Overview
- Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman filed a brief Wednesday asking the Kentucky Supreme Court to affirm Brooks Houck’s 2025 murder conviction.
- Houck’s January appeal claims the state failed to prove Crystal Rogers was killed and alleges trial errors and bias by Judge Charles Simms III.
- The state says jurors heard a detailed timeline, cellphone and location data, surveillance video, recorded interviews, and more than 50 witnesses despite no body, weapon, crime scene, or eyewitness.
- Coleman’s filing highlights Houck’s “distinct indifference” in the first 36 hours after Rogers disappeared as evidence of guilt.
- Houck was sentenced to life in prison, co-defendant Joseph Lawson received 25 years, and Steven Lawson earlier received 17 years in related convictions stemming from Rogers’ 2015 disappearance.