Lauren Johansen (22) was found beaten to death and wrapped in a sheet on July 3, 2024 in Harrison County, Mississippi. Her body was found in the backseat of her vehicle.
Lauren’s boyfriend Bricen Rivers is her alleged killer. He had just bonded out of jail days before her death. He had been imprisoned for aggravated kidnapping and holding Lauren hostage during a trip to Nashville, Tennessee in December 2023.
As some background into Lauren, she was born on October 30, 2001 in Ocean Springs, Mississippi. Her parents are Surgeon Lance Johansen and Tamela Johansen. She had three siblings – Kylar, Christian and Katelyn.
She graduated from Vancleave High School and she was studying nursing at the University of Southern Mississippi. Her father said she wanted to be a nurse because she loved helping people. “The best quality about her was that she had a really big heart.”
Her family have said she loved horseback riding and going to the beach. She also enjoyed makeup artistry. She took her dog, Bentley Jo, and cat, Marley, with her everywhere, and she even had a rescue horse she named Cocoa, her father said.
Lauren started dating Bricen years ago. He was said to be the star player on his high school football team.
Bricen does have a prior criminal history. He was arrested in January 2021 in Hancock County, Mississippi for DUI.
He was also arrested in October 2022 for auto burglary in nearby Harrison County and again in December 2022 for possession and trafficking of a controlled substance
Their relationship seems like it was turbulent and Lauren decided to end things when she headed off to the University of Southern Mississippi.
Her family claim ‘obsessed’ Bricen stalked her on and off for years, breaking into her apartment and starting fights with any men she tried to date.
In late 2023, Lauren’s family were shocked to learn that she had gotten back with Bricen and that the two had gone on vacation to Nashville.
Lauren’s father Lance said he puts this decision down to her suffering from ‘battered woman syndrome.’
Some info about battered woman syndrome:
Battered woman syndrome (BWS) is a pattern of signs and symptoms displayed by a woman who has suffered persistent intimate partner violence—psychological, physical, or sexual—from her male partner. It may be diagnosed as a subcategory of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).Victims may exhibit a range of behaviors, including self-isolation, suicidal thoughts, and substance abuse, and signs of physical injury or illness, such as bruises, broken bones, or chronic fatigue.
When Lauren and Bricen went to Nashville, they went to Topgolf and also checked out a museum. On December 11, Bricen got drunk and flew into a rage at Lauren. He accused her of having sex with a bartender.
Bricen took Lauren’s phone so she couldn’t call for help and drove to a parking lot where he allegedly clubbed her with a pistol and pulled out chunks of her hair.
He held her captive inside the vehicle for an hour until his mom, Chelsa Rivers, overheard screaming in the background on a call to her son and tipped off cops to their location, according to court filings.
Some more info about the incident from Tennessean.com:
She told police she had a gun in her bag on the back seat, but Bricen held her down, preventing her from getting to the gun, according to the affidavit.
She recalled that they were in a parking lot for about an hour, and she kicked and screamed and blew the car’s horn every time she saw a vehicle pass them, the affidavit said.
Rivers held his forearm against Lauren’s throat until she saw black and got dizzy as she continued to scream for help, the affidavit said.
Officers arrived to find ‘traumatized’ Lauren in just her bra and panties, screaming and banging on the window for help and calling for her father.
She was ‘severely beaten, her eye was swollen shut and she also had a severe laceration to her forehead,’ according to cops.
We won’t post the images of Lauren’s injuries but there is an article with information here.
A gun was found on the floor of the car that they had rented.
Lauren was hospitalized for two days after the attack.
Bricen was arrested and charge with two counts of aggravated kidnapping, one count of aggravated stalking, and one count of coercion of a witness. A preliminary hearing was held on December 18. Lance and Lauren attended. Lance testified at the time and said that Lauren had been ‘hit over 100 times’. He said he feared for her life if Bricen ever got to her again.
“I sat in the courtroom in Nashville and told the judge that if they let him out, he was going to kill her,” Lance said. “He had assaulted her — this was probably the fifth or sixth time where they would get into a fight and he would beat her.”
Bricen remained in prison for four months. In March 2024, his lawyers filed a motion requesting that his bond be reduced.
Judge Blackburn noted in an April 3 order there was a ‘high likelihood of conviction’ due to police body camera footage and audio recordings from inside the car.
Nonetheless the judge concluded that a ‘bond of $150,000 is appropriate in this case’ noting that ‘it does not appear that Mr. Rivers has any prior criminal history.’
Stephen Hayslip, Director of Communications for the Davidson County District Attorney’s Office told the media that it contested the reduced bond but didn’t flag up any prior arrests.
He said this was because Assistant District Attorneys working the case were not aware of any criminal convictions and that arrests that did not result in convictions wouldn’t be considered evidence of prior criminality.
Bricen was released after his family paid $15,000 to secure his release via a bonding company.
Judge Blackburn’s order, which was signed by Bricen said he was barred from leaving Davidson County and should be ‘placed on electronic monitoring’.
Freedom Monitoring Services, the company involved in keeping tabs on him, didn’t appear to know he was supposed to stay in the Nashville area, however, according to reporting by News Channel 5.
Bricen was meant to be given an ankle monitor and this did not happen.
“They let him out and didn’t tell us, and didn’t put the ankle monitor on him. They just let him walk out of jail,” Lance said.
Bricen apparently had accommodation lined up in Nashville but that fell through and he went back to Mississippi to live with his family. He arrived back there on Saturday, June 29, 2024.
On Monday, July 1, Lance received a voicemail from the Davidson County District Attorney’s Office warning him about Bricen’s release and that he wasn’t being tracked. WLOX News obtained a copy of that voicemail, which read:
This is Bailey calling from the district attorney’s office in Nashville. Bricen Rivers was released from custody. He was supposed to report straight to a GPS company and be put on a GPS monitor and he was not to leave Davidson County. But as soon as he was released, he did not report to that GPS monitoring company, and he has not been heard from. I wanted to make sure Lauren is safe.
On the same day, Bricen called in to say that he would not make it to court in Nashville on July 2 as he did not have a ride.
Lance called Lauren but she did not answer. When she texted him back, he said it “didn’t really look like the way she talks.”
On Tuesday July 2, Lance said that he woke up at 4am and got a notification that Lauren’s Life360 Tracker was turned off. He then got a call from his other daughter, who had been living with Lauren. She said that the front door had been left wide open and the security camera had been destroyed. There was no sign of Lauren.
Freedom Monitoring (the GPS monitoring service) started to contact Bricen as the battery on his device started going down at around 10am. He did not respond to messages from them. They contacted Bricen’s mother who said she had not seen or heard from her son.
Bricen’s tracker got to zero percent battery on this day and his probation officer and bonding company were alerted.
The court issued a warrant on this day for Bricen as he was in violation of court orders.
The family contacted Hattiesburg Police Department to file a missing person report.
Lance said “When I got up there in the morning, I called to see what [Hattiesburg Police] found overnight. There was no communication. They didn’t do anything. We assumed they were going to track the vehicle and try to find her, but they never did it until Wednesday at 3 o’clock when I insisted they find out where the car was.”
The police used OnStar to track Lauren’s vehicle and it was discovered at Wolf River Cemetery in Harrison County, Mississippi on July 3.
Police informed Lance that Lauren’s vehicle had been found and he went to the cemetery.
“I knew she was dead,” Lance said. “She was basically beaten to death. Her face was smashed in, her head was smashed in, she was brutally beaten to the point she couldn’t see out of either eye when she finally died and there was multiple holes in her head,” he said.
He continued: “I helped the coroner lift her body out of the car. It was just mutilated.”
After dumping Lauren’s body and the vehicle, Bricen fled into the woods. He was captured after a manhunt that went on for hours.
“We probably had upwards of 50 law enforcement officers out here,” Haley said. “Several drones, our helicopters, we had dogs-canines from all over the coast,” Harrison County Sheriff Matt Haley said.
‘We realized early on that the subject still had his cell phone on him,’ Sheriff Haley said.
‘So undercover officers were able to, through text message, have Rivers believe that he was corresponding with a friend, and we were able to lure him out of the woods.’
Bricen was booked into Harrison County Jail and was charged with murder. His bond is currently set at $1m.
Davidson County Chief Deputy Criminal Court Clerk Julius Sloss acknowledged this week that his office made a mistake when it came to sharing information with the Davidson County Sheriff’s Office on how Bricen should have been released.
“Someone in our office made a mistake,” Sloss said. “When the release was sent to the sheriff, it did not contain the conditions that were outlined in the order, especially the portion talking about the person needing to have a GPS tracking device. At the very least, a copy of the order should have been attached to the release.”
Bricen’s bonding company said it, too, didn’t know the full conditions of his release because the clerk did not provide them. The clerk, however, said it is the full responsibility of the bonding company to know the conditions and understand what’s being signed beforehand.
Sloss said the clerk’s office is working to implement a stopgap measure that will ask employees to confirm they have communicated with the Sheriff’s Office any conditions of the defendant’s release from jail.
“At the end of the day, I hope it doesn’t get lost in all the finger pointing that mistakes were made and a life was lost,” the clerk, said. “And that’s what we’re struggling with on this side of the criminal justice system.”
A cause of death has not been released. Mississippi officials told The Tennessean that autopsy records, especially those connected to homicide cases, aren’t considered public record in their state.
Lance has spoken about what he thinks Bricen’s motivation for the murder was.
‘It all came to a head because of this new court date,’ Lance said.
‘He knew they were going to throw him back in jail for violating the order and he wouldn’t get out for the next 20 years. He had nothing to lose so he came for her.’
‘My daughter was a wonderful, kind person. She had so much compassion and love for others, there wasn’t a mean bone in her body,’ he added.
‘All I can do to honor her memory is try and stop this happening to someone else’s daughter or granddaughter. Lauren would have hated that more than anything.’
SOURCE LIST
https://www.wlox.com/2024/07/09/new-details-timeline-events-leading-up-murder-lauren-johansen
https://www.bradfordokeefe.com/obituaries/lauren-johansen