An analyst who reviewed police interviews of two witnesses who have testified against Brooks Houck told jurors Friday that the police used highly coercive tactics that affected the quality of information the witnesses provided.

The defense is presenting its proof at the trial of Houck, 43, and Joseph Lawson, who are both accused in connection with the disappearance of Houck’s then-girlfriend, Crystal Rogers.

Houck is charged with complicity to murder and complicity to tampering with physical evidence, while Lawson is charged with conspiracy to commit murder and complicity to tampering with physical evidence.

Rogers was 35 when she was last seen on July 3, 2015, and evidence has emerged she traveled with Houck and their young son to the Houck family farm and was not seen afterward.

Rogers’ car was found abandoned on the Bluegrass Parkway on July 5, 2015.

A grand jury indicted Houck, Lawson and Lawson’s father, Steven Lawson, in 2023.

Steven Lawson was found guilty earlier of conspiracy to commit murder and tampering with physical evidence.

The crimes were charged in Nelson County, but the trials were moved to Warren County.

Psychologist: Police interviews were coercive

Cognitive psychologist Jeffrey Neuschatz testified Thursday morning as an expert witness for the defense, offering his analysis of interviews that Kentucky State Police conducted in 2023 with Charlie Girdley and Heather Snellen.

Girdley has claimed that Steven Lawson spoke to him at a job site in 2015 about Houck wanting to “get rid of” Rogers, with Girdley saying he laughed off the suggestion from Lawson that he should do it.

Girdley also gave varying accounts to police of how Rogers’ car keys passed from Houck to Joseph Lawson.

Snellen, a former girlfriend of Steven Lawson, has testified that she overheard the Lawsons talk about moving a body on the Houck family farm.

Questioned Friday by defense attorney Brian Butler, Neuschatz offered his assessment of each of the two KSP interviews, which both lasted longer than four hours.

“These were some of the most coercive interrogation tactics I’ve seen,” Neuschatz said, testifying later that threats of consequences or promises of leniency from police can, along with other tactics, produce false statements from interview subjects.

When he was interviewed by KSP, Girdley had been arrested for absconding from his probation.

Neuschatz said that KSP detectives in Girdley’s interview deployed coercive tactics that included promises of leniency in his probation matter in exchange for providing information in the Rogers case, appealing to his self-interest by mentioning to him that Girdley had a “once in a lifetime opportunity” to provide information and issuing veiled threats that this interview was a “pivotal moment” in his life.

The detectives also emphasized the serious nature of this case by mentioning that it was rare to have special prosecutor Shane Young present to offer assistance in Girdley’s unrelated criminal case in exchange for cooperating with authorities in the Rogers case, which Neuschatz also identified as a coercive tactic that affected the quality of information police received.

Snellen contacted KSP ahead of her interview to report that she wanted to give additional information, but a pending case against her involving child protective services and the potential loss of custody of her son was mentioned frequently during the police interview.

Neuschatz testified that the interview was rife with implied threats that Snellen would lose her son if she did not provide investigators with the information they wanted in the Rogers case.

Jurors were played several excerpts from each interview, watching police touch the knees and shoulders of both Girdley and Snellen, which Neuschatz identified as another coercive tactic.

“Your life’s going good, I want you to keep it that way,” one of the KSP officers tells Snellen in one of the clips.

A detective in a later clip tells Snellen he is “tired of being lied to,” and Snellen is heard crying during several excerpts and demanding to go at one point.

Neuschatz mentioned that police are not satisfied with multiple accounts from Girdley and Snellen about what they know about the Rogers case over the course of each interview, leading to a heightening of coercive tactics.

Cross-examined by Young, Neuschatz conceded that while the interrogation tactics may have been unpleasant, they are not illegal, and also testified that he had not reviewed footage from other interviews given by Girdley, Snellen or other witnesses.

Neuschatz also agreed with Young that Girdley’s state of mind during the interview may have been affected by having been up for five days while using methampethamine, but that Girdley had the wherewithal during the interview to volunteer to correct an inaccurate bit of information he had given the KSP detectives earlier in questioning.

Young also noted that both Girdley and Snellen gave sworn testimony at trial and, without being coerced, offered the same incriminating information that police heard.

Cell phone expert testifies

Adrian Lauf, a University of Louisville computer science professor and an expert on cell phone data, testified Thursday for the defense, going over his analysis of data from Steve Lawson’s phone.

Lauf testified that, based on his analysis of cell phone location data, Steve Lawson was not on the Bluegrass Parkway on the night of July 3, 2015, but instead traveling on Boston Road, a corridor north of the parkway that runs somewhat parallel.

Lauf said his conclusion was based in part on some signals from Lawson’s phone bouncing off of cell tower sectors that faced Boston Road rather than the parkway, with one tower being too far away from the parkway for Lawson’s phone to have accessed it.

Young cross-examined Lauf for a lengthy period Thursday afternoon, focusing on what appeared to be an inaccuracy in data points in Lauf’s analysis that Lawson said would have required Lawson to be driving 154 miles per hour for his cell phone to hit all the towers included on a path mapped out by Lauf.

Young’s questioning also brought up Lauf’s testimony at the 2022 murder trial of Antonio Wilson in Warren County.

At that trial, Young mentioned that Lauf testified that if one data point was wrong in a cell phone data analysis, the entire analysis should be called into question.

Lauf responded that each case involves a different set of circumstances and cell data analysis should be viewed on a case-by-case basis.

Steve Lawson testified at his trial last month that he drove on the parkway to pick up Joseph Lawson from Rogers’ car late on the night of July 3, 2015, but that evidence is inadmissible at this trial.