HATTIESBURG, Miss. (WTVF) — Bricen Rivers pleaded guilty in Mississippi Thursday morning for the death of his ex-girlfriend, Lauren Johansen. He was later sentenced to life without the possibility of probation or parole.
Rivers had been expected to stand trial in Forrest County, Mississippi, later this year, more than two years after Johansen's death. Judge T. Michael Reed ordered that Rivers be treated as a flight risk while in custody.
Rivers took the stand to apologize saying, “Lauren didn't deserve this. No woman deserves this. No person deserves this.”
Lauren's father, Lance Johansen, also spoke.
"An animal who inflicted upon Lauren Johansen the worst of the worst that any human being can do to another," Lance Johansen said.
Deputies said they found Johansen's badly beaten body in the trunk of her car after surveillance footage obtained by NewsChannel 5 Investigates appeared to show Rivers driving Johansen's car that morning.
The case traces back to a trip to Nashville that turned violent when Rivers was charged with attacking Johansen in 2023. He was arrested and remained in jail for months until his bond was reduced from $250,000 to $150,000.
Brooke's Bail Bonding and On Time Bonding later arranged for Rivers' release, but we discovered that Rivers' family came well short of how much they agreed to pay for his release. Rivers was released anyway on the condition he remain in Nashville, have no contact with Johansen, and wear a GPS tracking device.
Bond agents told the court they only signed one page of the bond conditions, without seeing the rest of the document. Rivers made it back to Mississippi while wearing the GPS monitor, but it's unclear if any exclusion zones were set for where he could or could not stay.
Davidson County court officials acknowledged that an error by one of their clerks meant the Davidson County Jail did not have Rivers' bond conditions when he was released. Lance Johansen said his family was not notified of Rivers' release.
Nakeda Wilhoite of Freedom Monitoring was responsible for the GPS monitoring device keeping tabs on Rivers. She later told the court she had seen Rivers days before Johansen's death.
Wilhoite said it wasn't until after she installed Rivers' GPS device that she learned the Mississippi native was not supposed to leave Davidson County or have any contact with Johansen.
Wilhoite said she told Rivers to return to Nashville, where she adjusted his GPS device, before warning him that he couldn't leave the county or have any contact with Johansen.
"When you have a person that's out on bond and they are in violation of the bond, you dial 911. That's what you do," Lance Johansen said.
Rivers left anyway, and Wilhoite later admitted she didn't tell her employer about the meeting.
A six-judge panel issued a ruling in 2024 calling what happened in the Rivers case "a calamity of human and institutional errors."
