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Post by catherine on May 21, 2024 0:57:59 GMT -5
We've been reading about Special Prosecutor Shane Young in this thread since sometime last year, but he looks nothing like what I imagined. I thought he was probably a young, ambitious lawyer, like someone you'd see on Law and Order. Instead, he's bald and middle-aged, and looks more like a used appliance salesman than a special prosecutor.
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Post by kitty on May 21, 2024 16:37:49 GMT -5
We've been reading about Special Prosecutor Shane Young in this thread since sometime last year, but he looks nothing like what I imagined. I thought he was probably a young, ambitious lawyer, like someone you'd see on Law and Order. Instead, he's bald and middle-aged, and looks more like a used appliance salesman than a special prosecutor. |
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Post by madeline on May 24, 2024 2:36:48 GMT -5
We've been reading about Special Prosecutor Shane Young in this thread since sometime last year, but he looks nothing like what I imagined. I thought he was probably a young, ambitious lawyer, like someone you'd see on Law and Order. Instead, he's bald and middle-aged, and looks more like a used appliance salesman than a special prosecutor. |
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Post by Graveyardbride on Jun 6, 2024 19:56:27 GMT -5
Steve Lawson Claims Brooks Houck ‘Wanted His Wife Gone’
Attorneys for Brooks Houck recently filed a motion requesting their client be tried separately from the two other Defendants in the Crystal Rogers case, alleging “Brooks cannot possibly receive a fair trial if tried jointly with the Lawsons.”
The 40-page motion includes newly released statements made by Stephen Lawson during his interrogations by investigators. At one point, according to Lawson, Houck asked him to “point him in the direction” of someone who could “kill Crystal Rogers,” insisting he “wanted his wife gone.”*
The transcripts also reveal that Stephen Lawson told detectives the midnight call received by Houck on July 4, 2015, was to tell Houck “the job was done.” According to Lawson, “the job” was moving Ms. Rogers’s car to the Bluegrass Parkway. However, when interrogated about this call, Houck told investigators he didn’t recall the contents of the conversation, and when he dialed the number in the presence of detectives, Stephen Lawson answered and told Houck the call was concerning rental property.
Houck’s attorneys also claim Joseph and Stephen Lawson were promised immunity. “The Government promised immunity to S. Lawson and J. Lawson and used the carrot of immunity to coerce these statements,” Brian Butler writes. “Yet, the Government reneged on its promise of immunity and indicted and jailed S. Lawson and J. Lawson.”
If Houck and the Lawsons are tried together the attorneys argue in their motion, the Lawsons would be the “two primary witnesses against Brooks.” Accordingly, they continue, “Brooks cannot mount a meaningful defense in a joint trial where he is prohibited from exposing how the Lawsons’ incriminating statements were coerced by investigators dangling a promise of immunity.”
While it is unlikely either of the Lawsons will testify at trial, their prior statements, grand jury testimony, etc. could be read in court and used as evidence against Houck.
“None of these statements would technically be admissible against Brooks because, assuming neither S. Lawson nor J. Lawson testify, he would not have the opportunity to cross-examine either of them in violation of his Sixth Amendment rights,” the lawyers argue. “However, jurors would hear the statements, and even if they are properly redacted, certainly use them against Brooks. As the Government knows and stated, it would be ‘impossible’ for a jury to follow any cautionary instruction.
“In the alternative,” the motion continues, “if the Court is inclined to grant the Government’s motion to consolidate despite the aforementioned issues, Brooks would have no choice but to agree to waive his constitutional right to confront S. Lawson and J. Lawson and agree to the admission of all of their statements in a separate trial in order to attempt to preserve some semblance of his constitutional right to Due Process by allowing him to expose S. Lawson’s and J. Lawson’s lies by cross-examining law enforcement about all of their statements.”
Sources: Taylor Six, The Lexington Herald-Ledger, June 4, 2024; Shay McAlister, WHAS, June 4, 2024, and Commonwealth of Kentucky v. Brooks William Houck, Case No. 23-CR-00309.
*Crystal Rogers was not the wife of Brooks Houck, she was his girlfriend and the mother of his then 2-year-old son, Eli. She had four other children (including a set of twins) by three different fathers.
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Post by catherine on Jun 6, 2024 22:51:49 GMT -5
Everyone in this case is white trash, but I don't think Houck would have referred to Crystal Rogers, who had 5 kids by 4 different men, as his wife. They didn't live together, and I don't think he had any plans to marry her. Also, if the two Lawsons know so much about the alleged murder, why don't they know what happened to the body? I think they said what the investigators badgered them into saying.
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Post by pat on Jun 7, 2024 1:49:12 GMT -5
Everyone in this case is white trash, but I don't think Houck would have referred to Crystal Rogers, who had 5 kids by 4 different men, as his wife. They didn't live together, and I don't think he had any plans to marry her. Also, if the two Lawsons know so much about the alleged murder, why don't they know what happened to the body? I think they said what the investigators badgered them into saying. |
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Post by Graveyardbride on Sept 4, 2024 18:36:08 GMT -5
FBI Searches Coxs Creek Property for Body of Crystal RogersFBI agents are searching two properties once owned by Anna Whitesides, the 91-year-old grandmother of Brooks Houck, who is awaiting trial on charges of murder and evidence tampering. The sites on Whitesides Road had been in the family since 1900, but were sold in recent years. An agency spokesperson explained the search in Coxs Creek is “a followup to tips received related to the Crystal Rogers investigation.”
Coxs Creek is an unincorporated community approximately five miles north of Bardstown, and a court document released in June, revealed Steven Lawson, one of the Defendants awaiting trial, claimed that shortly after Ms. Rogers disappeared, he saw Co-Defendant Joseph Lawson, his son, “digging” in the area with construction equipment. Nonetheless, according to Nelson County Sheriff Raymond Pineiroa, “They have not found a body, and it’s what we’re here to do.”
In the meantime, local, state and federal authorities are hoping to connect a gun purchased by Nick Houck, brother of Defendant Brooks Houck, to the November 2016 shooting of Tommy Ballard, father of Crystal Rogers.Sources: Reyna Katko, WDRB, September 4, 2024; Spectrum News, September 4, 2024, and WHAS.
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