BARDSTOWN, Ky. (LEX 18)– A panel from the Commonwealth of Kentucky Court of Appeals has ruled that Crystal Rogers’ son is no longer allowed to visit his grandmother, Crystal’s mother, Sherry Ballard.
Crystal Rogers has been missing since July 2015.
This decision was made Friday.
Ballard was keeping the 6-year-old boy on alternating weekends since she and her husband, Tommy Ballard, filed a petition for grandparent visitations weeks after Rogers went missing.
Tommy Ballard was shot and killed in November 2016.
No arrests have been made in the disappearance of Crystal Rogers or the death of Tommy Ballard.
The child is the son of Crystal Rogers and Brooks Houck. Houck is the only suspect ever named in Rogers’ disappearance. He has never been charged.
Houck has primary custody of the boy. Crystal Rogers’ other four children live with Sherry Ballard. They are not related to Brooks Houck.
The panel ruled Friday that the tension between Brooks Houck and the Ballard family has reached a point that it is affecting the child. The ruling stated that after returning into his father’s care after visiting his grandmother, the child is “sullen and uncooperative.”
The ruling further states that Houck claimed the child is extremely accusatory, asking his father, “what did you do to my mommy,” and saying, “everyone wants to know.” The ruling stated that testimony from Houck’s and his current girlfriend, Crystal Maupin, “demonstrates that there has, in fact, been a detrimental aspect” to the child spending time at the Ballard home.
The panel states in the ruling that, “In making this determination, the mere existence of a close relationship between the grandparent and the child” will no always “be sufficient to overcome the parental presumption.” It says that the “mutual hostility between Houck and the Ballard family is especially intense”
The panel has reversed the trial court’s original visitation order. The case was sent back to the judge for another hearing about visitation rights.
