LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — Joseph Lawson, one of the three men convicted in the murder of Bardstown mother Crystal Rogers, filed an appeal Wednesday to the Kentucky Supreme Court.

Court records show Lawson's attorney filed the appeal on Wednesday, April 15.

Lawson was sentenced in September 2025 to 25 years in prison after being convicted of conspiracy to commit murder and tampering with physical evidence.

He stood trial with Brooks Houck, Rogers' former boyfriend who was with Rogers at the time of her disappearance. Houck was sentenced to life in prison on his conviction of murder (principal or accomplice to the crime) and complicity tampering with physical evidence. Houck filed an appeal with the state supreme court in January.

Lawson's father, Steve Lawson, was tried separately and sentenced to 17 years in prison.

In the appeal documents, Lawson's attorneys argue the evidence presented at trial was not sufficient enough to support his convictions. They claim multiple legal errors affected the outcome of the trial, including claims that four jurors who should have been dismissed for bias were allowed to remain and that the court gave "improper" instructions that could have led to a non-unanimous verdict.

The filing also argues Lawson’s right to an impartial jury was violated when the court denied a request for a separate trial from Houck.

Lawson’s attorneys are asking the court to either vacate his convictions or send the case back for a new trial.

Rogers, a 35-year-old mother of five from Nelson County, was last seen alive during the Fourth of July weekend in 2015 with her boyfriend, Houck.

Days later, her car was found abandoned — still running — on the side of the Bluegrass Parkway. Her purse and other belongings were inside. Despite years of searching, she's never been found.

During Joseph Lawson and Houck's 10-day trial, attorney Robert Boyd, one of Lawson's attorneys, said he was "shocked' and "dumbfounded" by the verdict, and said that the prosecution barely mentioned Joseph Lawson during the trial.

The evidence against Joseph Lawson was scant, mostly consisting of a few people claiming they overheard Joseph and/or Steve Lawson talking about Rogers' murder.

The Lawsons were, in part, charged with moving Rogers' vehicle after she disappeared. 

During his trial Steve Lawson admitted he was guilty of tampering with physical evidence for helping his son move Rogers' vehicle after she disappeared. Joseph Lawson drove Rogers' car, and his father picked him up when the vehicle had a flat tire, leaving it on the side of Bluegrass Parkway, he testified.

Joseph Lawson's attorneys denied he was involved, arguing his fingerprints were not found on the steering wheel of Rogers' vehicle. No DNA of either of the Lawson's was found in the car. A fingerprint found on Rogers' phone did not belong to either man. A palm print found on the car also didn't match the Lawsons or Houck.

"I truly believe that the Rogers' family deserves more answers to the questions that they have and with the amount of effort that the government has spent, and the inability to provide those answers, it's not fair to them," Boyd said in an interview last July. "I just believe Joey Lawson is innocent in this case."

How we got here

The trial, which began June 24, 2025, included more than 50 witnesses, testimony about cellphone data, experts on policing, surveillance videos and recorded interrogations, among other evidence. 

While there was no physical evidence, such as a body, murder weapon, crime scene or witness, the prosecution hammered Houck's actions in the days before and after Rogers' disappeared.

Houck acknowledged he was with Rogers from about 7 p.m. until midnight on July 3, 2015, at the family farm. She was never seen again. He took her to his family's farm that rainy night on what was supposed to be a special date, according to her friends.

Prosecutors said Houck's version of events given to police for what he did that day was a lie. While he said he'd been driving around doing business July 3, he was actually at the Houck farm most of the day.

After Rogers disappeared, Houck didn't answer multiple texts and phone calls from her family members but did answer a call from his mother, Rosemary Houck.

Houck told police Rogers stayed up playing on her phone when he went to bed after they got home. But records show her phone battery died at 9:23 p.m. that night, according to prosecutors, while they were still at the farm.

In his closing arguments, defense attorney Brian Butler referred to the prosecutions' case as a "convoluted mess" with unreliable witnesses, contradictory and coerced testimony and data proving Houck nor his co-defendants were involved.

Investigators searched the Houck farm, using hundreds of FBI agents, K-9s, divers and drones and found no evidence a murder had been committed, Butler said.

The family is also still waiting to see what, if anything, will happen to Nick and Rosemary Houck.

"The apple doesn't fall far from the tree," Ballard said of Rosemary Houck.

Nick Houck, a police officer at the time, had his cellphone turned off between 11 p.m. July 2 and the middle of the afternoon July 4, 2015. He was supposed to be helping his wife move July 3 but told her he was going to help his brother with something instead. She called Nick Houck 15 times over a 24-hour period.

Nick Houck's phone came back on at 1:47 p.m. July 4. While he told his wife he was helping Houck, Rogers' friends testified she told them Brooks Houck was taking her on a kid-free, romantic date July 3.

The defense argued Nick Houck turned his phone off because he was fighting with his wife.

After Rogers disappeared, police searched the cruiser of Nick Houck when he worked for the Bardstown Police Department. A blanket was found in the trunk and audio accidentally recorded by Brooks Houck of him and Rosemary Houck talking about the search showed she was worried, asking Houck, "What about the blanket?" Nothing of evidentiary value was found on the blanket.

Nick Houck refused to answer questions in front of a Nelson County grand jury.

He was fired from the Bardstown Police Department in October 2015 for interfering with the investigation. And prosecutor Shane Young told a judge in October 2023 that Nick Houck used a fake name to sell a gun to investigators that may have been used to kill Tommy Ballard, Rogers' father.

In the weeks before Rogers vanished, Rosemary Houck talked to a man named Danny Singleton, who worked for her son, and asked if he would find someone to "get rid of Crystal," according to prosecutors.

Also, according to court documents, Rosemary Houck's cellphone, "shows no activity between June 16, 2015, and August 4, 2015. This would indicate that Rosemary was using a different phone during the period of Crystal's murder and that communications on that phone were never obtained by law enforcement."

In addition, a witness testified to a grand jury that Rosemary Houck "seemed to take pleasure in Crystal's disappearance" and was overheard saying Rogers should have disappeared long before she did and that "now that she is gone, the child would be raised right" — a reference to Eli, the child Rogers shared with Brooks Houck.

Rhonda McIlvoy, Brooks Houck's sister, was granted permanent custody of the 12-year-old.

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