing to the Louisville Science Center and Slugger Museum.
Under cross-examination, prosecutor Jim Lesousky asked McIllvoy about why she secretly recorded her grand jury testimony, which is illegal. She said she did so to "have proof of what I said and what I didn't say," describing herself as paranoid from all the accusations.
Those secret recorders were later found in a bedroom closet at Rosemary Houck's home. McIllvoy said she had no knowledge of the devices being hidden there or who used the recorded testimony.
McIllvoy said she also used a cellphone and thought she recorded more than just her grand jury testimony.
"Were you part of any conspiracy to murder Crystal Rogers?," asked Houck's attorney Brian Butler.
"No," McIlvoy responded.
Another defense witness on Wednesday was a K-9 consultant and trainer from Indiana. Heath Farthing tried to discredit the search of a car belonging to Houck's grandmother.
In previous testimony, Texas-based K-9 handler Terry Benjamin said his dog hit on a white Buick seen at the Houck family farm the night of Rogers' disappearance.
The family later sold the car before investigators tracked it down at a Louisville dealership and impounded as part of the investigation.
The dog detected traces of human remains in the trunk. Benjamin testified the K-9 was trained to find both living and deceased victims. But Farthing told jurors on Wednesday that professional organizations, including FEMA, recommend not cross-training dogs in order to avoid false alerts.
Farthing went on to say that trainers are required to keep certification records for their dogs and Benjamin testified he lost the documentation.
Under cross-examination from Special Prosecutor Shane Young, Farthing acknowledged some search teams, including police, suse dual-trained K-9s and it wasn't impossible for the dog to have correctly alerted to the scent of human remains in that white Buick.
A question from a juror asked, "Even though its not recommended, do you think can dogs still be successfully cross-trained?"
"No I don't," Farthing said.
The last defense witness on the stand Wednesday was Adrian Lauf, a computer science expert and professor at the University of Louisville. He said there was no cell location data for Rogers' phone because she had Bluegrass Cellular, which is considered a second-tier provider. Rogers also didn't have location tracking turned on.
Lauf also rebutted previous testimony from a Louisville Metro Police Department digital forensics expert about Steve Lawson's location when his phone pinged off cell towers in the early hours of July 4, 2015. The defense has provided an alternate theory as to why Steve and Joseph Lawson's phones pinged near the Bluegrass Parkway, where Rogers' car was found with a flat tire hours after her disappearance.
The defense claims the Lawson's weren't near Rogers' car but rather on Boston Road, which runs parallel to the parkway. However, Steve Lawson admitted at his trial he helped his son move Rogers' vehicle to the Bluegrass Parkway.
Since he was tried separately, Steve Lawson's testimony is inadmissible at this trial.
Under cross-examination, Special Prosecutor Shane Young said he found an error in Lauf's calculations of cellphone location data. Young then brought up Lauf's testimony at a previous, unrelated trial where he said if one data point is off it would throw the entire data set into question.
The defense is expected to finish calling witnesses Thursday afternoon before the trial pauses for the Fourth of July holiday on Friday.
Nelson Circuit Judge Charles Simms III told jurors they'll return on Monday for closing statements and jury instructions, and begin deliberations on Tuesday.
