BARDSTOWN, Ky. — After almost a decade of searching for answers, there have been a couple major breakthroughs in the unsolved case of Crystal Rogers.
Rogers grew up in the small town of Bardstown, Kentucky, and was the mother of five children.
According to the Crystal Rogers Task Force, the 35-year-old "loved being a mother and was a caring person who would help friends when they were in need."
At the time of her disappearance, Rogers was living with her boyfriend at the time, Brooks Houck.
She had four children before she met Houck. Rogers and Houck lived together with their 2-year-old son Eli, and her other four children.
The two were together with their toddler the last night Rogers was known to be alive -- July 3, 2015.
Houck told police they fed cows at his family's farm, then went home together. He said the next morning, she vanished. Despite this, he wasn't the one to report her missing.
Two days later, Rogers was reported missing by her mother, Sherry Ballard. The same day she was reported missing, her father -- Tommy Ballard -- found her red Chevrolet Impala abandoned with a flat tire along the Bluegrass Parkway. He found her keys in the ignition and her phone and purse still inside.
Rogers' has been presumed dead since October 2015.
However, multiple law enforcement agencies, people within the Nelson County community, and her family have worked endlessly to find answers.
Rogers was her parents' pride and joy.
“Just a really sweet girl,” Sherry Ballard said in a previous interview with WHAS11 News. “She would do anything for anybody. She looked at everybody the same…I couldn’t ask for a better daughter than her.”
Rogers was her parents’ first born, and Sherry said they were very picky about who they thought should be around their daughter.
“We wanted what was best for our daughter,” she said in a previous interview with WHAS11 News. “And all the other relationships we didn't think were best for our daughter, so when she met Brooks, I think she saw the opportunity.”
RELATED: Who is Brooks Houck, the man arrested in connection to the disappearance of Crystal Rogers?
Houck was named the main suspect of the investigation, but he had never been arrested in connection with her disappearance -- until now.
The 41-year-old was arrested on Wednesday and charged with murder and tampering with physical evidence.
Sherry has said multiple times she believes Houck killed her daughter.
“I think Brooks murdered my daughter," Ballard told the WHAS11 News UNSOLVED team in 2019. "I've never made that a secret."
In mid-August, a Nelson County man, Joseph Lawson, was also arrested in connection to Rogers' disappearance.
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