Student beaten to death days after judge released boyfriend from prison
A 22-year-old was found “mutilated” – days after her father warned a judge that if her boyfriend was let out of jail, he would kill her.
A 22-year-old university student was found beaten to death and wrapped in a sheet in the back seat of her car – days after her father warned a judge that if her boyfriend was let out of jail, he would kill her.
Lauren Johansen’s body was discovered mutilated and wrapped in rubbish bags and a sheet on July 3 at the Wolf River Cemetery in the US state Mississippi, news station WLOX reported, per The New York Post.
Her father says the man charged with her murder, boyfriend Bricen Rivers, had been bailed out of jail days earlier – where he had been held for aggravated kidnapping, after brutally beating Ms Johansen and holding her hostage during a trip to Nashville in December.
“You can see what happened when he hit her 100 times back in December, so just imagine what he did to her when nobody was around to save her,” Ms Johansen’s dad, Lance Johansen, told the Daily Mail.
In a separate interview with WLOX, Mr Johansen recalled: “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,” he added.
Rivers, 23, faces a murder charge and is being held on $US1 million ($1.4 million) bond.
He was arrested last Thursday, July 4, following a six-hour manhunt, NOLA.com reported.
Ms Johansen, who was originally from Gulfport, was attending the University of Southern Mississippi to get a nursing degree, her father, who is an orthopaedic surgeon, said.
The young woman was first reported missing early on July 2, when her sister woke up alone in their shared apartment with the front door wide open and their security camera smashed.
That same morning, her father woke up to a notification that her Life360, a location-tracking app, had been turned off.
He reported her missing to the Hattiesburg Police Department and the next day, officers informed him that they’d located her car in a nearby cemetery.
“I knew she was dead,” Mr Johansen told WLOX, detailing how his daughter was found wrapped up in garbage bags in the back seat of her car.
“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.”
The heartbroken father slammed the criminal justice system in Tennessee for failing his family, saying Rivers’ bond should have never been reduced.
Rivers, who initially was held on $US251,000 ($371,246) had his bond lowered to $US150,000 ($221,860) after he’d been in jail for seven months.
In the moments leading to Rivers’ arrest in December, police officers found Ms Johansen badly beaten and trying to escape a rental vehicle as Rivers reached for a firearm.
“I think the criminal justice system in Nashville, Tennessee, failed my daughter and our family. The world shouldn’t work this way,” Mr Johansen told WLOX.
“She was really beautiful, super, super smart. She had dreams and hopes that were larger than life. Everything she did, everything she touched.”
This article originally appeared on The New York Post and was reproduced with permission
Huge break in 1995 kidnapping of 6yo
The young girl had been just a few yards from her mother at an Arkansas Little League game in June 1995 when she was snatched from the parking lot.
Shameful detail in hospital parking fine
A man has been left outraged after he rushed his wife, who was in labour, to hospital only to walk out after the birth of his daughter to a parking fine.
X-rated reason English teacher was sacked
A woman has revealed how she was forced to quit her job as an English teacher after her racy side hustle was exposed — and to this day she’s still met with trolls.