Family, domestic violence groups say system failed South MS murder victim. ‘The ball was dropped’

The young woman kept fighting to escape her boyfriend.

Inside a parked car in Nashville, Bricen Rivers hit Lauren Johansen with his open hand, then his closed fist, according to an arrest affidavit.

Police said her family called from Mississippi and told dispatchers they heard her screaming, afraid Rivers would kill her. He held her down so she could not reach a gun in the backseat. She tried to slam the horn so someone would hear her, she told authorities later as she recovered from severe injuries in a hospital bed.

She survived. Rivers was arrested in December.

But none of that made a difference last week, when Johansen’s father said Rivers — recently released on lowered bond from a Nashville jail — returned to Mississippi and found his daughter. Police arrested and charged Rivers in her murder.

The 22-year-old nursing student had been missing for days before authorities said they found her on July 3, wrapped in a sheet in the back of a car at the Wolf River Cemetery. Police said Rivers fled from the car when authorities arrived and led law enforcement on an hours long manhunt before he was arrested and booked into the Harrison County jail.

Now, Johansen’s family and advocates for women victimized by violence are raising questions about the handling of the case, and say Johansen could have been saved.

Her tragic death, advocates say, is all too common and starkly shows why courts and law enforcement must take more aggressive steps to protect women.

“She was brutally beaten to death,” her father, Lance Johansen, wrote on a gofundme page. “He made her suffer.”

“This is just such a horrific case,” said Jennifer Escue, CEO of the Tennessee Coalition to End Domestic and Sexual Violence. “It’s so preventable, and that’s really hard.”

Nashville authorities released Rivers with no ankle monitor, Johansen’s family said.

A judge lowered his bond from $251,000 to $150,000 this year. Rivers posted that bond at the end of last month, the local sheriff’s office said.

And after he failed to show up for an ankle monitor, Tennessee or Mississippi authorities could have issued an alert for his capture and worked together to notify Johansen and her family, said LaVerne Jackson, the executive director at the Mississippi Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

“None of that happened,” Jackson said. “The victim had no idea he was coming. The ball was dropped.”

Murder suspect faced kidnapping charges in Nashville

Rivers, 23, had a history of domestic violence against Johansen.

He was arrested on December 11, 2023 after the beating in Nashville, where the couple had gone for vacation, according to the affidavit.

They visited the Frist Museum, Top Golf, then went to a bar to watch a football game, the document said. At the bar, Rivers grew angry. Police said they returned to their rental car, where Rivers began to beat Johansen.

He started driving and refused to let her leave the car, the affidavit said. He stopped in a parking lot and continued to hurt her. Johansen told authorities she believed she was in the parking lot for over an hour. Every time she screamed for help, the affidavit said, Rivers “would put his forearm in her throat causing her to see black and get dizzy.”

Nashville Police said officers heard Johansen banging on the car to escape. They said an officer arrested Rivers as he reached for the gun.

Rivers also stalked Johansen despite a restraining order and tried to convince her to testify falsely after his arrest, according to an indictment.

A grand jury charged Rivers on four counts: two of especially aggravated kidnapping, one count of aggravated stalking and one count of coercion of a witness.

“I told the court, the DA, and the judge he would kill her if they let him out,” Lance Johansen wrote. “Bricen told others he was going to kill her, too.”

Rivers posted bond through a Nashville agency at 4 p.m. June 24, according to the Davidson County Sheriff’s Office. Johansen’s father said he and his daughter were supposed to be notified if Rivers was released.

The District Attorney’s Office did not respond to messages this week. Victim notification and GPS tracking are managed through systems separate from the sheriff’s office, communications director Jon Adams said.

“Our release order from the courts was a standard ‘bond-out’ and did not specify GPS was a condition of release,” Adams said. “As such, he was released to himself, and was responsible for contacting his bonding agent.”

Steve Hayslip, a spokesperson for the District Attorney’s office, told News Channel 5 in Nashville the District Attorney “opposed the reduced bond that was ordered by Criminal Court Judge Cheryl Blackburn.”

“We do not have anything to do with bond conditions,” Hayslip told the TV station. “Those are imposed by the judge and overseen by community corrections.”

Domestic violence victim’s advocates say more must be done

Jackson said the tragedy shows that law enforcement in bordering states must work together to make sure violent offenders do not slip through the cracks.

“Why would you let someone go on their own to get an ankle monitor?” she said. “I don’t understand that.”

Stacey Riley, the CEO of the Gulf Coast Center for Nonviolence, said the story was tragic and not uncommon in Mississippi, where domestic violence is prevalent.

Agencies from law enforcement to hospitals to courts must focus on the dangers and warning signs, she said. “If he kidnapped her,” she said, “that tells us he had the ability to do this again, and he will do it again.

“The system did not do what it’s supposed to do.”

Rivers faced several misdemeanor charges in South Mississippi before he was arrested in Nashville, including 2020 charges out of Hattiesburg for simple assault and disturbance of family in a dwelling or house, records show. He lived in Saucier but the Harrison County Sheriff’s Department said this week it was unclear where he attended school on the Coast.

Johansen once attended the University of Southern Mississippi and wanted to become a nurse. Reached Friday, Lance Johansen shared the gofundme where he wrote that his daughter was “smart, kind, loving, and would do anything to help animals, her family, or anyone who needed help.” She nearly died in Nashville, he said, and after that, she asked him to take care of her pets, siblings and mother if Rivers ever killed her.

“Please,” her father wrote on her gofundme page, “for the love of God, help us fulfill Lauren’s final wishes.”