Student, 22, 'mutilated to death by ex days after her dad begged to keep him in jail'
Lauren Johansen's father says the justice system failed her, after she was found dead in the backseat of her car in Mississippi just days after her ex-boyfriend's release from jail.
The ex-boyfriend of a woman found beaten to death and mutilated in the backseat of a car in Mississippi has been charged with her murder - just days after he was released from jail.
Nursing student Lauren Johansen, 22, was found dead and wrapped in a sheet in the back of her car in a cemetery in Harrison County last Thursday.
Police said when officers arrived at the scene, her ex-boyfriend, Bricen Rivers, was running from the car into the woods.
- Arkansas couple charged with murder in death of son, 2, left in hot car
- US man accused of torturing woman in basement dungeon charged with murder
The 23-year-old was arrested after a six-hour search and charged with Johansen’s murder.
Rivers had bonded out of jail just nine days earlier, after serving seven months for brutally beating and kidnapping Johansen during a separate incident in Nashville last December.
Rivers was released after his bond was reduced from $251,000 to $150,000.
The woman’s father, orthopedic surgeon Lance Johansen, said he pleaded with the judge not to reduce Rivers’ bond as he believed he would kill his daughter if he was let out.
“I sat in the courtroom in Nashville and told the judge that if they let him out, he was going to kill her,” Johansen told WLOX.
“He had assaulted her. This was probably the fifth or sixth time where they would get into a fight and he would beat her.”
Johansen was reported missing on July 2 when her sister woke up to find the front door of their apartment open and the home’s security camera dismantled.
Her father reported her missing after noticing her Life360 location-tracking app was switched off.
Lance Johansen said he helped the coroner remove his daughter’s body from the car.
“She was brutally beaten to death. He made her suffer and beat her until her eyes were swollen shut. Her head was caved in where he beat her with a pistol like he did before. She was mutilated,” he said.
Rivers is being held on a $1 million bond at the Harrison County Adult Detention Facility in Gulfport.
