The ex-boyfriend of a nursing student whose mutilated body was discovered in a cemetery after she was beaten to death will be held without bond.
Bricen Rivers, 23, is charged with first-degree murder , grand larceny and tampering with evidence in the death of 22-year-old Lauren Johansen.
Police say Rivers killed the University of Southern Mississippi student on July 2, just days after being released from a Tennessee jail. Rivers had been in custody since December after he allegedly kidnapped and then nearly beat Johansen to death while the two were on vacation in Nashville according to a court order obtained by Inside Edition Digital.
Rivers entered a plea of not guilty to those charges in Nashville.
Prosecutors said in court last week that Rivers allegedly killed Johansen near her home and then left her body in the backseat of her car, which was parked in the middle of a cemetery.
Dr. Lance Johansen, the victim's father, spoke about his daughter's death in an interview with WLOX, saying that he contacted her the day before she died after receiving a concerning voicemail from the Davidson County District Attorney's Office in Tennessee, which said: "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."
Rivers' release from jail came despite Dr. Johansen turning up for his hearingin Nashville and telling the judge "that if they let him out, he was going to kill [his daughter]," he said.
Dr. Johansen reported his daughter as missing on the morning of July 2 after her sister said the front door had been left open and the security camera had been disabled at the home shared by the two young women.
On July 3, police informed him that his daughter's vehicle had been located via OnStar.
“I knew she was dead,” Dr. Johansen said before describing the scene:
"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. 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," he told WLOX.
Dr. Johansen is now demanding answers as to why Rivers was released from jail without a tracking device.
“I think the criminal justice system in Nashville, Tennessee, failed my daughter and our family. The world shouldn’t work this way. She was really beautiful, super, super smart. She had dreams and hopes that were larger than life. Everything she did, everything she touched turned to gold," he said.
The topic of Rivers' release will also be the focus of an evidentiary hearing next month after a six-judge panel requested to hear from the two bond companies that each provided $75,000 towards his bond.
Rivers was captured on July 3 after 55 officers from eight different agencies took part in a nine-hour-long manhunt, according to the Harrison County Sheriff's Office.
Dr. Johansen said he is hoping that Rivers is found guilty and then punished via lethal injection or electrocution for his alleged crimes.
He also said that he and his family are still trying to get over the immense loss of a beloved young woman.
“The best quality about her was that she had a really big heart," he said of his daughter.
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