A courtroom sketch depicts former Nelson County Sheriff's Department Detective Jon Snow (seated, with glasses) testifying Wednesday at the trial of Steven Lawson. (Illustration by Sydney Young)

The second day of the criminal trial of Steven Lawson in the disappearance and presumed death of Crystal Rogers featured an allegation from a witness who claimed that Lawson told her he was going to leave his wife because she knew he had committed a murder.

Lawson is on trial in Warren County on charges of conspiracy to commit murder and tampering with physical evidence in connection with Rogers’ disappearance.

Lawson previously did work on rental houses developed by Rogers’ boyfriend, Brooks Houck, who will face trial next month on criminal charges related to the disappearance.

Rogers was 35 when she was last seen July 3, 2015, by Houck. She was reported missing two days later by relatives and is presumed dead by authorities.

Elizabeth Chesser, who had a child with Lawson’s son, Joseph Lawson, testified Wednesday during questioning from special prosecutor Shane Young about Steven Lawson’s alleged statement made during 2017 when she lived with her mother, who was dating Steven Lawson then.

Chesser said the subject came up when Lawson spoke of leaving his previous wife, Tammy.

“(Tammy) knew I had committed murder and she was going to turn on me, so I was leaving her,” Chesser alleged Steven Lawson told her in 2017.

This disclosure prompted sharp cross-examination from Lawson’s attorney, Darren Wolff.

Wolff asked Chesser why she did not go to he police with that information, and Chesser said she did not know it was connected to Rogers.

Chesser testified that she was “drying out” from addiction and pregnant at the time she was living with her mother and claimed to be sober at the time of the alleged remark.

Wolff got Chesser to acknowledge she had been watching a TV docuseries about the case around the time of the alleged remark, but Chesser maintained that the alleged statement from Lawson was her own independent recollection.

Chesser also disclosed that she spoke with Rogers’ mother, Sherry Ballard, during a break in the trial Wednesday.

“(Ballard) said thank you and I said I pray that it brings you peace, but I don’t know that it will,” Chesser said.

Wolff asked if Chesser was testifying out of a sense of loyalty to Ballard, and Chesser replied she was testifying for the sake of justice.

Asked by Wolff to elaborate, Chesser said justice involved somebody being in court and “they get consequences for their actions.”

Lead detective testifies

Jon Snow, a former Nelson County Sheriff’s Department detective, testified over the span of two days.

Snow, who retired from Nelson County in 2019 and is now a deputy with the Bullitt County Sheriff’s Department, said he was called out to Bluegrass Parkway on July 5, 2015, where Rogers’ abandoned car was found with the keys in the ignition and her cell phone and purse inside.

Snow said his investigation determined that one of Rogers’ daughters saw her leave home with Houck on July 3, 2019, that they went to Houck’s family farm and that Rogers did not return home.

Police obtained video footage that tracked Houck’s truck traveling to and leaving the farm.

The detective said the sheriff’s office was “inundated” with tips in the days after Rogers was reported missing, with one of the most crucial bits of data being a 13-second phone call Lawson made to Houck shortly after midnight on July 4, 2015.

Jurors Tuesday were played video footage of Snow interviewing Lawson about the call, during which Lawson acknowledged that he believed Rogers was dead.

Snow said Lawson initially denied making the call but then acknowledged the possibility.

“He said he sometimes gets intoxicated and makes phone calls late at night, many of them to his mother,” Snow said Tuesday.

Asked by Young why he focused his efforts on the phone call, Snow said it was because it happened so soon after Rogers was last seen alive.

The defense cross-examined Snow largely on the quality of the investigation, particularly with respect to the seizure of Rogers’ car, which was stored in a towing facility before being returned to her surviving family in 2017.

Snow said that not all items inside the car were seized, including a hairbrush belonging to Rogers that was processed by a private investigator hired by the producers of an Oxygen Network 2017 TV docuseries about the case.

Snow said it was possible someone else may have used the brush.

Hairs were collected by Nelson County police from tape lifts and sent to Kentucky State Police for further analysis, which did not take place.

“If you risk destroying the evidence, you have to approach that cautiously,” Snow said. “If you have no DNA to compare it to, you risk destroying evidence for no reason.”

Witness recalls “unusual” behavior

Stacie Cramer, who worked with Lawson building rental properties for Houck, recalled seeing Lawson ride with Houck in his truck for a long period of time on a job site, which Kramer said was odd given that Houck did not regularly have his employees riding with him on a site.

Cramer gave a statement to police in Nelson County in 2015 about three months after Rogers was reported missing, in which she reported asking Lawson why he was driving around with Houck.

“(Lawson) said I’ve got to take care of this girl, she’s got five kids and she’s not doing real good,” Cramer testified.

Cramer said she asked Lawson some follow-up questions, including whether the girl Lawson was referencing was going to rehab and Lawson reportedly said, “I wish it was the case.”

Wolff pointed out Cramer’s written statement to police mentioned that Lawson spoke of taking care of a girl who was on meth, and when questioned, Cramer testified that she did not know Rogers to use meth.

Cramer later said that this bit of information was extracted from Lawson after several questions from her, and that he thought Lawson’s responses were “full of bull.”

Young told jurors in his opening statement that cell phone activity and inconsistent statements from Lawson would go toward establishing his guilt.

Wolff said during his opening statement that, while there is proof that Lawson is guilty of evidence tampering, the evidence is too skimpy to prove he conspired in a murder plot and the prosecution is crafting a “narrative” that suits its theory.

“This is the commonwealth trying after 10 years of investigation to bring out a series of individuals who are all going to attempt to be heroes,” Wolff said during his opening statement, noting that the investigation was still ongoing. “They want to go down in history as the people who have solved the greatest mystery in the commonwealth of Kentucky.”Prosecution calls witnesses in trial’s second day