Official distraught after error allows accused killer access to ex-girlfriend in South MS

An employee’s mistake let a man accused of kidnapping and beating his girlfriend leave a Nashville jail last month with no bond conditions days before South Mississippi authorities charged him in the woman’s murder, the Nashville Criminal Court Clerk’s office said.

The employee sent a release order to the Davidson County Sheriff’s Office, which supervises the Nashville jail. The order did not include a judge’s demands that the defendant, Bricen Rivers, be released with an ankle monitor and stay in Nashville, Chief Deputy Clerk Julius Sloss said Thursday.

“They’re distraught,” Sloss said of the employee who made the error and his supervisor. “There have been tears.”

The lapse let Rivers, 23, return to Mississippi against the court’s orders. He led authorities on a manhunt last week after police said he fled from a car where they found the body of Lauren Johansen, his former girlfriend. The Harrison County Sheriff’s Department arrested Rivers hours later.

Nashville police arrested Rivers in December 2023 and accused him of beating and badly injuring Johansen inside a car during the couple’s vacation.

He remained jailed until he posted a lowered bond last month, records show. Once released, Johansen’s father said Rivers returned to Mississippi with no oversight and found his daughter.

“I told the court, the DA, and the judge he would kill her if they let him out,” Lance Johansen wrote on a gofundme page after his daughter’s death. He said Nashville authorities released Rivers after hours and that “he was let loose onto the street.”

Rivers posted a $150,000 bond through a Nashville agency at 4 p.m. June 24, according to the Davidson County Sheriff’s Office.

A Nashville judge lowered Rivers’ bond from $251,000 this year, records show. The judge released Rivers from jail last month on several conditions, including that he report to a bonding company for a GPS monitor, remain in Davidson County, Tennessee and have “absolutely no contact” with Johansen, according to a court order first posted by WSMV-TV in Nashville.

Release paperwork dated June 24 specified none of those conditions.

That paperwork “should have contained any bond conditions,” Sloss said. “The employee did not do that.”

“Our release order from the courts was a standard ‘bond-out’ and did not specify GPS was a condition of release,” said Jon Adams, communications director at the Davidson County Sheriff’s Office. Rivers, Adams said, “was released to himself, and was responsible for contacting his bonding agent.”

Through their grief, Johansen’s family and domestic violence victim’s advocates raised questions this week about how Nashville authorities handled the case. More aggressive steps by the court and law enforcement could have saved Johansen, advocates said. They also said the tragedy showed more must be done to protect women across Mississippi who face domestic violence every day.

A bonding company outfitted Rivers with a GPS monitor later on the day he was released, Sloss said. The bonding company took Rivers to a different GPS monitoring company than the judge required, News Channel 5 in Nashville reported. That GPS monitoring company was unaware the court prohibited Rivers from returning to Mississippi, the station reported.

The Criminal Court Clerk’s office will build a new system that requires employees to verify all bond conditions are listed before they can print a jail release, Sloss said. He said he will also work with the Sheriff’s office to create the same system.

The employee at fault will be disciplined, Sloss said. He did not say what measures that person would face.

“No amount of sorry, no amount of ‘I wish I would’ve done something differently’ is going to bring her back,” Sloss said. “They feel some culpability.”