How Mississippi man’s release from Nashville jail ended in Lauren Johansen’s death. ‘Someone in our office made a mistake’

Editor’s note: This story contains descriptions of domestic abuse. If you or someone you know needs help, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233.

A Mississippi father is blaming Nashville’s justice system for his daughter’s death earlier this month, days after her ex-boyfriend was released from a Middle Tennessee jail.

Bricen John Rivers, 23, of Saucier, Mississippi, is charged with murder in connection with the death of Lauren Johansen, 22, of Hattiesburg, Mississippi, according to the Harrison County, Mississippi, Sheriff’s Office.

Johansen’s body was found in the trunk of a car in Gulfport, Mississippi, on July 3. Police arrested Rivers around 11 p.m. that same day after a nine-hour manhunt involving about 55 officers from eight different agencies.

Johansen’s father, Robert Johansen, believes his daughter’s death could have been prevented if not for several legal missteps in Nashville.

A little more than a week before his Mississippi arrest, Rivers was released on bond from a Nashville jail, where he had been held since December awaiting trail on four charges, including two counts of especially aggravated kidnapping, related to what police described as a bloody attack on Lauren Johansen while the two were vacationing in Music City.

Records show that several instructions outlined in a court order detailing the conditions of Rivers’ release were not followed, which Robert Johansen says allowed Rivers to leave Nashville, travel to Mississippi and kill his daughter.

Davidson County Chief Deputy Criminal Court Clerk Julius Sloss acknowledged this week that his office made a mistake when it came to sharing information with the Davidson County Sheriff’s Office on how Rivers should be released.

Rivers’ bonding company said it, too, didn’t know the full conditions of his release because the clerk did not provide them. The clerk, however, said it is the full responsibility of the bonding company to know the conditions and understand what’s being signed beforehand.

Because of the communication breakdowns, Rivers was released from jail on his own instead of in the custody of a bonding agent, as ordered, on June 24 and the release occurred later than the court ordered. When he was picked up by a bonding agent that same day, Rivers was taken to the wrong GPS monitoring company — one that was created just seven days earlier — and that monitoring company was unaware that Rivers was not supposed to travel outside of Davidson County until several days later, when it says it received the court order with bond conditions for the first time.

By then, Rivers had left Tennessee for Mississippi.

He returned to Nashville on June 29 because of an issue with his ankle monitor — after allegedly violating his bond conditions for days — but he didn’t stay long.

By July 2, the day he was supposed to show up in a Davidson County courtroom, the battery on Rivers’ ankle monitor had started to die, last tracking him in Biloxi, Mississippi. The tracking company and bond agents tried to contact him, but no one could get in touch.

Why Rivers was charged in Nashville

Lauren Johansen and Rivers came to Nashville on Dec. 7. They visited the Frist Art Museum on Broadway and Topgolf near the Cumberland River before returning to their Airbnb and heading out to a local bar to watch a football game, according to an arrest affidavit from the Metro Nashville Police Department.

Johansen told police that while at the bar, Rivers accused her of having sex with the bartender, and the couple left.

The affidavit said Rivers slapped and punched Johansen, took her phone so she could not call for help, drove away from the area and refused to stop, despite her pleas. When he eventually did stop the car, police say he began attacking Johansen.

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She told police she had a gun in her bag on the back seat, but Rivers held her down, preventing her from getting to the gun, according to the affidavit.

She recalled that they were in a parking lot for about an hour, and she kicked and screamed and blew the car’s horn every time she saw a vehicle pass them, the affidavit said.

Rivers held his forearm against Johansen’s throat until she saw black and got dizzy as she continued to scream for help, the affidavit said.

Nashville Police Officer James Harbin approached the vehicle and saw and heard Johansen kicking and screaming for help, Harbin testified at hearing in March, a court order shows. When the officer opened the door, the two were covered in blood, Rivers was on top of Johansen and Rivers appeared to be intoxicated, the order said.

Rivers had no injuries.

Johansen had a cut on her forehead, her face was severely beaten and one of her eyes was swollen shut, according to photos of her included as an exhibit in the Nashville case against Rivers and viewed by The Tennessean.

She was hospitalized for two days.

Rivers was arrested, charged and indicted by a Davidson County grand jury in April on two counts of especially aggravated kidnapping, aggravated stalking and witness coercion.

How did Rivers get out of Nashville?

Criminal Court Judge Cheryl Blackburn reduced Rivers’ bond from $250,000 to $150,000 on April 3 after a bond hearing on March 13, Davidson County trial court administrator Bart Pickett said. The Tennessee Constitution does not allow for bond to be revoked in anything other than capital cases.

District attorney spokesperson Steve Hayslip said his office adamantly opposed a reduced bond for Rivers.

The bond reduction order set out several conditions for Rivers, including that he wear a GPS ankle monitor, live in Davidson County, not have any contact with Lauren Johansen and not possess any kind of weapon. He had an address lined up to stay at in Nashville, records show.

Elite Bonding was approved by the court to post his bond on June 4.

Elite Bonding owner Bill Tomlinson said he decided against handling the case because he was not sure how Rivers was going to live in Davidson County without having family here. On June 5, On Time Bail Bonding and Brooke’s Bonding were approved to post Rivers’ bond and were asked to come to court to sign an order that specifies bond conditions and lays out who pays.

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The order is two pages long. The first page includes the conditions of Rivers’ release. It says he must be fitted with electronic monitoring by a company called Tracking Solutions, cannot leave Davidson County and must be released from jail to a representative of his bonding company between 7 a.m. and 4 p.m.

The second page says the “defendant is responsible for all costs associated with electronic monitoring installation,” but does not specify any of the other conditions of Rivers’ bond.

Brooke Harlan, owner of Brooke’s Bail Bonding, said her court liaison — an employee of hers who makes many of the company’s court appearances — was only shown the second page of the order and was not told about the first page.

In response, Criminal Court Clerk Howard Gentry said, “It’s just not our responsibility to make somebody read something.”

Sloss, the chief deputy clerk, added, “It’s not like they’re not used to seeing these things all the time.”

Release gone wrong: ‘Someone in our office made a mistake’

Harlan said that one of her bonding agents posted Rivers’ bond at the State Warrant and Bond Office in the downtown jail at 1:30 p.m. on June 24. The bonding agent was not told the conditions of Rivers’ release when the bond was posted, which Harlan said is standard practice.

Rivers was released from the Maximum Correctional Center on Harding Place at 4:05 p.m. on June 24, five minutes after his court order required, according to Davidson County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Jon Adams. Also in violation of the order, Rivers was released on his own rather than to a representative of the bonding company, Adams said.

Sloss said Rivers was let out that way because his office failed to communicate the conditions of Rivers’ release with the Sheriff’s Office.

“Someone in our office made a mistake,” Sloss said. “When the release was sent to the sheriff, it did not contain the conditions that were outlined in the order, especially the portion talking about the person needing to have a GPS tracking device. At the very least, a copy of the order should have been attached to the release.”

The Sheriff’s Office was sent “a second form with more information, but we did not receive that at the time of his release,” Adams said.

Harlan said she did not want to point fingers but that “there are a lot of clerical errors in the system.

“There’s flaws in the system that need to be reformed, for sure,” she said.

Sloss said the clerk’s office is working to implement a stopgap measure that will ask employees to confirm they have communicated with the Sheriff’s Office any conditions of the defendant’s release from jail.

“At the end of the day, I hope it doesn’t get lost in all the finger pointing that mistakes were made and a life was lost,” Gentry, the clerk, said. “And that’s what we’re struggling with on this side of the criminal justice system.”

The issues with Rivers’ GPS monitoring

Even though he was released to the street, Rivers called Brooke’s Bail Bonding at 4:36 p.m., Harlan said.

An agent from Brooke’s Bail Bonding picked up Rivers in the Harding Place area. Based on Harlan’s telling, because her company had still not seen the first page of the order from June 5, which included the conditions of Rivers’ bond, the company did not know which monitoring company he was supposed to visit.

So the bonding agent took Rivers to a newly formed company called Freedom Monitoring Services, records show.

Freedom Monitoring Services was created on June 17, one week before Rivers was released, the Tennessee Secretary of State’s website shows. The company was created by Nakeda Wilhoite, whom Harlan said is also an employee of Brooke’s Bail Bonding.

Through a person who answered a phone number associated with her, Wilhoite deferred all comments regarding the case to her attorney, who has not shared a comment with The Tennessean.

When Rivers arrived at Freedom Monitoring Services on the evening of June 24, the monitoring company did not have the court order with Rivers’ bond conditions because a court employee had sent them to Tracking Solutions. So after he was fitted with an ankle monitor, Rivers told Freedom Monitoring Services he would be leaving Tennessee for Vancleave, Mississippi, the report states.

Everything that went wrong became apparent on June 28.

That day, Tracking Solutions sent a report to an assistant district attorney saying that Rivers had not yet come to the office. The district attorney’s office then told the court Rivers was in violation of his bond conditions, and Rivers was ordered to show in court on July 2, according to a news release from trial administrator Pickett.

Freedom Monitoring Services received the court order with bond conditions for the first time that day, the company’s report states.

And Robert Johansen was contacted by voicemail and notified of Rivers release for the first time.

Freedom Monitoring contacted Rivers and told him to return to Nashville because of an issue with his monitor, the report said, noting that he arrived on June 29.

“A new monitor was placed, and tracking resumed back to normal,” the report from the monitoring company said.

Then Rivers left town again.

The first page of the bond order says the bonding company is “to surrender the defendant to the custody of the Davidson County Sheriff’s Office upon notification by the monitoring company of any violations of the Court Order.”

Rivers told Freedom Monitoring Services around midnight on July 2, the same day of his court hearing in Nashville, that he wouldn’t make it, the company’s report reads.

At about 10 a.m. on July 2, the battery on Rivers’ ankle monitor started to die. Harlan said several people were trying to contact him but were unable to reach him. They contacted his mother, but she said she had not seen him, according to Freedom Monitoring Services’ report.

On July 3, Freedom Monitoring Services’ report says that Rivers was last tracked on Beach Boulevard in Biloxi at an unspecified date and time. He did not answer any subsequent calls from Freedom Monitoring Services, the report said.

Blackburn issued a warrant for Rivers’ arrest on July 2. She ordered him held without bail because he violated bond conditions.

But it was too late for Lauren Johansen.

A failed system

The Debbie and Marie Domestic Violence Protection Act was passed by the Tennessee General Assembly to keep people like Lauren Johansen safe.

Named for Debbie Sisco and her daughter Marie Varsos, the legislation took effect on July 1 and requires some suspects accused of domestic abuse to wear GPS monitors as bail conditions before trial. Though monitoring is required, it does not appear that there are currently any standards or qualifications for GPS monitoring companies to work with the courts.

Sisco and Varsos were killed in Nashville by Varsos’ estranged husband in 2021. Before her death, Varsos reported her husband to police after he choked and held her at gunpoint. When he was released on bond after his arrest, he stalked her at her mother’s home before fatally shooting both women.

The law bearing the women’s names was meant to give domestic violence victims a measure of hope.

But Robert Johansen believes the system failed in his daughter’s case.

“We put our trust in the law enforcement system in Nashville, and they assured me that he was not going to be able to get out on bond, and if there’s any way there’s going to be a bond hearing, or he was going to make bond, they would let us know,” he said.

Although he received the voicemail notifying him of Rivers’ release on June 28, Robert Johansen didn’t have a chance to listen to it right away, he said, noting that the news came as a shock on July 1.

“I called Lauren immediately and she was still alive when I called her and told her … she already heard,” he said. “She was told he was getting an ankle monitor, and it turned into a real mess.”

Lauren was terrified when he talked to her about Rivers being released, Robert Johansen said. He and his family don’t know what happened to Lauren Johansen or how she ended up in the trunk of a car on July 3.

Last they knew, she was in her home with her sister and a friend on July 1.

“There’s no way to reconcile it,” Robert Johansen said of his daughter’s death.

Because Rivers’ ankle monitor was apparently dead at the time, Robert Johansen said authorities were only able to find Rivers and his daughter by using On Star tracking on her phone. By the time they found the location, Lauren Johansen was dead.

A cause of death has not been released. Mississippi officials told The Tennessean that autopsy records, especially those connected to homicide cases, aren’t considered public record in their state.

Remembering Lauren Johansen

Lauren Johansen wanted to become a nurse practitioner so she could take care of people. She also hoped to one day develop an animal rescue, her father said.

“My daughter was a genius. … She was so smart and was so wonderful,” Robert Johansen said. “And she had a heart of gold.”

And there are so many memories.

When Lauren was 2 years old, Robert Johansen said, he took her fishing off the family’s dock. The physician got a call from a hospital emergency room asking him to come in, threatening to ruin their day, he said. After speaking to medical personnel on the phone for about 10 minutes, Robert Johansen said he turned around and saw a smile light up his daughter’s face.

“She said, ‘Never mind, Daddy. I got my own fish,’” he recalled.

Lauren Johansen, he said, was an animal lover, rescuing animals throughout her life.

She took her dog, Bentley Jo, and cat, Marley, with her everywhere, and she even had a rescue horse she named Cocoa, her father said.

Evan Mealins is the justice reporter for The Tennessean. Contact him at emealins@gannett.com or follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @EvanMealins

Craig Shoup is a breaking news reporter for The Tennessean. Reach him by email at cshoup@gannett.com and on X @Craig_Shoup. To support his work, sign up for a digital subscription to www.tennessean.com.