LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The discovery of possible human remains was first reported on July 23 when a property owner found what he believed to be human remains along the bank of Hardins Creek, near the Nelson County and Washington County line.
The embankment is on private property but the owner allows the public to use it as a park space.
The man who owns the property on the other side of the creek showed WHAS11 the grave, which sits on a river bank. "It would be nice to know what happened, just to know and to have closure for the family -- whoever family's it is," he said.
He said record rainfall over the last three years has eroded the area by up to 10-feet, meaning what was found poking out of the side of the embankment wouldn't have been visible years ago. He also described the river as dramatically changing just over the last several weeks.
On July 24, the Nelson County Sheriff's Office requested the assistant of the FBI evidence team at the scene. The FBI team worked to recover what they could and then sent the remains to the FBI lab in Quantico, Virginia, which is described as "the largest and most comprehensive lab in the world."
"They are working to identify those remains as quickly as they can," Assistant Special Agent in Charge, Brian Jones, said.
The FBI chalked up the wait time to high demand and a sizable backlog.
Late last week, the FBI released the first update on the remains. The update explained an extensive anthropological examination found the victim is likely a woman, 24 to 82-years-old and between 5-foot-two and 5-feet-9 inches tall.
The description does fit Crystal Rogers but it also fits other missing people... including 27-year-old Kara Rigdon, who's been missing from Marion County since July 2010.
Rigdon and Rogers are two of 265 people reported missing in Kentucky right now, according to the National Missing and Unidentified persons system.
The FBI said it would be difficult for them to defend keeping the identity from the family, once they lab has it, without an incredibly compelling reason.
The Bardstown podcast, which details new developments in the Rogers case and other unsolved Nelson County cases, is available on Apple Podcasts or any other streaming service. Listen to it below:
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