Inset: Lauren Johansen. Background: Bricen Rivers appears in court in connection with the murder of 22-year-old Lauren Johansen in Mississippi (WLOX).
A Mississippi man will spend the rest of his life in prison after admitting he beat his former girlfriend to death, drove around with her mutilated body for days, and later abandoned both her remains and her vehicle at a cemetery.
“The number of skull fractures Lauren had, a Mack truck could hit somebody and not create that many fractures,” said Dr. Lance Johansen, father of victim Lauren Johansen, at the sentencing hearing for Bricen Rivers on Friday, according to local ABC and CBS affiliate WLOX.
“The fracture pattern was everywhere,” Dr. Lance Johansen said, describing the injuries he saw while helping remove his daughter’s body after she was discovered in her car in December 2023. “When I took the top of her head off, her brain was torn apart and it was already inside her abdomen. But the fracture lines went everywhere. This is a sign of an animal that beat her to death for no good reason.”
Bricen Rivers, 25, pleaded guilty to capital murder in the killing of 22-year-old Lauren Johansen and was sentenced to life behind bars without the possibility of parole. Her death came just days after Rivers was released on bond from jail in Nashville, Tennessee, following a domestic violence arrest. He was released without an ankle monitor despite warnings from Johansen’s family, who told the court they feared her life would be in danger if he was not kept in custody.
According to WLOX, Rivers allegedly violated conditions requiring him to remain in Davidson County, Tennessee, and to obtain an ankle monitor.
“He drove around with her body in the car for days,” said Lance Johansen, who is reportedly an orthopedic surgeon. “He beat her so many times I can’t tell you. He manipulated her every way he could.”
Lance Johansen told WLOX in July 2024 that he reported his daughter missing to police in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, soon after he learned that a security camera at a home where Lauren Johansen lived with her sister was no longer functioning. The front door to the residence was left open and Lauren’s car was also gone.
Authorities ultimately tracked the vehicle through OnStar and located it in “the middle of the cemetery” in Harrison County, Mississippi.
“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,” Lance Johansen told WLOX. “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.”
Rivers allegedly ran off when cops arrived at the cemetery and was arrested in the woods several hours later.
Police and prosecutors have described Rivers as Lauren Johansen’s on-again, off-again boyfriend. A family friend, Shantrell Nicks, told WLOX on Friday that Lauren’s life was “cut too short by somebody that I felt like took advantage of her being a nice young lady.”
Nicks described the events leading up to Lauren Johansen’s death, saying, “She told me that they had a fight in Nashville. Did not know the severity of it.”
Harrison County Sheriff Matt Haley said Friday that he believed “the system failed her,” WLOX reports.
“There’s things that are set in place to protect victims and those things failed,” Haley said. “And she lost her life because of it. I want to do my best to make sure we don’t see this happen in Harrison County.”
Matt Naham contributed to this report.
The post Man drove around with ex-girlfriend’s ‘mutilated’ body for days after he ‘smashed in’ her face and head, dumped the 22-year-old at cemetery — now he’s headed to prison first appeared on Law & Crime.
