Investigators believe woman's accused murderer drove to graveyard after killing her somewhere else

Insets left to right: Bricen Rivers (Metropolitan Nashville Police Department), Lauren Johansen (GoFundMe). Background: The cemetery where Johansen’s body was found (WSMV/YouTube).

Authorities probing the death of a woman whose mutilated body was found in her car in a Mississippi cemetery believe she might have been killed in another county by her ex-boyfriend, who was erroneously released from custody while he was awaiting trial on earlier charges alleging he beat her.

Lauren Johansen, 22, might have been killed in Forrest County, Mississippi, the county’s Sheriff Charlie Sims told local NBC and ABC affiliate WDAM . Bricen Rivers, 23, Johansen’s ex-boyfriend, faces charges in the killing.

“Initially, Harrison County recovered the body, arrested the suspect, and it was thought that the crime possibly was committed down there,” Sims said, the outlet reported. “Since that time, more and more evidence has come to light, and indicators are that the actual murder occurred in Forrest County.”

Sims didn’t reveal details about the killing but told the station that multiple law enforcement agencies are piecing the case together across jurisdictions.

As Law&Crime has reported, authorities said the timeline of events leading to the discovery of Johansen’s body stretches back to December 2023, when Rivers allegedly severely beat her while the couple had been vacationing in Nashville.

He was arrested and charged with two counts of aggravated kidnapping, one count of aggravated stalking and one count of coercion of a witness. The defendant’s bail was reduced from $251,000 to $150,000, and he was ultimately released on June 24, despite the victim’s father begging the judge to keep him locked up, fearing Rivers would ultimately kill her.

“I told the court, the DA, and the judge he would kill her if they let him out,” her father, Lance Johansen, wrote on a GoFundMe page. “The jail released him after hours without the court ordered ankle monitor. He was let loose onto the street.”

His worst fears were realized after he received a message from the Davidson County District Attorney’s Office on July 1 telling him Rivers was out of jail.

“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,” the recording that aired on local ABC/CBS affiliate WLOX news said. “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.”

Investigators found Johansen’s body on July 3 via her vehicle’s OnStar system at Wolf River Cemetery in Gulfport, Mississippi, after her family reported her missing.

“When we got there, her car was in the middle of the cemetery, and she was in the back of the car wrapped up in sheets and trash bags. She was basically beaten to death,” Lance Johansen told WLOX . “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. I helped the coroner lift her body out of the car. It was just mutilated.”

Officers responding to the location on a welfare check also spotted Rivers running from her vehicle into the woods, where he was ultimately captured hours later.

More light has been shed on the details, meanwhile, about Rivers’ release. The Davidson County Clerk’s Office admitted to mistakenly signing off on a document allowing Rivers to get out of jail without supervision, Chief Deputy Clerk Julius Sloss said in an interview with Nashville NBC affiliate WSMV .

“In this particular incident, our employee made the mistake where he did the recognizance part right, but when he sent the release over, the release, unfortunately, did not contain the conditions of the bond,” Sloss told WSMV’s reporter Marissa Sulek.

Without elaborating, Sloss told Nashville CBS affiliate WTVF that the employee who made the mistake would face disciplinary action.

Sloss did not immediately respond to a request for further comment from Law&Crime.

Jon Adams, communications director at the Davidson County Sheriff’s Office, said the release order from the courts was a standard “bond-out” and did not specify GPS was a condition of release, The Biloxi Sun Herald reported.

He said Rivers “was released to himself and was responsible for contacting his bonding agent.”

Lance Johansen minced no words in his take on what happened.

“Anybody in their right might would know an animal savage like this would have an ankle monitor put on in jail,” he told WLOX .

Rivers, who is being held at the Harrison County Jail with bail set at $1 million, is set to appear in court on July 31, the online court docket shows.

Matt Naham contributed to this report.

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