A grand jury indicted Bricen Rivers on Tuesday, Feb. 18 on charges of capital murder, grand larceny auto and tampering with physical evidence. Rivers is accused of the July 2024 killing of his ex-girlfriend, Lauren Johansen, a 22-year-old student from Gulfport living in Hattiesburg. The trial date has been set for June 24, 2025.
While the murder took place on July 2, 2024, the paper trail of Rivers’ abuse against Johansen actually begins on Dec. 11, 2023. The pair vacationed together to Nashville, where the couple had a verbal altercation which ultimately escalated to a physical altercation.
Metro Nashville Police officers said they discovered Johansen severely beaten inside a vehicle with Rivers. According to the officers, the interior of the vehicle was covered in blood and Rivers was seen reaching for a firearm in the back seat. Rivers was arrested and charged with two counts of aggravated kidnapping, a count of aggravated stalking and a count of coercion of a witness.
Lance Johansen, the father of the victim told WDAM, “I sat in the courtroom in Nashville and told the judge that if they let him out, he was going to kill her. He had assaulted her- this was probably the fifth or sixth time where they would get into a fight and he would beat her.”
Despite the pleas of Johansen’s father, Rivers was released from jail June 24, 2024 under the condition that he would stay in Davidson County with a GPS ankle monitor. However, the location he was supposed to report to receive the ankle monitor, Tracking Solutions, was closed upon his release. The bail agent instead took Rivers to a second company, Freedom Monitoring, which had not been provided the bond order. The company has neither confirmed nor denied taking Rivers’ word that he was allowed to return to Mississippi, but the ankle monitor was not calibrated to strictly Davidson County.
Lieutenant David Benoit with Forrest County Sheriff’s Office testified that in the early hours of July 2, 2024, Rivers was reportedly dropped off close to 11th Avenue in Hattiesburg, where Johansen was living at the time. Benoit also said Rivers tried to contact Johansen via text messages and phone calls more than 120 times, but Johansen never answered.
While Rivers destroyed the security cameras from Johansen’s residence, law enforcement was able to obtain the neighbor’s security camera footage. This footage showed Rivers walking toward the home fully clothed, leaving the home without a shirt, returning to the home again and then Rivers backing out of Johansen’s driveway in her car.
On July 3, 2024, Johansen’s body was found in the back of her vehicle in Harrison County. Rivers was found hiding in a nearby wooded area later the same day, where he reportedly called his brother and said, “I killed the b----.” He was arrested and transferred to Forrest County for trial.
