The Bardstown Murders

     Bardstown Kentucky is a small town outside of Louisville with a population of around fifteen thousand.  In recent years it has become known nationally as the small town with a string of unsolved murders.  This has led many to wonder if the murders are connected or if there is a serial killer on the loose.

     On May 25, 2013, Bardstown Police Officer Jason Ellis was on his way home after his shift.   It was around three A.M. when Ellis came across tree branches blocking an exit ramp.  When Ellis exited his car to remove the branches, he was shot several times, killing the thirty-three-year-old.  As of this writing the murder of Officer Ellis has not been solved.

     On April 21, 2014, less than a year after the Ellis murder the small town is rocked again.  When forty-eight-year-old Kathy Netherland fails to show up to work a wellness check is conducted.  The schoolteacher and her sixteen-year-old daughter, Samantha, were found dead.  Both had been brutally murdered.  The only clue seemed to be video footage nearby of a black Chevy Impala.  As of this writing the Netherland murders remain unsolved.

     Then, on Fourth of July weekend in 2015 Crystal Rogers a thirty-five-year-old mother of five disappeared.  Her car was found with a flat tire and her belongings still inside.  However, there was no sign of Crystal, and it is immediately suspected that foul play is involved.  Ironically, Crystal's aunt, Sherry Ballard Barnes, disappeared in 1979 from the same small town and was found dead in 1982.  But for the Ballard family tragedy doesn't stop with Sherry or Crystal.  On November 19, 2016, Crystal's father, Tommy Ballard, is shot and killed just outside of Bardstown.  Ballard was hunting with his young grandson when he was shot in the chest.  Police initially investigated Ballard's death as a hunting accident but then transitioned to a murder investigation.  As of this writing the murder of Tommy Ballard remains unsolved.

     In January of 2023 Kentucky's Attorney General appointed a special prosecutor to assist in the investigation into the murders of Jason Ellis, Crystal Rogers, and Tommy Ballard.  The Netherland murders were not included in this for unknown reasons.  Then, in the fall of 2023 there was a break in the Crystal Rogers case.  Crystal's boyfriend, Brooks Houck, and another man, Joseph Lawson, were arrested and charged in connection to her disappearance.  This has led to a good deal of hope that the other murders may soon be solved to.