New, more precise details:
The Forrest County justice court judge denied Rivers’ attorney’s latest request for a bond, meaning Rivers will remain behind bars while awaiting trial for the murder of Lauren Johansen.
www.wlox.com
"The timeline begins a week prior to July 2, when video investigators found shows Rivers and Johansen voluntarily visiting a hotel together." Ohhhhhh, sweetheart.
He had such control over you.
I suspect your family thought that time+Bricen being in prison would break his hold on you...and maybe it would have if he had stayed in there longer. You shouldn't have had to leave your home/school just to make yourself safe, but I desperately wish that after he was imprisoned you had moved across the country, heck, even overseas. Seems like he wasted no time getting in contact and exerting his control right after he left the prison/ankle bracelet company.
At her house, they found 5 of the 11 security cameras on her house missing.
--3:58 am: Rivers arrived in the area and was captured on camera
--Lauren's male friend who was staying in the house said he saw her alive SOMETIME
BETWEEN 4-6 am.
4 a.m.: neighbors' cameras and his ankle monitor show him walking through neighbors' yards near her house
5:11 a.m: Rivers is seen walking away from the home shirtless, then turning and running back inside
5:51 a.m., Johansen’s vehicle leaves the house. It then comes back to the house and leaves again. Investigators believe Rivers was inside the car at this time.
"The county prosecutor said, “We know Lauren was alive around 6 a.m., and Bricen left the house around 6 a.m.” According to investigators, there was no proof of life for Lauren after this time."
Then you have Bricen driving around Hattiesburg in a circuitous manner, with traffic cameras showing him driving the car but no one else visible in the car. Then he went to Petal River Park and stayed there for 32 min. When he left the park he was driving fast and erratically. We know that they said they found car fibers at that park and cadaver dogs signaled there.
It's a little less confusing, but I can't quite figure out what/how/when things happened. I swear I'm not being morbid, I'm trying to figure out what happened in relation to the charges (first degree murder, grand larceny auto, tampering with evidence):
--Did Bricen go there that night intending to kill Lauren? I don't necessarily think so--I think the fact that she ignored his 120+ calls/texts enraged him, so by the time he arrived there he was already set to go off. I have a feeling that him discovering that there was a male friend in the house was the final straw. I think that's when he started removing the security cameras.
--How did he gain access to the house/Lauren? She had a male friend staying the night (her dad believes for protection). If the friend didn't notice Lauren leaving/being taken from the house, I'm assuming he wasn't staying in her bedroom. We know Bricen took down the security camera at the front door. Did he then break in? Use a spare key? Or did he get her to let him in--knocking at her window and threatening to break it in. I think if he got her to let him in, he used the knowledge that her sister was there to manipulate her--i.e. you can let me in quietly, or I'm coming in in a way that will traumatize or even physically harm your sister. But that method only would work, IMHO if the male friend wasn't there. I lean more toward he snuck in with a key and surprised her in her room.
--What made him leave the house at 5:11 and then come running back in and staying for 41 min? He was shirtless, which makes me feel like he'd already attacked her enough to draw blood at that point. Did he turn back because he realized that even if Lauren wasn't going to call the cops on him, the male friend and sister would the minute they saw her injured? Did he decide at that point that he if he had to go back to prison, he was taking her down for good? Or was he past thinking at that point?
--It seems like the police and prosecutors think she was alive in the car when he left the house for the final time, but not visible on traffic cameras. Unconscious from extra beating after he went back in the house, then carried out to the trunk? The front door was found open the next morning. Seems like it would have been too risky to try to walk her out of the house conscious with two other people in there. I mean, it's risky to walk out of the house carrying an unconscious woman at 6 am too--maybe he brought her out the back door and the front door was left open from his entry or from when he came back to the house after pulling away to get something? If so, why didn't they add kidnapping to his charges?
--I was thrown by the cadaver dogs hitting on spot at the park that he went to right after that and spent 32 minutes at. But some reading on cadaver dogs indicated that they not only alert at smells of decomposition, they also alert at blood. Given the description of how destroyed her head was when police found her, I think his final beating that killed her happened at the park. I just don't see how he could have beat her to that level of damage back at the house without someone hearing it. I don't think he necessarily got her out of the car to do this. I think her blood was on him and fell onto the ground after the attack. Or maybe after the final attack there this is when he proceeded to wrap her up--that might explain the car fibers on the ground. I wonder if the thing he went back to her house to get after he first pulled away was garbage bags.
--The WDAM article states that prosecutor mentioned wanting to upgrade several of her charges, including one to capital murder. In the WLOX article, her father says “Our family believes that this is a capital murder case,” he said. “We believe
there is numerous crimes he has committed in addition to the murder and I think the facts will come forward at some point."
Looking at the Mississippi code requirements for capital murder, we see
- murdering a peace officer--NO
- murdering while serving time for life imprisonment--NO
- murders by using an explosive device--NO
- murder done as a hit/contract--NO
- murder occurring on educational property--NO
- murdering an elected official.--NO
- death occurs during the commission of felony child abuse or batter--NO
- murders during the commission of one a felony (rape, burglary, kidnapping, arson, robbery, sexual battery, intercourse with any child under the age of 12; or even the attempt to commit any of these felonies)
Sadly, from what we know of his past behaviors in this relationship, I think we can pick out several of those that are likely in the bolded requirement.
I loathe him so much. I'm filled with such anger at the people and systems who were supposed to protect her and keep him from even going near her (not the male friend in the house or her sister, btw). I think more could have been done to help Lauren get out from under his coercive control (but obviously, that's a hard job and the ultimate difficult choices would have to be Lauren's)--therapy, victim's advocates, etc. This had been going on for years.
And video cameras and ankle trackers don't do a single bit of good if they aren't being actively watched/monitored. They just provide the police with evidence after something horrible has already happened.
This didn't have to happen. There are so many people who simply failed to do the basics of their jobs. Even the Hattiesburg police when her father reported her missing. And multiple supporters of Bricen who knew he was violating parole and did nothing to report him and helped him instead.
And yet his defense team stood up at both Friday's hearing and the one a few weeks ago to ask for bond. For a man who murdered a woman while he was out on parole for beating that woman. That man needs to never step a foot out of prison again--no bond, no parole, no early release. Life without parole.
Lauren mattered.
www.wdam.com
