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No violations found after AG’s office’s election inquiries

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The Kentucky Attorney General’s Office says no credible violations were discovered in the 2024 General Election.

The Attorney General’s office on Tuesday announced the completion of the 12 required county inquiries following the 2024 General Election. Kentucky law requires the AG’s office to conduct independent inquiries in 12 randomly selected counties following an election.

According to a release from the AG’s office, no credible election law violations were found by detectives with the Kentucky Attorney General’s Department of Criminal Investigations. Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman said in a letter to the Kentucky State Board of Elections: “I’d like to thank all of the county clerks, poll workers, and volunteers who made it possible for Kentuckians to exercise one of our most fundamental rights.”

The AG’s office activates the Election Integrity Command Center and increases staffing for the Election Fraud Hotline ahead of each Kentucky election. The AG’s office says during the 2024 General Election cycle the hotline received more than 700 messages. Two came from Breckinridge County, five from Bullitt, one from Grayson, seven from Hardin, one from Hart, two from LaRue, three from Meade, and six from Nelson. Visit the Attorney General’s office’s website for more information.

Prosecution rests in Houck-Lawson trial

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After five days of testimony from 38 witnesses, the prosecution rested its case in the trial of Crystal Rogers investigation suspects Brooks Houck and Joseph Lawson Tuesday.

The prosecution showed a recorded deposition of Terry Benjamin with Lone Star Search and Rescue. He testified that on May 21, 2016, Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office Detective Jamie Brooks picked Benjamin and his K9 partner Ranger up and took them to a parking lot owned by the Louisville Metro Police Department on Poplar Level Road. Benjamin testified that Ranger performed a “double-blind” search of the lot, with no prior details from Brooks and with Brooks waiting outside the lot which had about 10 cars in it. Benjamin said Ranger narrowed his search to two vehicles, then sat down at the back right corner of a white Buick, which Brooks on Monday testified was the kind of car Anna Whitesides and Nick Houck had traded into a dealership on May 2, 2016. Benjamin testified that sitting down is Ranger’s trained final response in a human remains detection search.

The prosecution next called Joshua Hickman, who the court recognized as a digital forensics expert. Hickman testified that he had been asked to do analysis on extraction data on Rogers’s phone, and he testified that the data shows on July 3, 2016, the phone was on and using apps from 7:39 p.m. until it appears the battery died at 9:23 p.m. Hickman said the device booted back up at 11:57 p.m. before being manually shut down 30 seconds later, and he testified that Rogers’s phone was then off until 10:45 a.m. on July 6.

Joseph Lawson’s former stepmother Rebecca Greer, who is also the mother of his former partner Elizabeth Chesser, was called to the stand. She testified that in 2019 she overheard a conversation between Elizabeth and Lawson about “moving a car and $50,000.” When she later asked Lawson about it, he told her she needed to “ask Steve.” Greer also testified that she and Steven Lawson went over to break up an altercation between Chesser and Joseph, at which time Steven and Joseph began fighting. Greer testified that Joseph told Steven “You keep on, and I’m going to let everyone know about this car and your involvement.”

Lawson’s grandmother Barbara Colter also took the stand. She testified that in the summer of 2022, while Steven Lawson was living with Colter, Joseph showed up one day on his motorcycle while high and told her that Steven killed Rogers. She testified that she said “if you’re going to say stuff like this, you have to know it’s a fact.”

Following the closing of the prosecution’s case, Nelson Circuit Judge Charles Simms III dismissed the jury for the day to review “motions for a directed verdict of acquittal” filed by both defenses. Houck’s attorney Brian Butler argued that the prosecution’s case does not meet the standards set in Kentucky case law for conviction in a no-body homicide. Butler said “It’s clear you have to have one of three things: a body, a crime scene, or confession. None of those exist in this case.” Simms denied the motion, stating that based on evidence presented there is proof of death in the case for a jury to deliberate on. Lawson’s attorneys argued in order to have a conspiracy you have to have an agreement, which they said the persecution never proved. Simms one again said the evidence presented could reasonably convince a jury, and denied the motion.

The defenses will open their case as the trial resumes at the Warren County Justice Center Wednesday morning.

Stats released on Kentucky domestic violence cases in 2024

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The governor’s office released the 2024 Kentucky Domestic Violence Data Report this week. 

The report is compiled using data from the Kentucky State Police, the Cabinet for Health and Family Services, the Administrative Office of the Courts, and ZeroV. The report is the product of laws signed in 2022 and 2023 requiring the collection and analysis of data related to domestic violence.

According to a release from the Kentucky Justice and Public Safety Cabinet, “The 2024 report shows that levels of domestic violence remained stable compared to the year before.” Fewer JC3 forms, which are completed after law enforcement responds to a domestic violence report, were filed, while there was a slight increase in the number of domestic violence-related arrests made.

The report states that 7,964 arrests were made for incidents in 2024. 17,023 protective orders or temporary interpersonal orders were served, and 23,023 crisis or hotline calls were received through ZeroV.

Kentucky domestic violence programs and shelters are available 24/7. If you or somebody you know is in need of assistance, reach out to the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 or contact your local KSP post’s victim advocate.

School districts announce new administrative team members

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Area school districts are celebrating new additions to their administrative teams.

Elizabethtown Independent Schools has named Wesley Hatfield as the district’s new Curriculum Specialist. The district said in a release: “A dedicated educator with nearly 20 years of classroom experience, Hatfield brings a deep understanding of instructional excellence, collaboration, and student-centered learning to this new leadership role.”

EIS also announced Daniel Lockwood as the district’s new Assistant Superintendent of Student Learning. The district said: “Lockwood brings more than two decades of educational leadership experience to the role, including service as a teacher, principal, and most recently, a leader at the Kentucky Department of Education.”

Meanwhile, Hardin County Schools announced that John Hardin High School Vice Principal Tiffany Jones will serve as the district’s new Director of Federal Programs and Leadership Development. She replaces Debbie Wyatt, who is retiring following a 33-year career with HCS.

Vehicle owned by Houck’s grandmother topic of testimony as Houck-Lawson trial continues

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The prosecution continued its case as the trial of Crystal Rogers investigation suspects Brooks Houck and Joseph Lawson continued at the Warren County Justice Center Monday morning.

The prosecution called Amber Bowman, who was dating Houck’s brother Nick at the time of the disappearance. Bowman testified that the weekend of July 3, 2015, she and Nick Houck were in the process of moving from their home on Glenview Drive to a home on Olympia Drive, but the morning of July 3 he said he was going to help Brooks Houck with a property. The prosecution submitted phone records that showed Bowman called Nick Houck 15 times between 11:43 a.m. on July 3 and 10:49 a.m. on July 4, all of which went straight to voicemail.

The prosecution called Charlie Girdley, who worked for Houck in 2015 and was a friend of the Lawsons. Girdley testified that Joseph Lawson once told him he would bury Rogers with a skid steer “and nobody would ever find her.” Girdley also testified, as he did when called to testify in the trial of Steven Lawson last month, that he and Joseph Lawson went to Houck’s home to pick up their money from work and he saw Houck give Lawson the keys to Rogers’s car, which Lawson told him he was going to work on.

Two racoon hunters, Ryan Cecil and Daniel Donahue, testified that while participating in a coon hunt on July 3,2015 at a farm neighboring the Houck farm they found a white Buick parked along a road running through the woods behind the farm. Donahue testified he knew Rogers’s brother Casey Ballard and told him about the car, and participated in a search for Rogers to point out the location of the car.

Detective Jamie Brooks with the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office and a member of the IRS Special Crimes Task Force testified on the contents of three audio recorders found during the execution of a search warrant on the Houck farm. Brooks also testified that he received the tip from Donahue on the white Buick, but it wasn’t until a Facebook post by Tommy Ballard asking for information on the Buick from April 28, 2016, that law enforcement made a connection. Brooks testified that in May of 2016 a search warrant for the vehicle was executed at the home of Anna Whitesides, Houck’s grandmother. Officers instead found a vehicle with a 30-day temporary tag, and after further investigation it was found Nick Houck had taken Whitesides to a Louisville dealership on May 2, 2016, to trade in the Buick for a different car.

Brooks testified that the Louisville Metro Police Department took the Buick in for processing, and lab analysis on a hair found in the back left of the trunk came back as being a microscopic match for Rogers’s hair. On cross examination, Brooks testified that Nick Houck’s DNA was not found in the car despite it being known he was in the vehicle.

Hardin County Chief Deputy Coroner Shana Norton was called to testify, although her testimony was unrelated to her job. Norton testified that while driving home from Shelby County during daylight hours on July 4, 2015, she saw Rogers’s vehicle on the shoulder of the Bluegrass Parkway with a truck pulling a trailer with a flat tire behind the car. Norton reported what she saw to law enforcement after seeing coverage of the Rogers case on TV on July 9.

The prosecution will continue its case as the trial resumes Tuesday morning.