A 22-year-old college student from coastal Mississippi was found beaten to death and wrapped in a sheet in the back seat of her car, police officials said last week.
Lauren Johansen’s father, Lance Johansen, told WLOX-TV that her boyfriend had just been released from jail on bail for subjecting her to an aggravated kidnapping in Nashville.
“I sat in the courtroom in Nashville and told the judge that if they released him, he would kill her,” Lance Johansen told WLOX. “He had attacked her – this was probably the fifth or sixth time they got into an argument and he hit her.”
Bricen Rivers, 23, now faces a murder charge in Harrison County and a $1 million bail.
He was arrested after a six-hour manhunt involving multiple agencies and tracking dogs. When officers found Johansen’s vehicle at a cemetery in rural Harrison County around 3 p.m. Wednesday, they saw Rivers running into the woods, the sheriff’s office said. He was arrested around 1 a.m. Thursday.
Lauren Johansen of Gulfport lived with her sister in Hattiesburg and attended the University of Southern Mississippi to pursue a nursing degree, said her father, an orthopedic surgeon.
Lance Johansen said he knew Rivers had been released from prison when he received a voicemail from the Davidson County District Attorney’s Office on Monday saying Rivers had been released and had not checked in with the GPS tracking company about an ankle bracelet.
Lauren Johansen was first reported missing early Tuesday when her sister woke up to find her missing, the front door open and the security camera smashed. Lance Johansen said he woke up to a notification that her LifeAlert 360, a location-tracking app, had been turned off.
He filed a missing person report with Hattiesburg Police and contacted them again the next day, who located her vehicle via OnStar on Cemetery Road in Harrison County.
Lance Johansen said he immediately went to the scene and found his daughter beaten to death and barely recognizable.
“I helped the coroner get her body out of the car,” he told WLOX-TV. “She was just mutilated.”
The grieving father said the justice system had failed his daughter and Rivers’ bail should never have been reduced.
“We opposed the bail reduction ordered by Criminal Judge Cheryl Blackburn,” a spokesman for the Nashville District Attorney’s Office told WTVF-TV.
Rivers and Johansen were vacationing in downtown Nashville in December when she called her family and told them Rivers might kill her, WTVF reported.
Officers responding to the call found her severely beaten as she attempted to escape from a rental car and Rivers reaching for a firearm.
Initially, he was accused of two counts of particularly aggravated kidnapping, aggravated stalking and witness tampering.
His original bail was $251,000 and Judge Blackburn reduced it to $150,000, WTVF reported.
Anyone experiencing domestic violence can contact the New Orleans Family Justice Center at (504) 592-4005 or the Louisiana Coalition Against Domestic Violence’s statewide hotline at (888) 411-1333 for assistance.
