A former girlfriend of a man who was convicted for crimes related to the disappearance of Crystal Rogers told a jury Friday that she overheard her boyfriend, Steven Lawson and his son, Joseph Lawson, talk about moving a body.

Joseph Lawson is on trial in Warren County Justice Center on charges of conspiracy to commit murder and complicity to tampering with physical evidence.

Brooks Houck, who was Rogers’ boyfriend when she went missing in 2015, is charged with complicity to murder and complicity to tampering with physical evidence.

Rogers was 35 when she was last seen on July, 3, 2015, in Bardstown. Her mother reported her missing two days later, when Rogers’ car was found abandoned on the Bluegrass Parkway.

Rogers has not been seen or heard from since and she is presumed dead.

The crimes were charged in Nelson County, but significant pretrial publicity led the presiding judge, 10th Circuit Judge Charles Simms, to move the trial to Warren County.

Steven Lawson was found guilty last month in Warren County of conspiracy to commit murder and tampering with physical evidence.

At the trial Friday for Houck and Joseph Lawson, jurors heard from Heather Snellen, a former girlfriend of Steven Lawson.

While on the witness stand, Snellen acknowledged telling Kentucky State Police in 2023 that she overheard the Lawsons talk about moving a body on the Houck family farm, but she also admitted that she did not make that disclosure during multiple previous interviews with law enforcement.

Questioned Friday by special prosecutor Shane Young, Snellen said that she overheard the conversation sometime in 2017 while in the laundry room at Steven Lawson’s home, testifying that she was a methamphetamine user at the time and that Joseph Lawson was her drug source.

Snellen said she did not tell police initially about what she heard because she did not want to get involved in the case.

“I wanted to distance myself from it as much as I could,” Snellen said.

Snellen had been interviewed twice by the FBI and once by KSP before she contacted the state police on Sept. 20, 2023, and told the agency she had more information to share about the case.

Houck’s attorney, Brian Butler, tried to attack the credibility of Snellen’s bombshell statement by framing it as information given under duress to two KSP detectives employing coercive tactics.

Snellen said she had information that had to do with texts she received from Joseph Lawson in which he was trying to remember what he did the weekend of July 3-4, 2015.

When she came to KSP for the interview, Snellen was on probation and had a pending child protective services case against her in which she risked losing custody of her son.

Snellen had acknowledged deleting several text messages from her phone, testifying that she had stopped using meth by 2023 and the messages she deleted were from contacts also involved with drugs.

Aided by a transcript from the approximately 4 1/2-hour interview with KSP Troopers Charles Miller and Brian Luckett, Butler read passages in which the troopers threatened Snellen with felony charges of perjury or tampering with physical evidence if she were not more forthcoming.

The troopers also made it clear that Snellen was in danger of losing her child, with Butler saying that the investigators told Snellen “you need to think about your little boy” and “your life might be ruined if you don’t remember more.”

“You said ‘I’ve been painted in a corner, I don’t like it’ — it was awful wasn’t it?” Butler said while cross-examining Snellen about the interview.

Snellen acknowledged having told the detectives she shared everything she knew and also acknowledged having made a written statement a month after the interview in which she said she “felt as if (she) was being pressured into saying things that were untruthful” and that she had no knowledge about the Rogers case.

Questioned by Young, Snellen said she would go on to give her account of overhearing the Lawsons talk about moving a body when she was brought before a grand jury, and reiterated that this was the truth when questioned directly by Young on Friday.

“The truth is that I overheard them talk about moving a body at the Houck farm with a skid-steer,” Snellen said.

Snellen also spoke about having her car, a Chrysler that she and Steven Lawson had bought together before they broke up, stolen from her workplace on the evening of July 3, 2015.

Snellen said her then-husband picked her up from work that night when she reported being sick, then she saw the Chrysler outside a Bardstown bar and took it back, driving it to a house on Boston Road, just north of and parallel to the Bluegrass Parkway.

Snellen said the car had some needles, tourniquets, blankets and a grocery bag of “soured, wet clothes” when she looked inside it, and that the car had been taken back from her that night.

Witness alleges being approached by Houck’s mother about Rogers

Danny Singleton, who did construction jobs for Houck, testified Thursday afternoon, telling jurors that he was approached by Houck’s mother, Rosemary Houck at a job site.

Singleton claimed that Rosemary Houck asked him about finding someone to “get rid of Crystal.”

“She didn’t ask me to do it, she asked if I knew a way of getting it done,” Singleton said. “I said if you if had enough money you could do anything.”

Singleton admitted that he kept that information to himself until he was interviewed several months later by law enforcement.

Questioned by attorney Steve Schroering, who also represents Brooks Houck, Singleton acknowledged that he was arrested during the investigation and charged with multiple counts of perjury.

Singleton admitted to being a crack cocaine user and a heavy drinker in 2015.

When he was brought before a grand jury in Nelson County, Singleton testified that he had no part in moving Rogers’ car or her body.

Singleton reportedly told authorities that he was at a Louisville bar on the night of July 3, 2015, only to admit later that he was at his Bardstown home smoking crack cocaine with a woman, testifying Thursday that he lied about his whereabouts to avoid getting into trouble related to his drug use.

After being jailed on suspicion of perjury in December 2015, Singleton was visited by federal investigators in April 2016, which is when he first told about being approached by Houck’s mother about making Rogers disappear.

Singleton later pleaded guilty to misdemeanor counts of false testimony and was released from jail.

Questioned by Schroering, Singleton acknowledged being visited in 2023 by KSP and informed that something big was about to happen in the Rogers case and they were “trying to make sure you’re on the right side of things.”

Singleton maintained Thursday that he was telling the truth about his interaction with Rosemary Houck.