Latest / Blood Trails / S2E5: The Assassination of Tommy Ballard

Transcript

S2E5: The Assassination of Tommy Ballard · Blood Trails

0:01
Speaker 1: In November of twenty sixteen. Tommy Ballard was hunting for
0:04
Speaker 1: something more important than a deer or a turkey, and
0:08
Speaker 1: it's that hunt that may have gotten him killed. That's
0:13
Speaker 1: next on Blood Trails. It was the second Saturday of
0:23
Speaker 1: Kentucky's deer season in twenty sixteen, and John Snow expected
0:27
Speaker 1: to spend it in his tree stand. The sergeant in
0:29
Speaker 1: charge of investigations at the Nelson County Sheriff's Office, had
0:33
Speaker 1: gotten up before dawn with his son, and the pair
0:35
Speaker 1: were just settling into their perch in the tree when
0:38
Speaker 1: he heard a familiar ringing.
0:40
Speaker 2: When a dispatch called that early in the morning, I
0:42
Speaker 2: knew it probably was not going to be a good
0:44
Speaker 2: phone call.
0:45
Speaker 1: The dispatcher said. A fifty four year old man named
0:48
Speaker 1: Tommy Ballard had been walking to his own tree stand
0:50
Speaker 1: with his grandson when he was shot in the chest. Normally,
0:54
Speaker 1: John would assume he was dealing with a hunting accident,
0:57
Speaker 1: tragic but not unheard of. But he knew right way
1:00
Speaker 1: that Tommy's death was anything but normal.
1:03
Speaker 2: Obviously, I think most everyone assumed, or at the very
1:07
Speaker 2: least had a very heavy feeling that it was related
1:10
Speaker 2: to the Rogers case.
1:12
Speaker 1: For the previous sixteen months, Tommy had been frantically searching
1:15
Speaker 1: for his daughter. Crystal Rogers hadn't been heard from or
1:18
Speaker 1: seen since July third, twenty fifteen. Her car had been
1:22
Speaker 1: found the next day, abandoned along the Bluegrass Parkway, the
1:26
Speaker 1: same highway that ran beside the property where Tommy was hunting.
1:30
Speaker 1: His search efforts were the subject of regular news reports,
1:32
Speaker 1: and he'd recruited an army of volunteers to help him
1:36
Speaker 1: find his missing daughter.
1:37
Speaker 2: He was very, very passionate about finding his daughter and
1:42
Speaker 2: finding who was responsible for it, or proving who was
1:45
Speaker 2: responsible for it, I should say.
1:47
Speaker 1: Proving, not finding. Tommy believed he knew who was responsible
1:52
Speaker 1: for his daughter's disappearance, and he wasn't shy about telling
1:55
Speaker 1: anyone who would listen. That landed him, maybe literally in
2:00
Speaker 1: the crosshairs of some very dangerous people.
2:03
Speaker 2: He was very much aware that some of the things
2:06
Speaker 2: that he was doing to try to find her would
2:08
Speaker 2: put him in danger.
2:09
Speaker 1: His hunting partner that day was one of Crystal's children.
2:12
Speaker 1: The twelve year old boy had gotten up with his grandpa,
2:14
Speaker 1: and the pair had donned their Camo and driven out
2:17
Speaker 1: to the eighteen acre family property two miles south of Bardstown, Kentucky.
2:22
Speaker 1: They'd park near the edge of a field and were
2:24
Speaker 1: walking across it to a patch of forest on the
2:26
Speaker 1: other side.
2:27
Speaker 3: And then he heard a gun shot and sees that
2:31
Speaker 3: his grandpa is laying on the ground.
2:34
Speaker 1: That's Shay McCallister, who was at the time a reporter
2:38
Speaker 1: for a local TV station. Outside of law enforcement, she
2:41
Speaker 1: knows more about Tommy's case than anyone, and she spoke
2:44
Speaker 1: with Tommy's wife, Sherry, in the aftermath of this incident.
2:48
Speaker 3: Sherry gets that call and her heart just drops because
2:52
Speaker 3: the guys had just left the house not thirty minutes earlier,
2:56
Speaker 3: and she feared something was wrong. And on the other
2:59
Speaker 3: end of the phone, her grandson told her Papa husband
3:03
Speaker 3: shot and I don't know what to do.
3:06
Speaker 1: Cherry raced to the property, where she found that police
3:08
Speaker 1: and ems had already arrived.
3:10
Speaker 3: There's an ambulance there, but she notices everyone is moving
3:14
Speaker 3: really slow. Nobody's operating like this is a big emergency,
3:18
Speaker 3: and that was so confusing to her, and she runs
3:21
Speaker 3: down the hill. She runs up to Tommy. She remembers
3:25
Speaker 3: that he looked fine, he looked like himself. He just
3:28
Speaker 3: looked like he was laying on the ground, so she's
3:30
Speaker 3: shaking him, she's begging him to wake up, and eventually
3:36
Speaker 3: police officers come over and pull her off of him
3:39
Speaker 3: and say, I'm sorry. You know he's gone, And immediately
3:45
Speaker 3: everything changes.
3:47
Speaker 1: Cherry was already dealing with the loss of her daughter.
3:49
Speaker 1: Now her husband and Crystal's biggest advocate, was gone. Her
3:54
Speaker 1: family was under attack in a real, physical, horrifying way.
3:59
Speaker 2: Whoever did it clearly waited for them to get closer
4:02
Speaker 2: to the tree line from where they had parked before
4:06
Speaker 2: they did it.
4:06
Speaker 1: Tommy's grandson told investigators that right before Tommy was shot,
4:10
Speaker 1: his grandpa had spied something in the tree line along
4:13
Speaker 1: the road. The other side of that tree line was
4:15
Speaker 1: nothing but a ditch along a highway. It wasn't a
4:18
Speaker 1: place anyone would be out for a walk or a hunt,
4:21
Speaker 1: but it might have been a place someone would lie
4:23
Speaker 1: in wait, someone who knew where Tommy would be hunting
4:26
Speaker 1: that morning.
4:27
Speaker 2: He had hunted their pretty routinely, was my understanding.
4:32
Speaker 1: Tommy parked in the same place he always did and
4:34
Speaker 1: was heading towards the same blind in the same patch
4:37
Speaker 1: of forest.
4:38
Speaker 2: I don't know exactly who else knew about it, but
4:41
Speaker 2: it was clear that the family knew where it was at.
4:44
Speaker 1: Investigators didn't voice their suspicions immediately, but it looks for
4:47
Speaker 1: all the world like an assassination. Whoever had pulled that
4:51
Speaker 1: trigger had been close enough to Tommy to know that
4:53
Speaker 1: on a Saturday in November, he loved nothing more than
4:56
Speaker 1: hunting with his grandson. The circle of people who knew
4:59
Speaker 1: that and what also want him dead was very, very small.
5:04
Speaker 3: Tommy was killed because of his drive, ambition, and courage
5:13
Speaker 3: in leading this investigation into the murder of his daughter,
5:17
Speaker 3: and law enforcement have confirmed they believe the two are connected.
5:22
Speaker 1: It will be ten years this November since Tommy Ballard
5:25
Speaker 1: was shot in the chest and died in front of
5:27
Speaker 1: his grandson. The road to justice for that horrific crime
5:30
Speaker 1: has been long and full of surprises. An undercover operation
5:34
Speaker 1: to secure the murder weapon, the explosive prosecution of the
5:38
Speaker 1: man responsible for Crystal's murder, and the troubling suggestion that
5:42
Speaker 1: Tommy's death is connected to a second assassination along this
5:46
Speaker 1: same highway have shown new light on this tragedy. But
5:50
Speaker 1: in the end, the person responsible for slaying the husband, father,
5:54
Speaker 1: and grandfather may have been at the center of this story.
5:58
Speaker 4: The whole time.
6:00
Speaker 1: I'm Jordan Sillers and this is Blood Trails the assassination
6:05
Speaker 1: Tommy Ballard Part one. The Protector. Many of the investigators
6:14
Speaker 1: who gathered at the scene of Tommy's murder were, like John,
6:17
Speaker 1: already familiar with the father of Crystal Rogers. Well, they
6:21
Speaker 1: may not have known him well, they had interacted with
6:23
Speaker 1: him as they worked together to find the missing woman.
6:26
Speaker 1: Many were impressed by how the father could keep his
6:28
Speaker 1: composure even after losing his daughter.
6:31
Speaker 2: He was usually pretty soft spoken, even when he was
6:34
Speaker 2: not happy with things that were going on. Yeah, even
6:38
Speaker 2: it was clear he was upset, but he would not
6:40
Speaker 2: get loud or you know, abusive in that way. So
6:44
Speaker 2: he was always pretty calm about things.
6:47
Speaker 1: Shay had likely gotten to know Tommy as well as
6:49
Speaker 1: any of the investigators. She had been reporting on crystal
6:52
Speaker 1: disappearance from the beginning, and she'd come to think of
6:55
Speaker 1: Tommy not just as a source, but as a friend.
6:58
Speaker 3: Tommy was protector. He was very powerful presence. He took
7:07
Speaker 3: things very seriously, but in the same breath, you know,
7:12
Speaker 3: after we finished talking about, you know, the search that
7:15
Speaker 3: he was doing, the evidence he had found that his
7:18
Speaker 3: newest question for law enforcement. He would ask, how is
7:22
Speaker 3: your family? How are things back there? How is the
7:26
Speaker 3: drive down? You know, don't forget, it's going to be
7:29
Speaker 3: really cold next weekend. You probably want to run your water,
7:32
Speaker 3: trickle your water, you know. He was He was such
7:34
Speaker 3: a dad through and through, such a protector of his family,
7:40
Speaker 3: and so kind, and it was such a gut wrenching
7:46
Speaker 3: loss for so many of us.
7:48
Speaker 1: That tall, soft spoken father didn't just advocate with his words.
7:52
Speaker 1: He was well respected in the community as the owner
7:54
Speaker 1: of a home building company, and he used his position
7:57
Speaker 1: and connections to make real progress in his daughter's case.
8:01
Speaker 3: He was truly leading his own investigation. He had a
8:05
Speaker 3: group of volunteers known as Team Crystal, who would come
8:11
Speaker 3: together every single weekend and search a new property. He
8:15
Speaker 3: was searching both in the county where she went missing
8:18
Speaker 3: and the surrounding counties. He was organizing the people behind it,
8:23
Speaker 3: and he was collecting tips.
8:26
Speaker 1: Tommy understood that working with the media would keep Cristel's
8:29
Speaker 1: case top of mind, and he spoke on a regular
8:31
Speaker 1: basis with journalists like Shay. He understood what was needed,
8:35
Speaker 1: in part because he'd been in this situation before.
8:39
Speaker 4: What fueled the fire upon me Moore was in nineteen
8:42
Speaker 4: seventy nine, Tommy's oldest sister, Sherry, went missing.
8:47
Speaker 1: That's Tom Roby, Tommy Ballard's brother in law. Roby had
8:51
Speaker 1: married Tommy's sister and the two men had gone to
8:53
Speaker 1: the same high school. In the late nineteen seventies, during
8:56
Speaker 1: Tommy's junior year, his other sister had been killed by
8:59
Speaker 1: her husband, and it had taken the state police five
9:02
Speaker 1: years to close the case. The first great tragedy in
9:06
Speaker 1: Tommy's life devastated his family, and the Ballad patriarch wasn't
9:10
Speaker 1: about to let the same thing happen again.
9:12
Speaker 4: It was a man in peace with his family. He
9:15
Speaker 4: was happy with his life, and then when they took Crystal. Truly,
9:20
Speaker 4: he never had a moment's risk, and he's reliving his
9:25
Speaker 4: sister's scenario, almost mimicking his daughters. I can't imagine the pain.
9:32
Speaker 4: And a lot of people were just going to town
9:34
Speaker 4: give up, you know, They're like they're just mentally exhausted,
9:37
Speaker 4: and he fought through it. He never gave up hope,
9:41
Speaker 4: He never gave up faith.
9:44
Speaker 1: Some people respond to tragedy by turning in on themselves
9:47
Speaker 1: and becoming bitter or bad tempered. But Tommy did the opposite.
9:51
Speaker 4: He was a very giving individual and he didn't want
9:53
Speaker 4: to appreciated. He didn't want acknowledgment. You know, he did
9:56
Speaker 4: a lot of things that nobody knew about charity wise,
10:00
Speaker 4: like even with the Barstown Police sportmen when I was there,
10:03
Speaker 4: he would allow them access to a storage unit to
10:07
Speaker 4: store large Christmas items that you know with the shop
10:10
Speaker 4: with cop and helping needy families for Christmas, so bicycles,
10:14
Speaker 4: no large items. Yeah, never asked for a penny or anything.
10:17
Speaker 4: He'd just been over backwards to help. He would donate
10:20
Speaker 4: and anything he could to help help needy kids.
10:23
Speaker 1: He enjoyed deer hunting in turkey hunting, but Roby says
10:25
Speaker 1: he wasn't interested in big antlers or a long spurs.
10:29
Speaker 4: He didn't care about killing a one hundred and twenty
10:32
Speaker 4: inch eight pointer to say, you know, he'd be happy,
10:35
Speaker 4: he'd be happy to knock down a big dough or
10:37
Speaker 4: a couple of dos. But he loved hunting with his
10:41
Speaker 4: son Casey and his grandchildren. He know, he relished that.
10:46
Speaker 4: I know a couple of times they'd be turkey hunting
10:48
Speaker 4: and they would double, you know, and you know, Casey
10:51
Speaker 4: may have a bird that had an inch and a
10:53
Speaker 4: quarter spurs, and you know Tommy had seven eight spurs
10:56
Speaker 4: or so three quarter inch spurs. He didn't care. He
10:59
Speaker 4: would just tickle to day with his son, got a
11:01
Speaker 4: great bird and they got to experience things like that together.
11:04
Speaker 1: Roby said Tommy would sometimes go out with the crossbow,
11:07
Speaker 1: but he especially liked his two seventy Winchester rifle. He
11:10
Speaker 1: didn't own a huge amount of property, but he had
11:13
Speaker 1: several spots where he knew he could reliably shoot a doe.
11:16
Speaker 1: That's exactly what he was doing the day he was killed.
11:20
Speaker 4: This thing was like a honey hole. If you wanted
11:22
Speaker 4: to go and get a doe real quick, it was easy.
11:26
Speaker 4: It was. It was just something about that area. If
11:29
Speaker 4: you wanted to take a grand cheet a kid and
11:31
Speaker 4: let him go shoot something, it was a good spot.
11:34
Speaker 1: Even in the midst of his search for Crystal and
11:36
Speaker 1: the grief he must have wrestled with every day, he
11:38
Speaker 1: took the time to take his grandson hunting and offer
11:41
Speaker 1: him a sense of normalcy, at least for a few hours.
11:44
Speaker 4: I think all was any thing he loved going and
11:47
Speaker 4: being with you, the kids, with the grandkids. He was
11:51
Speaker 4: truly just a really great guy. Yeah, he's a type
11:55
Speaker 4: guy that everybody wants to be around, would like.
12:02
Speaker 1: Part two.
12:04
Speaker 4: The shot.
12:06
Speaker 1: Roby and his wife received the call about Tommy early
12:09
Speaker 1: that Saturday morning and rushed out to the scene.
12:12
Speaker 4: And by the time we were about two miles away
12:16
Speaker 4: from the farm there, Barber's brother Michael calder and told
12:21
Speaker 4: her said, it's too late. He's gone. He's gone. My
12:24
Speaker 4: mind was racing, like was it honting nix? I mean,
12:27
Speaker 4: you know, you don't know.
12:29
Speaker 1: Law enforcement didn't immediately call Tommy's death a homicide, and
12:32
Speaker 1: local media outlets initially reported that the shooting had been accidental.
12:36
Speaker 1: Investigators ruled out Tommy's grandson as a potential shooter, and
12:40
Speaker 1: it was clear that Tommy didn't shoot himself, either accidentally
12:44
Speaker 1: or otherwise. But if you look at this property on ONEX,
12:47
Speaker 1: you'll see that there is a wooded seventy four acre
12:50
Speaker 1: parcel just across the highway in the same direction the
12:54
Speaker 1: bullet came from. Roby had to wonder, at least at first,
12:58
Speaker 1: if his brother in law was the victim of bad
13:00
Speaker 1: luck rather than malice.
13:02
Speaker 4: I thought, you know, is it the magic bullet scenario?
13:07
Speaker 1: Roby got permission to search that other property, and he
13:09
Speaker 1: soon found a deer stand now mark.
13:12
Speaker 4: My location, and it was like eight hundred yards, and
13:16
Speaker 4: so I'm thinking, let's take it best to time a
13:19
Speaker 4: seven mag at eight hundred yards, You're going to have
13:22
Speaker 4: what sixty inches of drop? And I'm just like, there's
13:25
Speaker 4: no way the shot came across this bluegrass parkway and
13:29
Speaker 4: dropped down into them, Like, there's no way.
13:32
Speaker 1: Of course, it's possible a neighboring hunter was closer than
13:34
Speaker 1: eight hundred yards. It's also possible a rifle went off
13:37
Speaker 1: accidentally while being pointed at some upward angle, which would
13:41
Speaker 1: have increased the potential range. Hunters are unintentionally shot every year,
13:46
Speaker 1: but when it's not self inflicted, it's often by another
13:49
Speaker 1: hunter who misidentifies his target. That's not a scenario that
13:53
Speaker 1: seemed likely here. Since the shooter would have had to
13:55
Speaker 1: fire across four lanes of a highway, the odds of
13:59
Speaker 1: ten Tommy being struck by a totally random stray bullet
14:03
Speaker 1: were astronomically low. What's more, no neighboring hunters ever came
14:06
Speaker 1: under suspicion, and as you already heard, Tommy had spied
14:09
Speaker 1: something in the tree line, and his work on Crystal's
14:12
Speaker 1: case had made him some enemies. Taken together, all of
14:16
Speaker 1: these factors clearly pointed to homicide.
14:19
Speaker 4: This was no accident. This was absolutely a murder.
14:23
Speaker 1: Roby didn't know how the shooter had pulled it off,
14:25
Speaker 1: but as he sat in his car and watched investigators
14:28
Speaker 1: process the scene on the morning of Tommy's murder, he
14:30
Speaker 1: began to formulate the theory.
14:32
Speaker 4: And so I'm looking and I see a little hole
14:35
Speaker 4: in the woodline. The former Economy is killed. It was
14:40
Speaker 4: like sixteen or maybe eighteen acres, and it ran parallel
14:46
Speaker 4: to the Bluegrass Parkway on the eastbound lanes. And I'm like,
14:52
Speaker 4: that shot came from the damn Bluegrass Parkway. There's no
14:54
Speaker 4: doubt in my mind that shot came from the Bluegrass.
14:57
Speaker 1: Roby's theory came from a place of experience. Though he'd
15:00
Speaker 1: recently retired, he spent many years as an investigator with
15:03
Speaker 1: the Bardstown Police Department, as well as a special deputy
15:06
Speaker 1: with the US Marshals. He didn't know what evidence the
15:09
Speaker 1: Kentucky State Police had collected, but once they were done,
15:12
Speaker 1: he conducted his own investigation with one of Tommy's sons,
15:15
Speaker 1: a man named Casey Ballard.
15:18
Speaker 4: I went right to the area where I saw this gap,
15:21
Speaker 4: you know, that kind of caught my attention, and not
15:23
Speaker 4: far from a third there was a tree that had
15:28
Speaker 4: a slight chunk of bark that had been knocked away.
15:32
Speaker 4: So I stood like, I'm aiming a rifle right there,
15:35
Speaker 4: I said. Somebody whoever did this is about eight to
15:38
Speaker 4: ten inches taller than me. I said, somebody leaned here
15:41
Speaker 4: and shot.
15:42
Speaker 1: Roby wondered whether the missing piece of bark had been
15:45
Speaker 1: knocked away by the stock of a rifle as the
15:47
Speaker 1: recoil pushed it back into the tree. The next day,
15:51
Speaker 1: he and Casey came back to test their hypothesis.
15:54
Speaker 4: And I said, I'm gonna take his cheap scope and
15:56
Speaker 4: going out here and I'm going to had I wasn't
15:58
Speaker 4: in Camo. I said, I'm going to hide down here
16:01
Speaker 4: in the woods and I'm just going to see how
16:03
Speaker 4: clear I can see, you, you know, and it's still
16:05
Speaker 4: not daylight. The lunar loading was so bright, you know,
16:09
Speaker 4: and I'm looking through this chief scope. I can only
16:11
Speaker 4: imagine what a high dollar scope would do. But this
16:14
Speaker 4: chiefs cope. I could see so detailed, and I was like,
16:17
Speaker 4: there's no doubt in my mind, this is exactly where
16:20
Speaker 4: the shot.
16:21
Speaker 1: As Roby searched the area he believed the shot came from,
16:24
Speaker 1: he found another piece of evidence that someone had stood
16:27
Speaker 1: at that spot along the highway.
16:29
Speaker 4: There was a piece of orange landscaping tape aren't there
16:32
Speaker 4: and it looked like mud on a couple of the
16:35
Speaker 4: runs of water, you know, the interwoven wire fence, And
16:40
Speaker 4: I'm like, somebody's crossed this right here, shot and then
16:44
Speaker 4: crossed back.
16:45
Speaker 1: A car parked on the side of the highway would
16:47
Speaker 1: likely have been noticed, so Robi guessed the shooter was
16:49
Speaker 1: dropped off before Tommy drove out to that property. He
16:53
Speaker 1: waited in the tree line until he saw Tommy walk
16:56
Speaker 1: within range and fired.
16:59
Speaker 4: I made my mind up then and there, this is
17:01
Speaker 4: exactly where the shot came from. I don't know if
17:05
Speaker 4: the police have come to the same conclusion, but as
17:09
Speaker 4: someone who's investigated a lot of different things in different
17:12
Speaker 4: crimes and worked with federal agencies and state police and
17:16
Speaker 4: other local agencies, there's no doubt in my mind. And
17:19
Speaker 4: it was basically one hundred yard chip shot. Even the
17:22
Speaker 4: most beginning deer hunter with any deer cartridge that would
17:28
Speaker 4: be you know, if you got to state arrest should
17:31
Speaker 4: be a chip shot.
17:32
Speaker 1: I reached out to the Kentucky State Police to speak
17:34
Speaker 1: with the investigator in charge of Tommy's case, but I
17:37
Speaker 1: was told that they've declined most media requests over the
17:40
Speaker 1: last few years. Say told me she's never been allowed
17:43
Speaker 1: to speak with anyone at the KSP, and as of
17:46
Speaker 1: this recording, I haven't received an official response to my request.
17:50
Speaker 1: What happened to Tommy was unbelievable, almost like a movie,
17:53
Speaker 1: and certainly not something that anyone predicted in Bardstown, which
17:57
Speaker 1: the USA Today once called America's most beautiful small town.
18:01
Speaker 1: But what's even more incredible is that something similar happened
18:05
Speaker 1: just three years before and on the exact same highway.
18:10
Speaker 3: The Bardstown cases start with the ambush of a police
18:14
Speaker 3: officer in twenty thirteen. His name was Jason Ellis. He
18:20
Speaker 3: was a Bardstown City police officer and he was working
18:24
Speaker 3: the night shift. So he's on his way home from work.
18:26
Speaker 3: He's taking the exit ramp that he takes every single
18:29
Speaker 3: day and notices tree limbs in the road. And investigators
18:35
Speaker 3: believe he turned on his lights and sirens, got out
18:38
Speaker 3: of his police cruiser to go and move the tree
18:41
Speaker 3: limbs off of the exit ramp, and at that point
18:45
Speaker 3: he was ambushed. He was shot and killed and left
18:48
Speaker 3: for dead right there in the road, and his case
18:52
Speaker 3: is still unsolved today.
18:54
Speaker 1: Jason was killed around two in the morning on May
18:56
Speaker 1: twenty fifth, twenty thirteen, and Robi was one of the
18:59
Speaker 1: officers responded to the sink.
19:01
Speaker 4: If you can imagine, it's almost like a clover leaf
19:05
Speaker 4: ramp off of the interstate. Well, there's some high rock
19:09
Speaker 4: walls there also, And I'm thinking to myself and I'm
19:12
Speaker 4: looking up and I'm like, this is the perfect ambush
19:15
Speaker 4: point high points. I'm like, you know, hell, this is
19:19
Speaker 4: like a turkey hunter, you know, you just want to
19:21
Speaker 4: set up here and wait for the old gobbler to
19:23
Speaker 4: come by. Well, that's what I think they did. They
19:27
Speaker 4: I think there was probably more than one. So if
19:30
Speaker 4: he drug brush on either side of the ramp, someone
19:33
Speaker 4: was ready to shoot. And I can't prove that, but
19:38
Speaker 4: that's my beliefs Under a bright moonlit sky, there's no
19:43
Speaker 4: doubt in my mind. That's my belief. What happened, and
19:48
Speaker 4: to go further, you know, that night, if somebody had
19:52
Speaker 4: even hinted or suggested that a police officer may be involved,
19:56
Speaker 4: I'd have been ready to fist fight you right there.
19:59
Speaker 4: But after a thing that I have witnessed and experienced
20:01
Speaker 4: and seen, nothing surprises Mede these days.
20:06
Speaker 1: Two innocent men gunned down by disappearing assassins, all within
20:10
Speaker 1: the span of three years. Between that time, a young
20:13
Speaker 1: woman had been kidnapped and was presumed dead, and her
20:16
Speaker 1: car had been found along the same highway where the
20:19
Speaker 1: murderers had taken place. But the location and means of
20:22
Speaker 1: death weren't the only thing that connected these three cases.
20:26
Speaker 1: From the moment Crystal disappeared, her family suspected that her
20:29
Speaker 1: boyfriend might be involved. This boyfriend, a man named Brooks Hawk,
20:33
Speaker 1: had a brother in the Bardstown Police Department named Nick,
20:37
Speaker 1: who had worked with Jason Ellis. Like the Bluegrass Parkway,
20:41
Speaker 1: the Hawk brothers tied these crimes together. Investigators didn't know
20:45
Speaker 1: exactly how or why, at least not at first, but
20:48
Speaker 1: they knew the Hawk family was the first place they
20:51
Speaker 1: should start digging. Part three. The cruise Crystal Rogers was
21:03
Speaker 1: thirty five years old, when she went missing. She was
21:05
Speaker 1: Tommy and Sherry's oldest child and she'd spent her whole
21:08
Speaker 1: life in Bardstown. While Shane never got a chance to
21:11
Speaker 1: meet Crystal, she told me that everyone mentioned how much
21:14
Speaker 1: Crystal loved her five kids.
21:16
Speaker 3: She couldn't wait to be a mom. Being a mom
21:21
Speaker 3: was her favorite thing in the world, and it was
21:24
Speaker 3: a very defining characteristic because every job she had, she
21:28
Speaker 3: it was important to her that it would not interfere
21:31
Speaker 3: with being a mom. So, for example, when she was
21:35
Speaker 3: working as a landlord kind of helping run a rental
21:39
Speaker 3: house business, and she would have to take her tenants
21:43
Speaker 3: to court to evict them, she would take her kids
21:46
Speaker 3: with her, and the judge just knew that, you know,
21:48
Speaker 3: that was part of doing work with her. So she
21:52
Speaker 3: was really valued that part of her life. Her kids
21:55
Speaker 3: were incredibly important to her.
21:57
Speaker 1: She'd been married previously, and not all of her children
22:00
Speaker 1: were from the same relationship, but Say said that despite
22:03
Speaker 1: these personal difficulties, Crystal still valued family above all else.
22:08
Speaker 3: Her cousins were her best friends. She confided in her
22:12
Speaker 3: mom and her dad when things weren't going right in
22:15
Speaker 3: her relationships, and she was just very close with her family.
22:21
Speaker 1: Crystal began dating Brooks how a few years before she disappeared.
22:25
Speaker 1: She'd rented a house from him, and once the two
22:27
Speaker 1: became acquainted, she worked for his rental house business. The
22:30
Speaker 1: two moved in together and soon they had a son,
22:32
Speaker 1: Cristel's youngest, but the relationship had been souring in the
22:36
Speaker 1: months leading up to her disappearance.
22:38
Speaker 3: It wouldn't be until many years later when we started
22:40
Speaker 3: hearing from other people who had had conversations with Crystal
22:44
Speaker 3: that she was worried that he was cheating on her.
22:49
Speaker 3: She wanted out. She thought that he was going to
22:52
Speaker 3: be trying to get rid of her, you know, in
22:55
Speaker 3: a way that where she could he could still keep
22:57
Speaker 3: their shared child.
23:00
Speaker 1: Reportedly not well liked by the other members of the
23:02
Speaker 1: Hawk family, including Brooks's mother Rosemary. Rosemary was keen for
23:07
Speaker 1: Brooks to get full custody of her grandson, but that
23:10
Speaker 1: was unlikely while Cristel was still around. When Cristel disappeared,
23:14
Speaker 1: the Ballards immediately suspected Brooks, and they weren't the only ones.
23:19
Speaker 3: It happened about three months after she went missing. Brooks
23:23
Speaker 3: Hawk was not part of any searches at the beginning.
23:26
Speaker 3: He really kept to himself, stayed quiet, and then about
23:31
Speaker 3: three months after she is reported missing, the sheriff names
23:35
Speaker 3: him the main suspect in her disappearance and that Brooks
23:39
Speaker 3: Hawke's brother, whose name is Nick Hawk, is considered a
23:43
Speaker 3: person of interest.
23:45
Speaker 1: Cristel was presumed dead. No arrest or conviction could bring
23:48
Speaker 1: her back, but with this news, the Ballard family could
23:51
Speaker 1: at least hope for justice to be served. Officials said
23:54
Speaker 1: they'd collected eight pages worth of circumstantial evidence pointing to
23:58
Speaker 1: Brooks and the Ballards expect did a quick arrest, but
24:01
Speaker 1: that didn't happen. Days, weeks, months went by, and still
24:05
Speaker 1: brooks Houck was walking the streets of Bardstown.
24:08
Speaker 3: This is so frustrating for the family. This is so
24:11
Speaker 3: frustrating for the community because not only is he not
24:14
Speaker 3: arrested at this time, brooks Howck is building a multi
24:19
Speaker 3: million dollar rental house and construction empire in this small town.
24:25
Speaker 3: He is living his life to the fullest. He is
24:28
Speaker 3: raising the sun that he and Crystal shared. He goes
24:33
Speaker 3: to bat in court to keep Crystal's family away from
24:37
Speaker 3: the little boy, and they are watching him just live
24:42
Speaker 3: this big, full life while he's named the main suspect
24:46
Speaker 3: in their daughter's disappearance and presumed murder.
24:51
Speaker 1: This is key to understanding what Tommy did next with
24:54
Speaker 1: his own sister's murder in the back of his mind.
24:57
Speaker 1: He didn't just launch a search effort to find his
24:59
Speaker 1: daughter's from me as he launched a crusade against the
25:02
Speaker 1: man he believed was responsible.
25:05
Speaker 3: And he wasn't just saying that, which you know he
25:08
Speaker 3: did multiple times. He put up billboards, paid for billboards
25:13
Speaker 3: that had Crystal's face and said, detectives say brooks Houck
25:18
Speaker 3: is responsible for the disappearance of Crystal, you know, help
25:21
Speaker 3: us make the arrest. There was signs all over town
25:25
Speaker 3: that said, you know, brooks Houck is a killer. It
25:28
Speaker 3: was not just this, you know, kind of quiet belief.
25:34
Speaker 3: He was very outspoken about it.
25:36
Speaker 4: And everybody in the family knew he did it. But
25:39
Speaker 4: how can you prove it? And how you know? You
25:41
Speaker 4: don't want to you don't want to do some things
25:45
Speaker 4: to jeopardize the case by becoming too vocal and making
25:49
Speaker 4: allegations that you know, so Tommy didn't give a shit
25:52
Speaker 4: about that. He let people know that he thought brooks
25:54
Speaker 4: help killed his daughter.
25:56
Speaker 1: You can't blame a father in this situation for taking
25:58
Speaker 1: matters into his own hands, but he nonetheless created an
26:01
Speaker 1: unprecedented situation for law enforcement.
26:04
Speaker 2: I don't know that I have ever had a case
26:07
Speaker 2: in my almost thirty years now where a family got
26:12
Speaker 2: that actively involved in it.
26:15
Speaker 1: John Snow was one of the lead investigators on Crystal's case.
26:18
Speaker 1: He told me that Tommy's crusade was sometimes helpful, sometimes not.
26:23
Speaker 2: Well, it was really kind of a mixed bag. There
26:26
Speaker 2: were times when things that Tommy and Sherry and the
26:30
Speaker 2: other family members were doing that generated really good information.
26:37
Speaker 2: There were times that some of the information that they
26:40
Speaker 2: would get would end up being not pertinent to the investigation,
26:44
Speaker 2: and we would spend some time on it, you know,
26:48
Speaker 2: rather than spending it on other things that we thought
26:50
Speaker 2: might be more helpful to the investigation.
26:53
Speaker 1: Roby was also a longtime investigator, so he understood the
26:56
Speaker 1: dangers of what Tommy was doing, but he was also
26:59
Speaker 1: Tommy's brother in law and Crystal's uncle.
27:02
Speaker 4: I had words with another police officer along those lines,
27:07
Speaker 4: and then I said, don't give me that shit. If
27:08
Speaker 4: that was your child, you would be doing everything you could,
27:11
Speaker 4: you know, damn will you could? And I said, and
27:13
Speaker 4: if you wouldn't. Then you're a piece of shit, I said,
27:15
Speaker 4: So don't give me that shit that he's going too far.
27:17
Speaker 4: Nobody's going too far.
27:19
Speaker 1: Tommy's actions may not have always been comfortable for law enforcement,
27:22
Speaker 1: but they were effective.
27:24
Speaker 3: We would hear years later that some of his work
27:29
Speaker 3: became critical to building the case to indict people and
27:35
Speaker 3: arrest people for Crystal's murder. You know that was shocking
27:39
Speaker 3: to us to hear because he wasn't an experienced investigator.
27:42
Speaker 3: He was a home builder. But more than that, he
27:45
Speaker 3: was a desperate dad and he was going to do
27:48
Speaker 3: anything and everything to find his daughter.
27:51
Speaker 1: With this background in mind, you can see why everyone
27:53
Speaker 1: pointed the finger at the house when Tommy was murdered.
27:57
Speaker 1: They had motive, but they also had means.
28:00
Speaker 4: Brooks how knew where that farm was, and he knew
28:03
Speaker 4: that Tommy often took his grandchildren. So I think that
28:07
Speaker 4: the Hawks truly thought or was afraid, Tommy was going
28:12
Speaker 4: to get close. They knew he was never going to
28:15
Speaker 4: stop With Tommy, it was never going to be on
28:18
Speaker 4: back murder. He was going to be pushing to heat.
28:20
Speaker 1: Was Tommy murdered by the Hawkes because he was about
28:23
Speaker 1: to expose them for killing his daughter, or had Brooks
28:26
Speaker 1: and his brother been falsely accused and Tommy was murdered
28:29
Speaker 1: for some other reason that had yet to be exposed.
28:32
Speaker 1: Those questions haunted Bardstown, and they weren't about to be
28:35
Speaker 1: answered anytime soon. That's because even after Tommy was murdered,
28:39
Speaker 1: investigators appeared to make little progress on the case, not
28:43
Speaker 1: just for weeks or months, but for years. The Ballards
28:47
Speaker 1: were left with a missing daughter and a slain husband,
28:51
Speaker 1: and it didn't seem like anyone could offer them the
28:53
Speaker 1: resolution they were so desperately searching for Part four the
29:03
Speaker 1: prosecution of Brooks houck to find Tommy's killer. Investigators believe
29:09
Speaker 1: that focusing on Crystal's case could be a productive strategy.
29:13
Speaker 2: What you're really hoping for, and I think what we
29:19
Speaker 2: had always hoped for was that if we broke one
29:21
Speaker 2: of the cases, perhaps it would lead us down the
29:24
Speaker 2: road to breaking the other cases.
29:26
Speaker 1: But the evidence wasn't working in their favor. They had
29:29
Speaker 1: Tommy's body, but little else. In Crystal's case, they didn't
29:33
Speaker 1: even have that, despite her father's best efforts, her remains
29:37
Speaker 1: had it been found, And Shay told me that by
29:39
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen, the cases appeared to be going cold.
29:42
Speaker 3: At this point, the investigation appeared to be at a standstill.
29:47
Speaker 3: We had not gotten new information on either case in
29:50
Speaker 3: several years. It was really difficult to even get the
29:54
Speaker 3: investigating agencies to do interviews about it because they would
29:57
Speaker 3: just tell us we have nothing new to report.
30:00
Speaker 1: J launched a podcast called Bardstown in twenty nineteen to
30:03
Speaker 1: shine light on Crystal's case. The journalists didn't confirm it,
30:06
Speaker 1: but I have to think that the attention from that
30:08
Speaker 1: podcast helped shake things up. Sure Enough, less than a
30:12
Speaker 1: year later, the FBI got involved and things began moving
30:15
Speaker 1: in the right direction, and.
30:17
Speaker 3: It was very clear that they were working toward and arrest,
30:21
Speaker 3: that they were doing interviews and search warrants and making
30:27
Speaker 3: major moves to gather the evidence they needed to indict Brooks.
30:31
Speaker 3: How this includes massive digs FBI activity out in the
30:36
Speaker 3: public in Bardstown, both on properties were familiar with, such
30:40
Speaker 3: as the Hawk family farm, and new properties that we
30:43
Speaker 3: had never heard of, like a neighborhood where Brooks Houck
30:47
Speaker 3: had been building homes when Crystal disappeared.
30:50
Speaker 1: It's not that local and state law enforcement hadn't been
30:52
Speaker 1: doing anything, but the FBI offered more resources, more manpower,
30:56
Speaker 1: and more technology. It also felt like they were making
30:59
Speaker 1: more progress because federal agents were far more public with
31:02
Speaker 1: their investigation. In fact, according to Shay, they developed a
31:06
Speaker 1: plan to release information strategically to move the case forward.
31:10
Speaker 3: They put up a website where people could turn in
31:14
Speaker 3: tips for Crystal, and they used that website for many
31:20
Speaker 3: things beyond accepting tips. Of course, they were accepting tips,
31:23
Speaker 3: they were collecting leads, but they were also looking at
31:26
Speaker 3: who was on the website and what exactly were they
31:29
Speaker 3: looking at when they would release things to the media.
31:33
Speaker 3: They were releasing very strategic pieces of information to see
31:38
Speaker 3: what certain people would do with it and what phone
31:41
Speaker 3: calls would they make and how would they react.
31:44
Speaker 1: For the first time in years, it felt like progress
31:46
Speaker 1: was finally being made.
31:48
Speaker 3: So it was no longer this does anyone care about this?
31:51
Speaker 3: Is anyone working on this? We weren't wondering that anymore.
31:54
Speaker 3: We were just wondering when will they have enough to
31:57
Speaker 3: bring the agnitement.
31:58
Speaker 1: Three years later, into twenty twenty three, those indictments started
32:02
Speaker 1: coming down.
32:03
Speaker 3: And first it's a name we've never heard of. That's
32:06
Speaker 3: Joseph Lawson, a completely unfamiliar name. Nobody knew who he was,
32:11
Speaker 3: including the Ballard family.
32:14
Speaker 1: Joseph Lawson was charged with conspiracy to commit murder and
32:17
Speaker 1: tampering with physical evidence in connection to Cristel's disappearance. The
32:21
Speaker 1: Bardstown community spent the next two months wondering whether they'd
32:24
Speaker 1: accuse the wrong man, until September when Brooks Howck was
32:28
Speaker 1: arrested and charged with murder. Two months after that, another man,
32:32
Speaker 1: Steve Lawson, Joseph's father, was also charged with complicity to
32:36
Speaker 1: commit murder. Joey and Steve Lawson were employees of Brooks Houck,
32:41
Speaker 1: but it wasn't immediately obvious how they helped him murder
32:43
Speaker 1: Crystal and hide her body. What was clear was that
32:47
Speaker 1: investigators had collected a mountain of circumstantial evidence against Cristel's
32:51
Speaker 1: former boyfriend.
32:52
Speaker 3: For example, there was witnesses who talked about how Crystal
32:58
Speaker 3: thought she was going on a special date night with
33:01
Speaker 3: Brooks that night, she had canceled plans with a friend
33:04
Speaker 3: because Brooks wanted to take her on a rare night
33:06
Speaker 3: out just the two of them, and then there's forensic
33:11
Speaker 3: evidence showing that they end up going to his family farm.
33:16
Speaker 3: There's no proof that she left that farm alive. And
33:20
Speaker 3: we know that because we could see her cell phone
33:24
Speaker 3: moving from her house with Brooks, and we have surveillance
33:28
Speaker 3: video of them going to the farm, and then there's
33:33
Speaker 3: nobody sees her alive.
33:35
Speaker 1: After that, Brooks was the last person to see Crystal alive.
33:39
Speaker 1: He was also caught lying about what he was doing
33:41
Speaker 1: the day she disappeared.
33:43
Speaker 3: He had turned his location services off. However, he didn't
33:47
Speaker 3: know that Google Location was ultimately recording him, and when
33:52
Speaker 3: he provided police with an alibi, they were able to
33:55
Speaker 3: disprove it.
33:56
Speaker 1: Brooks had given an initial statement to police in twenty
33:58
Speaker 1: fifteen describing what he was doing on July third. He
34:02
Speaker 1: said he'd been visiting various businesses around town and handling
34:05
Speaker 1: evictions for his rental company. In reality, his phone data
34:09
Speaker 1: showed that he'd spent most of the day at his
34:11
Speaker 1: family's farm. He'd left the farm in the afternoon, but
34:14
Speaker 1: then returned around seven thirty pm, where he stayed until
34:18
Speaker 1: close to midnight.
34:19
Speaker 3: He said they went to the farm, they spent the
34:22
Speaker 3: night out on the property, They fed the cows, they
34:25
Speaker 3: packed up and went back home and had their two
34:30
Speaker 3: year old son with them. Brookes says that he went
34:33
Speaker 3: to bed, Crystal was still up on her phone playing
34:36
Speaker 3: games on the cell phone, and when he woke up
34:39
Speaker 3: the next morning, she was gone.
34:41
Speaker 1: But even this claim didn't hold up under scrutiny. Crystal's
34:44
Speaker 1: phone was recovered from her car, and investigators determined that
34:47
Speaker 1: she'd been using it until around nine thirty that evening,
34:50
Speaker 1: when it appeared to run out of battery. It was
34:52
Speaker 1: turned back on around eleven to fifty pm, but then
34:56
Speaker 1: manually shut off at the same time. It was clear
34:59
Speaker 1: to investigators that Crystal hadn't really used it after nine thirty,
35:02
Speaker 1: which casts doubt on everything else. Brooks claimed there wasn't
35:08
Speaker 1: much physical evidence in this case, but there was some,
35:11
Speaker 1: and investigators got it thanks to Tommy and a pair
35:13
Speaker 1: of raccoon hunters. These hunters were out near the Houk's
35:17
Speaker 1: farm the night Crystal disappeared. One of them testified at
35:20
Speaker 1: trial that they'd spotted a white Buick parked on a
35:23
Speaker 1: gravel road. They thought it was weird for a car
35:25
Speaker 1: to be parked there on a rainy night at ten
35:28
Speaker 1: thirty pm, so when they heard about Crystal's disappearance, they
35:31
Speaker 1: contacted police. Tommy heard about this development and he posted
35:35
Speaker 1: on Facebook asking for help locating the car and identifying
35:38
Speaker 1: its owners. A few days later, a detective received a
35:42
Speaker 1: tip that the car belonged to Brooks Houke's grandmother, but
35:45
Speaker 1: it had recently been sold. Fortunately, investigators were able to
35:49
Speaker 1: track down that car.
35:51
Speaker 3: Years later would be examined as evidence in the case,
35:57
Speaker 3: and a cadaver dog hit on the trunk of that car.
36:01
Speaker 1: Blonde hairs were also found in the car that could
36:04
Speaker 1: have been Crystals, but forensic scientists were unable to determine
36:07
Speaker 1: if the DNA was also a match.
36:10
Speaker 3: There was DNA found that that could not for sure
36:12
Speaker 3: be matched to Crystal, but also could not be ruled out.
36:16
Speaker 1: Perhaps the most damning piece of evidence, at least from
36:19
Speaker 1: the public's perspective, came from a separate trial. Joey and
36:23
Speaker 1: Steve Lawson had been accused of helping Brooks move Crystal's car.
36:27
Speaker 1: The plan was, according to prosecutors, to drive the sedan
36:30
Speaker 1: far away from Bardstown and get rid of it, but
36:33
Speaker 1: they ran into a problem. About eight miles west of town.
36:36
Speaker 1: The car blew attire on the Bluegrass Parkway.
36:39
Speaker 4: Not true to think that God calls that blowout, because
36:44
Speaker 4: if that car hadn't been found that may not have
36:46
Speaker 4: led to this case. That car could have been disposed
36:50
Speaker 4: of in so many other places, and I think, guess
36:51
Speaker 4: what their intention was. I think God intervened and that
36:56
Speaker 4: tolera blew out and they left it there, and that
36:59
Speaker 4: was the beginning of the end. It just took a
37:02
Speaker 4: long time, on a lot of hard work.
37:05
Speaker 1: Crystal's killers couldn't follow through on their original plan, so
37:09
Speaker 1: they had to improvise. Phone records show that Joey Lawson
37:12
Speaker 1: called his dad several times that night, and then Steve
37:15
Speaker 1: called Brooks and spoke to him for about thirteen seconds.
37:18
Speaker 1: Prosecutors argued that Joey had been driving the car by
37:21
Speaker 1: himself and he was calling his dad to ask to
37:24
Speaker 1: be picked up. Steve then called Brooks, presumably to figure
37:28
Speaker 1: out a plan B. In the end, Cristel's car was
37:30
Speaker 1: abandoned on the side of the road with her purse, phone,
37:33
Speaker 1: and keys still inside. It was also left running to
37:37
Speaker 1: make it look like the woman had for some reason
37:39
Speaker 1: left in a hurry. Here's the important part of this story.
37:43
Speaker 1: While Joey Lawson joined Brooks in denying every part of
37:46
Speaker 1: the prosecution's theory, Steve admitted to trying to hide his
37:50
Speaker 1: son's involvement.
37:51
Speaker 3: Steve Lawson takes the approach with his own defense that yes,
37:57
Speaker 3: he's guilty of tampering with physical evidence. Brooks Houck asked
38:00
Speaker 3: him to help move this car. He agreed to do that,
38:03
Speaker 3: but he had no idea of any plan to kill her,
38:05
Speaker 3: and he was not part of any plan to kill her.
38:08
Speaker 1: Steve admitted to driving out to where Joey had pulled
38:10
Speaker 1: over Cristel's car the night she disappeared. He said he
38:13
Speaker 1: moved the driver's seat forward to make it look like
38:16
Speaker 1: Cristel had been driving, and he also removed a mini
38:18
Speaker 1: baseball bat that Joey apparently was known to carry. He
38:22
Speaker 1: denied having any knowledge of Cristel's murder, but the jury
38:24
Speaker 1: didn't buy it. He was found guilty on all charges
38:27
Speaker 1: and sentenced to seventeen years in prison. This testimony raised
38:32
Speaker 1: several awkward questions for brooks House. If something nefarious didn't
38:36
Speaker 1: happen that night, why would Joey Lawson be driving Cristel's
38:39
Speaker 1: car out of town, Why would he leave it on
38:42
Speaker 1: the side of the road with all of Crystal's things
38:44
Speaker 1: in it? And why would Steve lie about what happened?
38:46
Speaker 1: If Brooks and Joey weren't involved. The problem was Steve's
38:50
Speaker 1: testimony was not admissible evidence in Brooks's trial, and even
38:55
Speaker 1: if it was, the case wouldn't have been a slam dunk.
38:58
Speaker 1: Almost no murders are prosecuted without the body of the victim,
39:01
Speaker 1: and there was very little hard physical evidence proving Brooks
39:05
Speaker 1: killed the mother of his son. According to Tom Roby,
39:09
Speaker 1: the Hawks knew they were still in a good position.
39:11
Speaker 4: I think they were so smug they thought they were
39:14
Speaker 4: going to beat it. When they were released the jury,
39:16
Speaker 4: he would stand up prim and proper, looking straight ahead,
39:20
Speaker 4: you know, and then as soon as the jury got
39:22
Speaker 4: out of eyesight, he would look over at the whole section,
39:26
Speaker 4: the family and friends of Crystals and just make a
39:30
Speaker 4: shit eaten smirk and grin, you know, just just trying
39:33
Speaker 4: to goat someone, you know, And I thought you arrogant pastored.
39:38
Speaker 1: Roby said that arrogant demeanor lasted all the way until
39:41
Speaker 1: the jury came back from four hours of deliberation on
39:44
Speaker 1: July eighth, twenty twenty five.
39:46
Speaker 5: In regard to Commonwealth versus Brooks, William Hawk, we the
39:51
Speaker 5: jury find the defendant guilty of murder principle or accomplice.
39:56
Speaker 5: We the jury find the defending guilty of tampering with
39:59
Speaker 5: physical evidence.
40:00
Speaker 4: And then when the jury did the sentencing phase, they
40:03
Speaker 4: were out just I mean a very very short time
40:06
Speaker 4: frame which the jury recommended life in prison and I
40:10
Speaker 4: think five editional years for tampering with evidence. So you know,
40:15
Speaker 4: the jury saw throwing.
40:17
Speaker 1: Brooks got life and Joey, who was being tried at
40:19
Speaker 1: the same time, received a twenty five year sentence. Roby
40:23
Speaker 1: said the guilty verdicts were a relief for everyone in
40:26
Speaker 1: the community. That was true of the Ballards as well,
40:29
Speaker 1: but their emotions were more complex.
40:31
Speaker 4: When we came back to town, the folks in Brgetown,
40:34
Speaker 4: it was the main street, North third Street was lined
40:40
Speaker 4: no we drove all the families, we all drove back
40:42
Speaker 4: from the Bowling Green courthouse and it was just I
40:46
Speaker 4: mean it, I think there was not a dry eye
40:48
Speaker 4: in a vehicle. Literally hundreds and hundreds of people lying
40:53
Speaker 4: in the street celebrating his conviction. But we still don't
40:59
Speaker 4: know where she's at. We still want to bring her
41:01
Speaker 4: home if you know, if she's you know, she's dad,
41:05
Speaker 4: she's presumed dead. We want to bury her with some dignity,
41:09
Speaker 4: and so that's still missing, and then that the same
41:11
Speaker 4: token is okay. Now can we get focused on Tommy's case? Now?
41:15
Speaker 4: Can we get Tommy's case.
41:18
Speaker 1: What John and the other investigators had hoped for had
41:21
Speaker 1: it happened. Brooks Houck had been convicted of murdering Crystal,
41:24
Speaker 1: but that investigation hadn't turned up enough evidence to charge
41:28
Speaker 1: anyone with her father's murder. Investigators weren't shy about their beliefs.
41:32
Speaker 1: They told journalists like Shay that the Hawks were responsible
41:35
Speaker 1: for Tommy's assassination. Proving that would be more difficult, but
41:40
Speaker 1: they already had evidence pointing to someone else who was
41:43
Speaker 1: implicated at the beginning of this case but has so
41:46
Speaker 1: far escaped. Consequence Part five, Nick Howke Brooks how wasn't
42:00
Speaker 1: the only member of the Hawk family to be implicated
42:02
Speaker 1: in the Bardstown murders. Brooks's mother, Rosemary, was named as
42:06
Speaker 1: an unindicted co conspirator, and the jury heard testimony that
42:10
Speaker 1: she asked one of Brooks's employees if he knew anyone
42:13
Speaker 1: who could quote get rid of Crystal. And as you
42:16
Speaker 1: heard at the beginning, Nick Hawk, Brooks's brother was named
42:19
Speaker 1: as a suspect all the way back in twenty fifteen.
42:22
Speaker 1: At Brooks's trial, the public learned that from the very beginning,
42:26
Speaker 1: the family had tried to hamper the investigation.
42:29
Speaker 3: There was these little lies that the Hawk family was
42:33
Speaker 3: caught in. There was situations where they were secretly recording
42:41
Speaker 3: their encounters with police. They were talking about how they
42:45
Speaker 3: needed to be on the same page. They were laughing
42:48
Speaker 3: about investigators following what appeared to be phony tips.
42:54
Speaker 1: These alleged attempts to impede law enforcement stretched back to
42:57
Speaker 1: when Nick Hawk was still an officer with the Bard's
43:00
Speaker 1: Town Police Department. He refused to cooperate with interviews, take
43:03
Speaker 1: a polygraph, or allow his cruiser to be searched for evidence.
43:07
Speaker 1: He relented when his job was threatened, but he didn't
43:10
Speaker 1: stop meddling to keep himself and his brother out of trouble.
43:13
Speaker 3: When Brooks Houck was in a police interrogation and he
43:17
Speaker 3: gets a phone call from his brother, Nick Hauke, and
43:21
Speaker 3: Nick asks him, are you still there at the police department,
43:24
Speaker 3: And Brooks says yes, and Nick says, well, you need
43:27
Speaker 3: to get out of there. You know you've done enough
43:29
Speaker 3: answering questions. You've got nothing else to tell them you
43:32
Speaker 3: should leave, and he hangs up and Brooks tells the officer,
43:36
Speaker 3: you know, my brother's advising I should leave. And the
43:38
Speaker 3: officer tells him, you're not under arrest. You're free to
43:40
Speaker 3: leave if you want, and he said, yes, I'm gonna
43:42
Speaker 3: go ahead and leave.
43:44
Speaker 1: This was a bridge too far from Nick's superiors at
43:46
Speaker 1: the police Department, and they began the process of firing him.
43:49
Speaker 1: Tom Roby said he never worked a shift with Nick
43:52
Speaker 1: and didn't know him well, but he was an assistant
43:54
Speaker 1: chief at the time, so he sat in on some
43:57
Speaker 1: of these proceedings.
43:58
Speaker 4: And I observed with the chief and he was talking
44:00
Speaker 4: to Nick, and I was sitting behind him, and I'll
44:04
Speaker 4: never forget Nick was just like so cool, like cool
44:07
Speaker 4: as a cucumber. As he's talking, he was just blank.
44:12
Speaker 4: And then when Chief mccobbin mentioned failing the polygraph and
44:17
Speaker 4: knowing where crystal is, all of a sudden, one of
44:20
Speaker 4: his feet like a dog, he just started shaking. He
44:24
Speaker 4: couldn't control that reaction. And I said to myself then,
44:28
Speaker 4: I said, you signed for bitch, You're involved. You know,
44:31
Speaker 4: there's no doubt in my mind how he reacted to that.
44:36
Speaker 1: Nick was eventually fired from the police department, but despite
44:39
Speaker 1: his extremely suspicious behavior, he was never charged with a crime.
44:43
Speaker 1: He was allowed to walk free in Bardstown, where, according
44:46
Speaker 1: to Roby, he seemed to revel in antagonizing Crystal's family.
44:50
Speaker 4: Six or seven years ago. And this was in the
44:52
Speaker 4: Lows parking lot and I'm walking in. I didn't realize
44:55
Speaker 4: that I had parked beside his truck and I'm walking
44:58
Speaker 4: into the Lows. He saw on me. He comes walking
45:01
Speaker 4: toward me with his hand out. And you know my
45:03
Speaker 4: nicknames Boo. Everybody calls me Boo. And he said, hey, hey, Boo,
45:06
Speaker 4: Hey doing And uh, I don't know if And I said,
45:08
Speaker 4: get the get the fo me and you f F.
45:12
Speaker 4: I ain't shaking your IF and handed. It's surprising and
45:14
Speaker 4: he wasn't expected it. But when I came out of
45:16
Speaker 4: the store, he was leaning against the tailgate of his truck,
45:19
Speaker 4: which I'm part rapped. I had parts representing so my ego,
45:23
Speaker 4: my arrogance and anger and everything else. I thought, oh
45:26
Speaker 4: you you sab a bitch. You don't pump me. I
45:29
Speaker 4: just started walking into a dead line and we made
45:33
Speaker 4: eye contact and I was just I mean, I was
45:35
Speaker 4: run but I was walking with with purpose and h
45:39
Speaker 4: he jumped in his truck and took off and spun
45:42
Speaker 4: his tires and took off. And I know maybe he
45:45
Speaker 4: was thinking I was just going to walk out, and
45:46
Speaker 4: he was going to try to do or say something.
45:49
Speaker 4: But uh, and that's the last time I've had any
45:53
Speaker 4: contact with him at all. Brooks was notorious for walking
45:57
Speaker 4: up to the family. Uh, had hey, how you doing, buddy,
46:02
Speaker 4: you know, after Crystal was missing, just almost like he
46:04
Speaker 4: was trying to irritate them and hurt them.
46:07
Speaker 1: I tried reaching out to Nick to ask him about
46:10
Speaker 1: these accounts, but as you might imagine, he's hard to
46:12
Speaker 1: get a hold of. He's kept a low profile in
46:14
Speaker 1: the wake of his brother's trial, and as far as
46:17
Speaker 1: I know, has never given an interview to the media.
46:20
Speaker 1: We don't know exactly why investigators named Nick as a
46:22
Speaker 1: suspect or what role he played in Crystal's disappearance. However,
46:27
Speaker 1: in a shocking moment from a routine hearing in twenty
46:30
Speaker 1: twenty three, a prosecutor released information about how Nick was
46:34
Speaker 1: involved in Tommy's assassination.
46:36
Speaker 6: We were waiting for testing to come back on the farm.
46:39
Speaker 6: We believe was used to murder Tommy vallenor a farm
46:46
Speaker 6: that we purchased from Nippole as how who was using
46:51
Speaker 6: a fague name we sold the rock.
46:55
Speaker 1: We don't know the circumstances of this sale or how
46:57
Speaker 1: investigators knew it was Nick using a fake name, but
47:01
Speaker 1: we have good reason to believe it's the same rifle.
47:04
Speaker 3: They ran testing on it and it matched four out
47:07
Speaker 3: of the five markers that would make it a match
47:11
Speaker 3: for the gun used to kill Tommy.
47:13
Speaker 1: Brookhowk's defense attorneys filed a motion noting that this rifle
47:16
Speaker 1: had been tested by multiple law enforcement agencies and the
47:19
Speaker 1: results were inconclusive. What's more, the prosecutor didn't say what
47:23
Speaker 1: these criteria were or which one wasn't met. It's tough
47:27
Speaker 1: to judge from the outside how persuasive this evidence is,
47:30
Speaker 1: but we can speculate towards that end. I reached out
47:33
Speaker 1: to Derek Pleasance. Derek runs an expert witness service called
47:37
Speaker 1: P two Consulting, but he spent twenty years as a
47:40
Speaker 1: special Agent and investigator for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco,
47:43
Speaker 1: Firearms and Explosives or the ATF. Prior to that, he
47:47
Speaker 1: served in the Army Special Forces as a Green beret,
47:50
Speaker 1: So it's safe to say he knows his stuff when
47:52
Speaker 1: it comes to firearms.
47:54
Speaker 7: So when that projectile is recovered, if I recover in
47:57
Speaker 7: a pristine condition, what I'm looking for are the five characteristics.
48:02
Speaker 1: Four of those characteristics are relatively easy to identify on
48:05
Speaker 1: a projectile, the caliber, of course, along with the number, direction,
48:09
Speaker 1: and width of lands and grooves. Lands and grooves refer
48:13
Speaker 1: to the spiraling grooves inside a barrel that spin the
48:16
Speaker 1: bullet and leave corresponding marks on the copper jacket of
48:19
Speaker 1: the projectile. These four characteristics can point to a specific
48:23
Speaker 1: make and model of firearm, but that's about it.
48:27
Speaker 7: Those four characteristics are those are class characteristics. I'm going
48:30
Speaker 7: to be able to have an idea of what I'm
48:32
Speaker 7: dealing with, but that only gets me in the game.
48:37
Speaker 7: The fifth characteristic, which is the one that's most difficult,
48:41
Speaker 7: is also the one that is essentially the firearms fingerprints,
48:44
Speaker 7: and that's the striations on the projectile.
48:47
Speaker 1: The bore of a rifle isn't perfectly uniform. It has
48:50
Speaker 1: small imperfections that leave tiny, almost microscopic striations on the
48:54
Speaker 1: bullet's jacket as it travels down the barrel. In a
48:58
Speaker 1: perfect world, A ballastition can use microscope to compare a
49:01
Speaker 1: recovered projectile with a projectile they fire through a suspected
49:06
Speaker 1: crime gun. If the striations on those two bullets match,
49:09
Speaker 1: the recovered projectile was most likely fired through that suspect's gun.
49:15
Speaker 1: Of course, this isn't a perfect world, as most hunters
49:18
Speaker 1: are well.
49:19
Speaker 7: Aware, projectiles are considerably more difficult. Like one of the
49:24
Speaker 7: things you touched on is when, hey, if you shoot
49:26
Speaker 7: game and then when you go to a dress it
49:29
Speaker 7: and you happen to recover your projectile, it's often mangled.
49:33
Speaker 7: You know, it is shocking. Sometimes the deformity that can
49:36
Speaker 7: occur with that or even a high velocity round will
49:39
Speaker 7: come apart.
49:40
Speaker 1: The prosecutor didn't say this, but Derek thinks it's likely
49:42
Speaker 1: that the bullet recovered from Tommy's murder is too deformed
49:46
Speaker 1: to clearly see its striations.
49:48
Speaker 7: What I can infer from the information that I have
49:53
Speaker 7: is they believe that the weapon they have is the
49:57
Speaker 7: right caliber. It meets all those careacteristics, but they just
50:01
Speaker 7: cannot link it by striations. I could be wrong, but
50:06
Speaker 7: my professional opinion would be the striations or what keeping
50:08
Speaker 7: them from being definitive and what's keeping that from being
50:12
Speaker 7: definitive is likely the condition of the projectile.
50:14
Speaker 1: They haven't ruled out the rifle they purchased from Nick Hawk,
50:17
Speaker 1: but they clearly don't have enough evidence to say with
50:20
Speaker 1: certainty that his rifle fired the bullet that killed Tommy.
50:24
Speaker 1: They need more to go after the other Hauck brother
50:26
Speaker 1: in a court of law, and no one else has
50:28
Speaker 1: been named as a suspect. But Roby doesn't need any
50:31
Speaker 1: more convincing. His conviction is grounded in his experience with Nick,
50:35
Speaker 1: his law enforcement background, and where the shooter stood when
50:39
Speaker 1: he pulled the trigger.
50:40
Speaker 4: So in my mind, I'm thinking, if it's somebody in
50:44
Speaker 4: law enforcement, this is going to be an easy shot.
50:47
Speaker 4: I mean, because I knew right off the band I
50:50
Speaker 4: thought Nick Count's name as who I thought was involved.
51:00
Speaker 1: Part six the waiting game. There's an old saying that says,
51:05
Speaker 1: the wheels of justice turned slowly, but grind exceedingly fine.
51:10
Speaker 1: I don't know who came up with that, but I
51:12
Speaker 1: think they were onto something. The wheels of justice and
51:14
Speaker 1: the Bardstown murders have indeed turned slowly. That's frustrating to
51:19
Speaker 1: all involved, but it might be necessary to get the
51:22
Speaker 1: fine flower of justice everyone is hoping for. John Snow
51:26
Speaker 1: says he doesn't have any doubt that investigators are doing
51:29
Speaker 1: everything they can to figure out who killed Tommy.
51:32
Speaker 2: I know most of the detectives that are involved in
51:34
Speaker 2: Tommy's murder, and I'm one hundred percent convinced that if
51:38
Speaker 2: something comes in tomorrow, somebody's going to be checking on
51:41
Speaker 2: it tomorrow.
51:42
Speaker 1: Detectives and prosecutors haven't moved forward, he believes, simply because
51:46
Speaker 1: they don't have enough evidence and the stakes are too
51:49
Speaker 1: high to be wrong.
51:50
Speaker 4: You have to be.
51:53
Speaker 2: Relatively certain that you're going to convict that individual, because
51:57
Speaker 2: if you take them to trial and they get acquitted,
52:01
Speaker 2: that's the end of that case. They could go out
52:03
Speaker 2: on the courthouse steps and scream I did it, and
52:06
Speaker 2: I'm glad I did it, and there's nothing else you
52:09
Speaker 2: could do to them.
52:10
Speaker 1: The problem is Tommy's case may be even more difficult
52:13
Speaker 1: to prosecute than Crystal's. If Roby is right, and the
52:16
Speaker 1: assassin was dropped off, took the shot, and was picked
52:19
Speaker 1: up again, there will be little evidence for investigators to find.
52:22
Speaker 1: A Single shot from a bolt action rifle won't leave
52:25
Speaker 1: any brass, and DNA is tough to collect in an
52:28
Speaker 1: outdoor location.
52:30
Speaker 2: This certainly appeared to be a very calculated, thought out homicide,
52:36
Speaker 2: and when you have one of those, it compounds the
52:42
Speaker 2: difficulty in proving that case.
52:47
Speaker 1: The Ballard family is offering a fifty thousand dollars reward
52:50
Speaker 1: for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Tommy's murderer. Separately,
52:55
Speaker 1: the FBI is offering ten thousand dollars. It's still possible
52:59
Speaker 1: someone comes forward, maybe a passing motorist saw something, or
53:03
Speaker 1: the killer confesses to a friend in a moment of weakness,
53:07
Speaker 1: But Shay is doubtful anyone involved is about to have
53:09
Speaker 1: a change of heart.
53:11
Speaker 3: The people who were involved and the people that have
53:13
Speaker 3: been named publicly as being involved were all members of
53:17
Speaker 3: the Hawk family, and this very tight knit family will
53:22
Speaker 3: never tip over on each other.
53:25
Speaker 1: But there are other means of extracting new information from
53:28
Speaker 1: evidence already collected. John pointed out that DNA testing is
53:31
Speaker 1: always improving, and scientists might come up with new ways
53:34
Speaker 1: to match a bullet to a gun. Derek also mentioned this,
53:37
Speaker 1: but he cited a reason why we might see an
53:40
Speaker 1: advancement in bullet analysis in the near future.
53:43
Speaker 7: We just had the Charlie Kirk assassination, and the government
53:47
Speaker 7: is facing that same challenge that investigators are facing a
53:51
Speaker 7: mister Ballard's homicide. The technology because a high profile case
53:56
Speaker 7: at a national level may make a leap because the
54:00
Speaker 7: resources being brought to the table that can also be
54:02
Speaker 7: applied mister Ballard's case.
54:04
Speaker 1: It's also possible that investigators will find a new lead
54:07
Speaker 1: from one of the other Bardstown murders because remember, Crystal's
54:11
Speaker 1: case isn't the only one that might be connected to Tommy's.
54:15
Speaker 4: And twenty twenty four, the special prosecutor noted that during
54:20
Speaker 4: the discovery to Crystal's case included evidence related to Jason
54:24
Speaker 4: Ellis's murder. So in my mind, I'm thinking was were
54:29
Speaker 4: the Hawks involved one way or another and killing Jason Ellis?
54:32
Speaker 4: And did Crystal stumb across something or overhear something? You know, Speculation,
54:38
Speaker 4: you know, can run wild, But when you have a
54:41
Speaker 4: prosecutor that says that, then going back to twenty fifteen
54:46
Speaker 4: and twenty sixteen, there does seem to be a connection.
54:51
Speaker 1: There are still threads to pull in Tommy's investigation. The
54:54
Speaker 1: prosecutor on Crystal's case, Shane Young, was also assigned to
54:57
Speaker 1: Tommy's According to Shay, he old the Ballard family that
55:01
Speaker 1: he's actively working to secure the evidence he needs to
55:03
Speaker 1: go to trial and when he does, that wheel of
55:06
Speaker 1: justice might just turn back around on those responsible. Until then,
55:11
Speaker 1: Tommy's friends, family, and the people of Bardstown are waiting
55:16
Speaker 1: and hoping.
55:17
Speaker 2: You know, nobody ever thought that we would prosecute Brooks
55:20
Speaker 2: Halg for Crystal's murder either.
55:23
Speaker 4: It really is a long game.
55:26
Speaker 2: I still hope that someday we'll we'll get those answers
55:30
Speaker 2: and be able to prosecute the individual or individuals they
55:33
Speaker 2: are responsible for his murder.
55:41
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to this episode of Blood Trails. If
55:44
Speaker 1: you'd like to see images from this episode, including photos
55:47
Speaker 1: of Tommy, Crystal, and a map of relevant locations along
55:51
Speaker 1: the Bluegrass Parkway, head over to the meateater dot com
55:54
Speaker 1: slash blood Trails and click on the case file for
55:57
Speaker 1: this episode. Huge thanks to Tom Robie, John Snow, Derek Pleasance,
56:02
Speaker 1: and Shye McCallister for their time and willingness to speak
56:05
Speaker 1: with me. Shay's podcast Bardstown is the authoritative source on
56:09
Speaker 1: the Crystal Rogers disappearance and subsequent investigation. We focused on
56:14
Speaker 1: Tommy's case in this episode, but there's much more to
56:17
Speaker 1: dig into, which you can check out on Bardstown. As always,
56:21
Speaker 1: send me an email at blood Trails at themeateater dot
56:23
Speaker 1: com if you have a tip about this case or
56:26
Speaker 1: no about another you think we should cover. See you
56:30
Speaker 1: next time. Stay safe out there.