Unnamed sources: KSP investigating Ballard death as possible homicide

NC GAZETTE / WBRT RADIO
STAFF REPORT

Saturday, Nov. 19, 2016, 9:22 a.m. (Updated 8:30 p.m.) — Tommy Ballard, father of Crystal Rogers, the Nelson County woman missing since July 2015, was killed Saturday morning in a hunting accident near the Ed Brent Road home of his son, Casey Ballard.

According to WAVE 3 News, Ballard was shot and killed while going into a wooded area to hunt with his grandson.

Recent information posted by The Kentucky Standard indicates that KSP is investigating the shooting as a possible homicide. According to unnamed sources, the newspaper reported that Ballard and a grandson were about to go hunting when the grandson returned to the pickup truck they arrived in. Ballard stayed in the field to await his grandson’s return. Ballard was apparently shot as he waited for his grandson.

While a 3 p.m. state police post press conference in Elizabethtown was wrapping up Saturday afternoon, KSP troopers were arranging to bring portable lighting units to the scene so investigators could continue their work after dark.

As of 9:30 p.m., a police cruiser with emergency lights flashing was parked on the shoulder of the eastbound lanes of the Bluegrass Parkway south of the Pottershop Road overpass and not far from Ed Brent Road. A portable lighting system was in operation and was visible from the parkway. The lights were illuminating  a field between Ed Brent Road and the parkway.

KSP PRESS CONFERENCE. At 7:54 a.m. Saturday, Kentucky State Police investigators were called to the 1400 block of Ed Brent Road at the request of the Nelson County Sheriff’s Office, according to KSP Trooper Jeff Gregory, public affairs officer of KSP’s Post 4 in Elizabethtown.

Gregory confirmed the victim was Tommy Ballard, the father of Crystal Rogers, the Nelson County woman who went missing in July 2015. He said right now troopers are considering the case a death investigation.

“It’s too early to call it anything more than than,” he said at a press conference Saturday at the KSP Post in Elizabethtown.

He would not confirm reports from the scene that Ballard was accidentally shot by his grandson while hunting. He said he expected investigators to be on the scene for most of the day.

EMS, SHERIFF DISPATCHED BEFORE 7 A.M. Nelson County EMS and the Nelson County Sheriff’s Office were dispatched Saturday morning for a shooting incident in the 1400 block of Ed Brent Road that was reported about just before 7 a.m. Saturday morning.

Ed Brent Road is located off Pottershop Road near the Bluegrass Parkway overpass.

The Kentucky State Police is investigating the incident.

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