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FBI Announces $25K Reward In Crystal Rogers Case After ‘Item Of Interest’ Recovered
Crystal Rogers, a Kentucky mother of five, has been missing since July 2015.
The FBI has announced a new reward, just a day after recovering an “item of interest” in the Crystal Rogers case.
“We know that there are individuals out there who have specific information about Crystal's disappearance and want to do the ring thing,” FBI Louisville announced on Saturday. “The FBI is offering up to a $25,000 reward for information leading to the identification, arrest and conviction of the individual(s) responsible for the disappearance of Crystal Rogers.”
The reward offer came just one day after the FBI announced that they “recovered an item of interest” while searching a subdivision in the same Kentucky town where the mother of five vanished.
Rogers, 35, was last seen alive in her Bardstown home in July of 2015. Her car was later on a parkway with a flat tire days later. Her keys, purse and cell phone still inside. While her body has never been found, investigators presume that she is dead.
“This item is being further evaluated, and we will release additional information as it becomes available,” the FBI said on Friday, regarding the recovered item.
Last week, the FBI brought out cadaver dogs to search the Bardstown subdivision and by Tuesday they began excavation efforts at a home in the subdivision built by Rogers' boyfriend, Brooks Houck. FBI agents returned to the same house on Wednesday with a mobile command unit and more equipment. Local outlet WLKY reported that they have been digging near the home’s driveway.
Rogers' mother Sherry Ballard told WLKY that this home is the same home that both she and her late husband Tommy Ballard searched during their own investigation into Rogers’ disappearance. Tommy was then shot to death in 2016 by an unknown person while hunting on a family property. His death remains unsolved.
Houck has been the only person identified by authorities as a suspect in the case. He owns three houses in the development being searched, WHAS11 reports.
Houck has vehemently denied having anything to do Rogers' disappearance and he has never been charged. He now has sole custody of the one child he had with Rogers.
The FBI thanked the Bardstown community for "a flood of tips" on Saturday and Rogers’ family appears hopeful.
“I pray that we have finally found my daughter,” Ballard wrote on Facebook on Saturday. “I feel in my heart we are headed in the right direction.”
Anyone with information in the case is asked to contact the FBI through their task force website.
