A Kentucky mother of five is missing in what authorities say is the second such tragedy to strike her family.
Investigators say Crystal Rogers, 35, of Bardstown was last seen July 3 by her live-in boyfriend, with whom she has a young son. Brooks Houck told authorities that Rogers stayed up late that night and, when he woke the next morning, she was gone.
Her maroon 2007 Chevy Impala was found abandoned two days later along Kentucky’s Bluegrass Parkway, ABC News reports. Rogers’ keys, purse and cell phone were inside the vehicle, which had a flat tire.
“Crystal, we love you. We’re looking for you and we’re not gonna stop,” Rogers’ mother, Sherry Ballard, said at a news conference.
Deputies executed a search warrant a week after Rogers’ disappearance at a farm owned by Houck’s mother, according to WKYT, the local CBS affiliate. Deputies, volunteers and family member have also done multiple searches of the Bluegrass Parkway, along with rivers, creeks and woods, in an effort to find Rogers.
Houck denies involvement in his girlfriend’s disappearance.
Rogers’ family is offering a $71,000 reward for information leading to her whereabouts. She is described as having shoulder-length blonde hair, standing about 5 feet, 9 inches and weighing about 150 pounds.
Anyone with information about her whereabouts is asked to call the Nelson County Sheriff’s Office at 348-1840 or Nelson County Dispatch at 348-3211.
The Kentucky Standard reported that Rogers’ disappearance is the second to occur in her family. Rogers’ paternal aunt, Sherry Ballard Barnes, disappeared in 1979 at the age of 19.
Barnes, who was more than seven months pregnant when she disappeared, was never seen alive again. Her purse and car were found in the Ohio River a week after she vanished, but it was three years before investigators found her remains and those of her unborn child buried in a rural area.
Her husband, Edsel “Eddie” Barnes, was convicted in 1984 of hiring a man to kill his pregnant wife to avoid the cost of delivering and paying to support the child, the Kentucky New Era reported. He was sentenced to life in prison.
