July 25, 2024 • 46 mins
Bricen Rivers nearly beat his girlfriend to death in their car in Nashville while on a romantic weekend getaway.
Jailed with bond set high enough so he couldn't get out, his victim, Lauren Johansen, is recovering in Mississippi when a judge lowers River's bond, and lets him out to finish what he started.
On this episode of "Body Bags," Joseph Scott Morgan will explain the horrible injuries Lauren sustained in the first beating in Nashville, while Dave Mack breaks down the backstory on the relationship that was so toxic, Lauren Johansen winds up dead in the back of her own car in the middle of a cemetery.
Transcript Highlights
00:00:04.19 Introduction - Being a parent, Father .
00:04:26.07 Discussion of abusive relationship
00:09:20.25 Talking about parenting a child in abusive relationship
00:13:39.86 Discussion of Nashville trip, how much effort it would take
00:18:40.36 Talk seeing trauma in hospital
00:23:22.52 Discussion or rocks as a weapon, pistol whipping
00:28:29.50 Discussion of wound to Lauren's head at hairline
00:32:02.27 Talk about man abusing woman, judge lowering bond
00:36:15.69 Discussion of Lauren being kidnapped from home
00:40:38.20 Discussion of wounds Lauren suffered before death
00:43:48.59 Talk about Lauren wasn't recovered from December 11 beating
00:46:41.34 Conclusion Lauren's father helped recover her body
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Body does, but Joseph's gotten more. Every now and then,
I try to recenter myself as a dad, because you
know when when your kids get older and they get
out of the house, many times you forget those moments
(00:28):
that are so very precious, when that little life was
delivered into this world and swaddled by perhaps a labor
and delivery nurse, and you're terrified. It doesn't matter how
many kids you have, you're terrified every single time. And
(00:50):
they hand that child to you, this little life that
has come into the world, and you know you've been
in great anticipation all this time, you've gone through the
pregnancy with in my case, with my precious wife, and
you don't really know what's on the horizon. But when
(01:11):
they hand that little life over to you and you
hold them to your chest and they're trying to make
that little cry, you know they haven't quite got their
voice even for crying at that point in time. Their
mouth up and you look down and you see the
fragility of what you're holding, and you know that it
(01:34):
is your responsibility to bring them up in a world that,
as an adult, you already know is just rife with
danger at every turn. It's something I try to return
to regularly and try to remember at this point in
(01:54):
my life. Today, I want to talk about as a father,
another father who probably had the same experience. This man's
a physician now, of his little girl that he probably
(02:19):
held for that brief moment as she tried to form
that first cry in that labor and delivery room. We're
going to talk about the murder, the savage murder of
(02:40):
Lauren Johanson Hattiesburg, Mississippi. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this
is Bodybacks Brother Dave. Got to tell you, man, we
have these moments where I will come to the mic
(03:03):
and I'll sit down and we've discussed the case. We've
you know, communicated through electronics and all these sorts of things.
But you sit down and you you kind of take
the measure of what you're about to talk to and
it's I don't know, it becomes I'm not saying I'm
sacred anyway, but it's a sacred. It's a sacred task,
(03:25):
I think, to tell the story of someone that has
passed on, and in this case, there's something about this
that just so resonates with me because of the brutality
of this Dave. That's just absolutely heartbreaking about this child.
And she is a child to me. She's only twenty
(03:47):
two years old.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Lauren Johansson's twenty two years old. She's an our end student.
She's studying to become a nurse. Her dad is a doctor.
And Bryce Rivers is her twenty three year old on again,
off again boyfriend. And in this case, today we're going
to talk about domestic violence, the impact of how somebody
(04:12):
in a relationship over a period of years crying out
for help on one day, crying out for their life
in one day, and within forty eight hours, while the
swelling is still so severe one eye cannot even be opened,
and yet telling the person who did this incredible damage,
(04:34):
I love you, I love you. I will do anything
for you. What can I do? That's what we're talking about.
This is a classic case. Her father, Lauren Johansson's father
said she was a Stockholm syndrome. He used that term. Wow,
And I don't know enough about psychology to dig into that.
(04:55):
We have friends that do those things, oh yeah. But
over the years of covering and domestic violence issues, and
we have cases that are not that dissimilar. But in
this case, Lauren Johansson was beaten by her boyfriend in
December while they were on a quick vacation to Nashville.
The beating was so severe that Bryce Rivers was locked
(05:18):
into the county jail while they were prepping all the
paperwork slated to go to court and go on trial,
and his bond was set so high it wasn't expected
that he would get out on bond. It was very high.
And yet over a period of months, his attorney his
family got the judge to lower his bond and they
(05:40):
bonded him out. Once out on bond, everything was messed up.
Bryce Rivers was not supposed to leave Tennessee, specifically Nashville.
He wasn't supposed to do anything. Lauren Johansson should have
been safe, but she wasn't. And there were so many failures.
The fingers are pointing at a lot of different people
in Nashville for the death of Learning Johansson.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Yeah, and you know, the her daddy in particular, has
pretty plainly stated, you know that system did fail for
his daughter. And you know, you and I were talking
about this just a moment ago. We've you know, you
and I have both got you know, kids that we're
(06:21):
proud of and that we love. But you know, as
a parent, you sit there and you you know, you
kind of you know, they tell you take your hands
off your kids, right, And I mean that in the
sense that once they reach a certain level, they're going
to have to learn right or they won't survive in
the world. And you can say to a child, I think,
(06:46):
and I know I have, I wouldn't do that, you know,
I would not involve myself in the situation any further.
This is dangerous. The common parlance is this is toxic,
you know, that sort of thing. And you see it.
You know, as a parent, you can see it, and
many many nights, you know, on your knees, crying out
(07:09):
to God saying please help them, you know, see the
light because I can't. I can't do this, you know,
all my own I can't. I can't intervene any further.
But yet it happens, and and David's like a it's
almost like a science experiment where you know, one of
the things that we're looking for in science is to
have if we conduct an experiment, an experiment, we're looking
(07:31):
for repeatable results, right that if you use a particular
methodology in order to achieve a goal you have in
a hypothesis and you put that into work with the
scientific method, and you're thinking about this that it's is
it repeatable? And you know you said something key just
a moment ago about domestic violence. There are certain ingredients
(07:56):
that go into a lot of these things that we
have covered over the years where you see the same
little data points along the way, you know, where you
know that if you if this continues on, we're gonna
wind up with the same results. And I don't know,
I don't I don't know enough about Lauren's relationship with Bryson,
(08:21):
but I can tell you this. There there were signs
I think probably along the way. And dude, the biggest
sign was that trip to Nashville. And it's it's striking
to me. You know that you know what would compel
her because you and I have seen the images and
(08:42):
the images are horrific. I mean, even by my by
my measure, these things are horrific. And these are photos
that are taking of her in the emergency room probably
and you consider that and you think, oh my god.
When she talks to him on the phone, she says,
(09:05):
I love you. How does how do you how do
you fight that, you know, as a parent, you know,
how do you how do you redirect in some way?
I don't know. And I think that that's that might
be this idea of him, you know, uh, speculating about
Stockholm syndrome where you know she you know, you you
(09:26):
have great sympathy for this, for this person that's doing
these horrible things.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
When her father is speaking up and I have a
really strong feeling that when he does let his guard
down right now, he's very clinical, he is the father.
He is very again, he's a isn't he a surgeon?
He's a doctor, yeah, to be a surgeon.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
And so he and he was there when they found
her body. And here's what happened. Okay, just so you know,
this is a dating relationship that dates back to high
school where he was the star football player and she's
the beautiful co ed right after high school. And by
the way, her dad has indicated that this relationship went
through many periods of violence to varying degrees. I don't
(10:13):
know it, like we don't. I have to say alleged
because the man is alive and he is innocent until
proven guilty. And let's be very clear on that the
accusations made by her father are first hand accounts. I
don't know all of the relationship issues, but I will
tell you this, Lauren one of Johansson was her mother had.
(10:40):
There are issues in their family dynamic that made Lauren
grow up faster inside the home where she was serving
as not just the older sister of her siblings, she
at times had to step in as a mother figure
and run the household. Her father has indicated as much
in writing as in particular in a gofund me writing
he talked about Lauren and what she was like. But
(11:04):
just to back up from it, Lauren and Bryce no
different than any other high school couple and young adult
couple that go to college. You know, we all have
these relationships that are built on any number of infatuations
that we go through in junior high, high school, and
early college. It's after your second or third year of
college when you get past that immaturity of the relationship
(11:27):
and start looking forward. And that is where they were.
They were at that part and the violence appeared to
be going up, and they had been broken up so
many times and her father, Lauren's father was happy about
this when he found out when Lauren's father found out
(11:48):
that Lauren and Bryce and were in Nashville on vacation.
He was shocked. He thought they were broken up for
good when Lauren went to college. He thought her dad
thought she was done with Bryson Rivers. He was positive
of this, so much so when he found out that
not only were they in Nashville on vacation, but his
(12:10):
daughter was once again beaten, he was shocked at multiple
levels and you know went right there. The pictures are
available and you can look them up, as Joe and
I have of the beating that took place December eleventh
of twenty twenty three. They had Bryson and Lauren had
(12:31):
gone out. They'd gone to Nashville for a couple of days.
They're both from Mississippi in the Gulfport area and that's
where their families are from. They went to Nashville for
a little vacation. They'd gone out to a bar and
you know, they were drinking. Bryson when they left the bar,
Bryson accused Lauren of having sex with a bartender or
(12:52):
somebody at the bar. Think about that for just a minute.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
Yeah, the dynamics of that's that's crazy talk in and
I mean that. Yeah, how do you show up, you know,
all the way from golf Board if you if, if
you're not, if you're not familiar with geographically where these
two locations are are situated. You know, it's kind of
(13:16):
a drive, you know, from the Gulf Board area, going
from the Gulf Coast, you know, golf Board, Uh, all
the way up to Nashville.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
Yeah. Uh?
Speaker 1 (13:25):
And logistically, how let me you know, how does that
work out? You know? You do you do the math here?
You're you're actually going to accuse her of engaging in
sexual congress with an employee of this bar. And at
this moment time, I don't care how much firewater you
got on board at that point in time. How do
(13:46):
you even do how do you even do the calculus
on that?
Speaker 2 (13:49):
Dude?
Speaker 1 (13:50):
You know that you're going to sit here and actually
accuse this young woman who you've been involved with for
years and years? How are you how are you going
to How does that? How does that work out?
Speaker 2 (14:01):
Doesn't You're crazy? Man? You know? He She was showing
another vanittion. She talked to a guy. Right you're in
a bar having a drink. Guy, I asked you a question.
You talk to him. That's what happened, and that's what
sent Bryson Rivers over the edge. They left the bar
and inside the bar or inside the car rather, he's
hitting her. He is beating his girlfriend in the car
(14:21):
as they're driving now. Bryson Rivers mother called him several times.
It's a mother's intuition to know when a child is
messing up. It's they know what's going on. They know
the sound of A parent knows the sound of their
child's voice. But a mother even takes it a step
farther than a dad. They catch things that normal people
(14:45):
can't when when a woman becomes a mother, they become
like a superhero. And Bryson's mother knew something bad was happening,
and she kept calling Bryson and at one point during
one of these phones calls, she could hear a female
voice crying out for help, and in that voice she
(15:05):
heard fear, panic, everything. And it was Bryson River's mother
who called police and described a couple having a disagreement,
a physical disagreement inside a car. And the police found
the car parked in a parking lot in Nashville. The
windows were fogged up. It is December eleventh, by the way,
(15:27):
so it is wintertime in Nashville, not extremely cold, but
certainly chilly. The windows inside the car have fogged up.
The police arrive on site and Lauren is able to
escape out of the car. She is now wearing just
panties on her bra and blood everywhere. Her head is
a mangled mess of swollen blood. When they looked inside
(15:50):
the car, there's blood everywhere. Inside the car they found
two rocks and a pistol that were all covered in blood.
So Bryson Rivers apparently allegedly beat his girlfriend with two
rocks and a pistol, and by the way, Joe he
(16:10):
had blood on him as well. Police were concerned he
was injured, that this had been a mutual attack, until
they discovered he didn't have any injuries, he didn't have
any play coming from him. The blood on Bryson Rivers
belonged to Lauren Johanson.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
And for that one moment in this absolute horror show,
there was a ray of hope. It came in the
form of Miss Rivers, Bryson's mother, where she was able
to direct the police to intervene in this circumstance. Maybe,
(16:58):
just maybe there was a chance that Lauren could have survived,
but the story takes a much darker turn after that. Dave,
(17:23):
I want to reveal something to you that I don't
know that I've ever talked about on bodybacks before. Maybe
I have. It's hard to say, you know, my first
exposure to massive trauma was not in the morgue as
an autopsy assistant or later as a corner investigator, but
(17:46):
my first exposure to massive trauma as a young man.
While I was in college. I got a job as
an emergency room technician, and essentially, you know, it meant
that I was cleaning a lot. They taught me how
(18:08):
to do blood pressures and if there were you know,
violent patients that came in, I would be the person
to you know, restrain them in some way and just
deal with the things to make life easier for the
actual people that were you know, rendering aid, the nurses
and of course the physicians. That's where I first saw
(18:32):
you know, trauma, and it was great for me going
into forensics because this is it's almost like living pathology
that you're seeing these people that we had our deaths
that would come into the mercy room, but you would
actually see people that were still alive, and if they
sustained trauma, you could actually see now, just imagine this,
(18:55):
You could actually see the result of the trauma before
your eyes. Eyes worsen, you know, when you're thinking about
hemorrhage and all of those sorts of things. And I
remember how shocking it was because when.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
So somebody comes in having just gone through a violent event. Yeah,
and you're actually watching as the wounds worse, they swell more.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Yeah. And that's that's the key word here. Wow, this
idea of swelling, because the little vessels are all broken
just beneath the skin, and so you've got you've got
blood that's leaching out and you've heard me use this
term into what's called the interstitial tissue, right, and it
begins to swell, and it's a it's a response, a
trauma response that your body has as a result of this.
(19:41):
And Dave, there would be people that would come in.
I have a vivid memory of this. There would be
people that would come in and I remember as a
very young man standing bearing witness to this, thinking, how
how's this person alive? And you would hear them through
the crusted blood, you would hear them through the swelling.
(20:07):
You would hear them mumble something, and it's almost shocking
that they're actually I wouldn't say alert and oriented, but
they're conscious. And because you look at this, particularly through
you know, a young man's eyes, I had no experience
with this sort of thing to begin with, None of
us do when we start off in life like this.
(20:27):
I was shocked by my measure at that point time
the person was still living, was still drawing breath. And
when I see these images of Lauren in these circumstances
and the swelling, which you know, fancy term for that
is echamosis, this trauma response, I'm thinking probably there may
(20:50):
have been some technician, some young technician in there that
bore witness to this, that was in the same shoes
I was in all those years ago, thinking how how
in the world world is she still alive? Because they're
even on my scale, Dave, this is this is horrific
stuff that we're talking about.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
What did the pictures tell you about the injuries to
Lauren Johansson from that night and the items that the
police found in the car, What do you get out
of all that?
Speaker 1 (21:21):
Well, look, my first blush is when I take when
I take a look at at this image in life.
It's it's these are not post mortem images.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
This is.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Was a beautiful, living, breathing young lady. When I take
a look at these photos that they took, it took
of her, uh, post this first event, her eyes are
bilaterally swollen, and that's commonly what we refer to as
raccoon eyes. That tells me that if it, if it
(21:57):
hadn't happened, if there was not an indication of it.
As a death investigator, I would make kind of the
intellectual leap here and say that she's got underline fracture,
probably maybe even a basel er skull fracture.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
Okay, looking at her eyes, Joe, Yeah, and seeing how
her head appears to be lopsided, right, can you tell
what could have been used to cause us? Was it
a fist, an open hand, or rock a gun? Can
you kind of tell what that is?
Speaker 1 (22:30):
You know, after she was after she's in obviously she's
been cleaned up, you know, relative.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
To this blood wiped away.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
Yeah, the blood's wiped away. And there are not a
lot of in just the image that we have in
this status, there are not a lot of what we
refer to as specific pattern injuries that draws into question
here the contact that came about as a result of
(23:03):
wielding these rocks. You know, the rocks have been weaponized.
And also you've got a firearm that is not being
used as as a firearm. It's being used as a
bludgeon at this point in time. And the thing about
and typically you know, I'm sure that people have heard
(23:23):
the term pistol whipping, and that's a real thing. It
does occur.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
I've only heard it in movies before now, in the
movie JFK when they showed the Ana, Yeah, Ed Asner's
character beating up Jack Leman's character with the pistol. And
then in Goodfellas where you know he got Henry Hill
after his girlfriend future wife has been across.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
Yeah, it was a thirty eight caliber snubnose that he
had and he used it almost like in that instance,
he used it almost like brass knuckles.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
Right, Is that what we're talking about with a pistol whipping.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
That is a pistol whipping, and it's a methodology that
has been used. It's almost like, see, how can I
say this. It's almost like the individual that is wielding
the handgun in this particular case is using it as
a precursor, okay to what could happen in the final moments, like, Okay,
(24:24):
we're ramping up at this point in time, I'm going
to take this pistol and I'm not going to shoot you.
I'm going to beat you with it. And typically with
a weapon, and a lot of it has to do
with the various surfaces. Let's say, for instance, you gave
the example from the movie Goodfellas that was a revolver
that Henry Hill, that the character of Henry Hill was
(24:45):
wielding at that point in time. I've seen pistol whippings
with a revolver where the wheel part of the weapon
is kind of extended out on both sides, and I've
seen there's kind of these indentations along the wheel, along
the revolving part of the weapon. I've seen that actually
(25:06):
imprinted onto people's skin. I've actually seen if someone has
the hammer on the back of a weapon, which is
where the hammer is not internal, it's external and it
kind of sticks out on the back. You see this
like an old cowboy weapons, that particular feature can be
(25:26):
driven into the skull and it's almost used almost like
a spike, if you will. The weapons have so many
handguns have so many little features on them that are
unique to those weapons. You can actually take a firearm
and if you're keen enough to do this, compare the
(25:50):
actual weapon that was used to images of the weapon
or better yet, and I've done this in the morgue
where somebody's been beaten to death with a pistol. Actually
the police will actually bring that weapon to the morgue
and hold it adjacent to the entries Dave that we're
witnessing on the autopsy table and take a comparative photograph
(26:14):
at that point in time. It's amazing what you can
come up with this. The one thing that's striking to
me about this though, are the rocks, because rocks, as
we know, and they don't really define the rocks here. Yeah, okay,
if you go out too, Yeah, if you go out
and you pick up, like, I don't know, say, a
piece of kind of quartzy kind of rock that's out there,
(26:36):
it's got these little sharp angles on it that's going
to have a very definitive pattern to it. But if
it's if it's like a river stone, and we you know,
if you've ever been to the mountains and you've been
in one of those cold streams up there where the
water is rushing over there. They're very smooth, aren't they.
(26:56):
Native Americans would take those stones and make like access
out of more bludgeons out of them because they had
this kind of predictable, predictable structure to them. That's going
to appear different than this kind of jagged rock that
you might find out. But she's got a significant laceration
that you can see in the photo. As a matter
(27:17):
of fact, it's kind of elliptical in shape. And referring
back sound like I'm in court if you'll allow me
to refer back to the images as you're as you're
looking at this in her hairline, there's this kind of
elliptical laceration that's that's in dwelling there. That's that's very nasty.
(27:42):
It's right at the edge of her hairline, and it's shape,
there's actually kind of a pattern to it. Well, what
could in fact generate that, Well, if you've got a
weapon that actually has a curved edge to it that's
that's milled, it's manifest action like that that specific pattern
(28:03):
could be married up. She's also got and this is
kind of interesting, Dave, just looking at this she's got
a what I would say is probably an abrasion. Perhaps
that's over her left eye. And again it's kind of elliptical.
You know what that looks like?
Speaker 2 (28:22):
To me?
Speaker 1 (28:23):
That looks like almost as if the end of the barrel,
the opening of the muzzle was driven into her forehead
right there, because it's got that kind of rounded appearance,
and that.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
Would like maybe he was pointing forehead and.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
Then driving it, you know. And again that goes to
this domestic violence piece because one of the things, you know,
we use that term domestic violence all the time. You know,
a term I like to use quite a bit is
the term menacing, and menacing is an element of domestic violence.
(28:59):
And whence if you've ever been menaced in your life,
and what that means is it's a threat, but it's
more than a threat. It's like, you know, people can
menace you with their eyes, with their words, but they
can also menace you with weapons that can display it
to you, that can shove it in your face and
that sort of thing. And Dave, they're locked up in
(29:21):
this in this car together for a protracted period of time.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
It was apparently an hour. Okay, that's what we're getting
from what missed, what Chelsea Rivers is telling police about
the beating, and as they put the information together from Lauren,
the timetable from when they left the bar. I mean,
all of these things coming together an hour straight of beating.
(29:50):
And that's why the charges included kidnapping and not allowing
her to leave in coercion and a few other things,
because you've got her phone from her, see, he actually
was able to get control of her phone where she
was trying to call nine one one, trying to call
for help. She said that she was screaming once they
got parked, she was screaming at passing cars, hoping somebody
would hear her screaming. And it was during one of
(30:12):
those calls to his mother when Chelsea Rivers called his
phone that you know, I can imagine him saying, hey,
shut up, I'm talking to my mom. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
you know. And then and so when police arrive and
they see her, they see the foggy windows, and as
they approach, she has the ability to get away because
he's now afraid because real men showed up. Wait a minute, yeah,
(30:34):
because this real guy is beating up a girl and
now these cops show up immediately his demeanor has to change. Oh,
it's all her fault. She was scratching me, she was
threatening me. What did the police see inside that car
in terms of blood because they said it was a
bloody mess. Are we talking cast off because it's very tight?
Speaker 1 (30:50):
No? No, no, you're you're right, it's going to be
the Yeah. And here we have an event where someone
is you know me cases we talk about on body
backs or things that happen after death. Okay, now this
is a dynamic event. This is her trying to shield herself.
And one of the things we cannot pick up on
in the imagery that we have right now. I bet
(31:13):
you dollars to donuts right now, if we had, if
they had, if we could go back in time and
take a look at her arms, I guarantee you, my friend,
that we would see contusions on her arms where she
was blocking or attempting to block. And of course, anytime
you block somebody like this that's in this state of mind,
(31:33):
that just infuriates them even more. It drives that temperature higher.
And Dave, you know, looking at Lauren, and she's a
little video thing. I mean, she ain't big as a minute.
She's diminutive. And I'm glad you brought that up about
the real men showing up here, because you know what
(31:54):
type of man using air quotes here, as Nancy always says,
what type of man beats down a tiny, little willowy
woman like this and can actually feel good about it.
I guess at some point in time, somebody will stand
up and say, well, you don't understand still, waters run deep.
(32:17):
He had a lot going on. But I do know this.
I do know this. It's as a result of not
just his actions, but also the actions of that judge
up there in Nashville who allowed him out of jail,
(32:40):
and somebody that had created arguably one of the most
horrific scenes that you can possibly imagine as an investigator.
She allowed him to leave custody, to leave custody, he
was not They were used that bond. His mother met it.
(33:03):
And it's at that point in time I think I
think that Lauren's fate was sealed. Holy smokes, you know
(33:29):
I'm thinking about this, David. I'm thinking, you know, there
are certain times when we can't take the measure. I
think of the decisions that the judiciary makes so many times,
you know, you want so desperately to grab somebody in
one of those black robes and drag them out to
(33:52):
emergency rooms, into crime scenes and to see the weeping
parents and have them visually see what's going on because
it's and look, I know, justice is blind, and you
can tell me that all day long. I've stood over
too many dead victims over the course of my career
(34:14):
and over the course of what I've done in the
media to simply take that and say, okay, well we'll
just move on. No, no, no, no. It's something like this
where you witness what happened and then you see the
end result. Here, I don't understand, we've got this.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
How do we go from in jail, locked up in Nashville,
I don't know, six months later being dead?
Speaker 1 (34:40):
Being dead? Yeah, And the next thing we know, you know,
they're popping up on the radar down Mississippi and what's
going on?
Speaker 2 (34:48):
What's going on.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
That he's now walking the streets and he's not only
had this is the thing. Not only is he walking
the streets, he's walking streets in Mississippi. He's not walk
in the streets in Nashville.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
Man, Yep, you know, Joe, I'm gonna give you a
very quick thumbnail sketch of the timetable between December eleventh,
when Bryson Rivers is arrested for nearly killing Lauren Johanson
by beating her in their car in Nashville, to the
time he gets out of jail on June twenty eighth,
see when doctor Johanson was with Lauren in Nashville. They
expected the bond of two hundred and fifty one thousand
(35:23):
dollars to keep Bryson Rivers in jail until the case
went to court. At that point they were hoping to
get a conviction and have him sentenced for up to
life in prison for nearly killing her. But that's not
what happened. Bryson Rivers attorney was able to get a
judge to lower his bond from two hundred and fifty
one thousand to one hundred and fifty thousand. Judge Cheryl
(35:44):
Blackburn in Nashville lowered it. That meant his mother, Bryson
Rivers mother only had to come up with fifteen grand
to get him out, and she did. He was released
and there were a number of conditions that applied to
his release from jail. He didn't abide by any of them.
So Doctor Johansson, Lauren's father, wrote this on go fund
(36:04):
to me about when Bryson Rivers got out of jail
on the twenty eighth. He said, early Tuesday morning, Kaylin
by the way, Kaylin is Lauren's sister, and they were
living together in Mississippi, and Kylen found the front door open.
Her cats were outside in the front yard. Lauren was gone.
(36:26):
A security camera had been ripped off the house, and
doctor Johanson said that Lauren's life three point sixty was
cut off at four one am. So the thought is
that Bryson Rivers kidnapped Lauren that morning at four oh
one am. She was reported missing right away to the
police two separate times. Doctor Johansson said, I called and
(36:48):
talked to anyone and everyone who would listen and help
me find her. The next day we found her car
and Bryson ran from the car. Now let me give
you this very quickly here because second is the day
they believe Lauren was killed. It was Wednesday, July third.
Hattiesburg Police Department used on Star. They couldn't find where
(37:11):
Lauren was. They knew that Bryson Rivers probably had her.
They knew that his monitoring ankle Brasil wasn't working and
they couldn't find him well. On Star was able to
track Lauren Johansson's car. They located in July third at
Wolf River Cemetery. Think about that, it's in a cemetery.
Hattiesburg Police Department requests the Sheriff's Department's help in conducting
(37:34):
a welfare check at that location. As deputies find the
car in the cemetery, Bryson Rivers is in the car,
He gets out and Bryson Rivers runs away from the
car into the woods. When they get to the car
and doctor Johansson is with the medical examiner when they
found her body in her own car, wrapped in trash
(37:58):
bags and sheets. Lauren's father, doctor Lance Johansson, said this,
I knew she was dead 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. She was basically beaten to death.
Her face was smashed in, her head was smashed in,
(38:20):
She was brutally beaten to the point she couldn't see
out of either eye when she finally died, and there
were multiple holes in her head. I helped the coroner
lift her body out of the car. It was just mutilated.
That was doctor Lance Johansson talking about his daughter Lauren
and finding her body.
Speaker 1 (38:40):
Dave, I'm going to give you one word here that
issued forth from doctor Johansson's lips. Mutilated. Let that sink
in just for a second. Mutilated. Now, when she was
(39:06):
found in her car, by the way, her body was
wrapped in sheets and plastic. She's lying there in that car,
and her daddy is the one that actually found her.
(39:31):
In this state, I'm you know, I think that I
could say that words fail me, but they really don't.
There's a way to describe this. I think failure. Failure
is the biggest one. But here's the thing we have
(39:56):
to reflect back on here because this this is all
going to play out in court relative to him. And
I'm thinking about back to things that I've heard Nancy
Gray say over the over the years where they talk
about you can't use you can't use prior bad acts
(40:16):
in a case to to impugne the person. And I
really wonder how all of this is going to come
into play, because you know, it's like the old poem,
you know, for the want of a nail, a horseshoe
was lost for the one of the horseshoe, you know,
horse was lost, so forth and so on. If it
wasn't for that one thing back in time, the fatal
(40:42):
event would not have occurred here. And of course Rivers
uses the same methodology with her. He beats her to death.
He actually has a pistol with him. Now this is
this is an individual who has been accused of arguably
(41:05):
one of the most horrific things you can be accused
of period where a weapon was previously involved handgun. Now
he's got his hands on another weapon. And not only that,
he's planned this out. He knows And I have to
back up here and say that her she was domiciled currently.
(41:27):
You know, she was a college student. She's going to
University of Southern Mississippi. That's in Hattiesburg. Now that's due
north of Gulfport. So she was there with her sisters.
He was familiar with this property, familiar enough to the
point where he had disabled the security cameras. He's familiar
(41:49):
enough with the property to know where she slept inside
of this environment.
Speaker 2 (41:58):
We know that her dad helped find her body. You
mentioned sheets back trash bags. He mentioned mutilated. What kind
of injuries are we talking about? Because she hadn't fully recovered.
I mentioned this before we started taping, having had a
couple of head injuries in my life. I know that
my last concussion, I didn't really feel good about driving
(42:21):
no for almost a year. Yeah, and she had serious
She was beaten so bad in December, Joe, that she
couldn't have been fully recovered. Now by the time this
takes place six months later.
Speaker 1 (42:34):
There is no way in God's green earth that she
would have been to the point where she was able
to really handle life in the way that she would
have prior to that. And she would there still would
have been evidences there, right, she's still injured, Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (42:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:54):
And the thing about it is one of the things
that we do in forensics is that we have this
kind of layering of injuries when and again back to
this idea of chronic abuse. You see this with children
with like chronic cases of child abuse, where you'll have
these overlapping injuries that occur over a period of time.
And let me tell you something. If somebody gets let's see,
(43:17):
how can I phrase this. If somebody gets to the
point where they're going to go out of town with
you and beat you to the extent that he beat her.
This ain't his first rodeo. He's put hands on her before,
and I don't know, I don't know to what degree,
and maybe some of that will come out. He's harmed
(43:39):
her before. I have no doubt in my mind, just
knowing what I know about cases like this.
Speaker 2 (43:46):
Her dad said Stockholm syndrome. Joe.
Speaker 1 (43:48):
Yeah, and that she you know, this person that is
pretty wicked, I'd have to say. For some reason, she
feels compelled to protect him, to still stay within that circle,
within their little confined space where she's you know, he
(44:09):
can lrd over her at any moment time that he
wants to, and also taking that to to a more
intense level, he feels like that he can put his
hands on her to any degree that he wants to.
He had there was no shame in him leaving Nashville
to come back down south to Gulfport Hattiesburg, that area
(44:31):
that she that she uh, you know, that they lived
in where they both had a life. He felt no
shame in that he's going to return to it. So
he feels very comfortable, apparently in this environment doing what
he has done to this poor young lady that had
such a bright future. But Dave, I got to tell
(44:51):
you something here, and in this case, I I came
across something that I in all of my years in
forensics and as a medical legal death investigator, I never
encountered on street ever. And it's a statement that doctor
(45:14):
Johansson made. Not only did he use the word mutilated, Dave,
but he also revealed something else. He helped helped the
(45:35):
corner remove his precious baby's body from that car. He
helped with that. Now I go on and on about
the value of evidence, I talk about the cards principles,
(45:56):
I talk about all of these issues in forensics, and
just for a moment, we have to consider that, aside
from the science, that there is horror here that none
of us can appreciate. Doctor Johnson can because not only
(46:18):
did he bear witness to this slow motion train wreck
where he sat there helpless, probably hopeless, he was there
to view where her life terminated and how she was
treated in death. I'm Josephcott Morgan, and this is body
(46:43):
backs
Body does, but Joseph's gotten more. Every now and then,
I try to recenter myself as a dad, because you
know when when your kids get older and they get
out of the house, many times you forget those moments
(00:28):
that are so very precious, when that little life was
delivered into this world and swaddled by perhaps a labor
and delivery nurse, and you're terrified. It doesn't matter how
many kids you have, you're terrified every single time. And
(00:50):
they hand that child to you, this little life that
has come into the world, and you know you've been
in great anticipation all this time, you've gone through the
pregnancy with in my case, with my precious wife, and
you don't really know what's on the horizon. But when
(01:11):
they hand that little life over to you and you
hold them to your chest and they're trying to make
that little cry, you know they haven't quite got their
voice even for crying at that point in time. Their
mouth up and you look down and you see the
fragility of what you're holding, and you know that it
(01:34):
is your responsibility to bring them up in a world that,
as an adult, you already know is just rife with
danger at every turn. It's something I try to return
to regularly and try to remember at this point in
(01:54):
my life. Today, I want to talk about as a father,
another father who probably had the same experience. This man's
a physician now, of his little girl that he probably
(02:19):
held for that brief moment as she tried to form
that first cry in that labor and delivery room. We're
going to talk about the murder, the savage murder of
(02:40):
Lauren Johanson Hattiesburg, Mississippi. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this
is Bodybacks Brother Dave. Got to tell you, man, we
have these moments where I will come to the mic
(03:03):
and I'll sit down and we've discussed the case. We've
you know, communicated through electronics and all these sorts of things.
But you sit down and you you kind of take
the measure of what you're about to talk to and
it's I don't know, it becomes I'm not saying I'm
sacred anyway, but it's a sacred. It's a sacred task,
(03:25):
I think, to tell the story of someone that has
passed on, and in this case, there's something about this
that just so resonates with me because of the brutality
of this Dave. That's just absolutely heartbreaking about this child.
And she is a child to me. She's only twenty
(03:47):
two years old.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Lauren Johansson's twenty two years old. She's an our end student.
She's studying to become a nurse. Her dad is a doctor.
And Bryce Rivers is her twenty three year old on again,
off again boyfriend. And in this case, today we're going
to talk about domestic violence, the impact of how somebody
(04:12):
in a relationship over a period of years crying out
for help on one day, crying out for their life
in one day, and within forty eight hours, while the
swelling is still so severe one eye cannot even be opened,
and yet telling the person who did this incredible damage,
(04:34):
I love you, I love you. I will do anything
for you. What can I do? That's what we're talking about.
This is a classic case. Her father, Lauren Johansson's father
said she was a Stockholm syndrome. He used that term. Wow,
And I don't know enough about psychology to dig into that.
(04:55):
We have friends that do those things, oh yeah. But
over the years of covering and domestic violence issues, and
we have cases that are not that dissimilar. But in
this case, Lauren Johansson was beaten by her boyfriend in
December while they were on a quick vacation to Nashville.
The beating was so severe that Bryce Rivers was locked
(05:18):
into the county jail while they were prepping all the
paperwork slated to go to court and go on trial,
and his bond was set so high it wasn't expected
that he would get out on bond. It was very high.
And yet over a period of months, his attorney his
family got the judge to lower his bond and they
(05:40):
bonded him out. Once out on bond, everything was messed up.
Bryce Rivers was not supposed to leave Tennessee, specifically Nashville.
He wasn't supposed to do anything. Lauren Johansson should have
been safe, but she wasn't. And there were so many failures.
The fingers are pointing at a lot of different people
in Nashville for the death of Learning Johansson.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Yeah, and you know, the her daddy in particular, has
pretty plainly stated, you know that system did fail for
his daughter. And you know, you and I were talking
about this just a moment ago. We've you know, you
and I have both got you know, kids that we're
(06:21):
proud of and that we love. But you know, as
a parent, you sit there and you you know, you
kind of you know, they tell you take your hands
off your kids, right, And I mean that in the
sense that once they reach a certain level, they're going
to have to learn right or they won't survive in
the world. And you can say to a child, I think,
(06:46):
and I know I have, I wouldn't do that, you know,
I would not involve myself in the situation any further.
This is dangerous. The common parlance is this is toxic,
you know, that sort of thing. And you see it.
You know, as a parent, you can see it, and
many many nights, you know, on your knees, crying out
(07:09):
to God saying please help them, you know, see the
light because I can't. I can't do this, you know,
all my own I can't. I can't intervene any further.
But yet it happens, and and David's like a it's
almost like a science experiment where you know, one of
the things that we're looking for in science is to
have if we conduct an experiment, an experiment, we're looking
(07:31):
for repeatable results, right that if you use a particular
methodology in order to achieve a goal you have in
a hypothesis and you put that into work with the
scientific method, and you're thinking about this that it's is
it repeatable? And you know you said something key just
a moment ago about domestic violence. There are certain ingredients
(07:56):
that go into a lot of these things that we
have covered over the years where you see the same
little data points along the way, you know, where you
know that if you if this continues on, we're gonna
wind up with the same results. And I don't know,
I don't I don't know enough about Lauren's relationship with Bryson,
(08:21):
but I can tell you this. There there were signs
I think probably along the way. And dude, the biggest
sign was that trip to Nashville. And it's it's striking
to me. You know that you know what would compel
her because you and I have seen the images and
(08:42):
the images are horrific. I mean, even by my by
my measure, these things are horrific. And these are photos
that are taking of her in the emergency room probably
and you consider that and you think, oh my god.
When she talks to him on the phone, she says,
(09:05):
I love you. How does how do you how do
you fight that, you know, as a parent, you know,
how do you how do you redirect in some way?
I don't know. And I think that that's that might
be this idea of him, you know, uh, speculating about
Stockholm syndrome where you know she you know, you you
(09:26):
have great sympathy for this, for this person that's doing
these horrible things.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
When her father is speaking up and I have a
really strong feeling that when he does let his guard
down right now, he's very clinical, he is the father.
He is very again, he's a isn't he a surgeon?
He's a doctor, yeah, to be a surgeon.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
And so he and he was there when they found
her body. And here's what happened. Okay, just so you know,
this is a dating relationship that dates back to high
school where he was the star football player and she's
the beautiful co ed right after high school. And by
the way, her dad has indicated that this relationship went
through many periods of violence to varying degrees. I don't
(10:13):
know it, like we don't. I have to say alleged
because the man is alive and he is innocent until
proven guilty. And let's be very clear on that the
accusations made by her father are first hand accounts. I
don't know all of the relationship issues, but I will
tell you this, Lauren one of Johansson was her mother had.
(10:40):
There are issues in their family dynamic that made Lauren
grow up faster inside the home where she was serving
as not just the older sister of her siblings, she
at times had to step in as a mother figure
and run the household. Her father has indicated as much
in writing as in particular in a gofund me writing
he talked about Lauren and what she was like. But
(11:04):
just to back up from it, Lauren and Bryce no
different than any other high school couple and young adult
couple that go to college. You know, we all have
these relationships that are built on any number of infatuations
that we go through in junior high, high school, and
early college. It's after your second or third year of
college when you get past that immaturity of the relationship
(11:27):
and start looking forward. And that is where they were.
They were at that part and the violence appeared to
be going up, and they had been broken up so
many times and her father, Lauren's father was happy about
this when he found out when Lauren's father found out
(11:48):
that Lauren and Bryce and were in Nashville on vacation.
He was shocked. He thought they were broken up for
good when Lauren went to college. He thought her dad
thought she was done with Bryson Rivers. He was positive
of this, so much so when he found out that
not only were they in Nashville on vacation, but his
(12:10):
daughter was once again beaten, he was shocked at multiple
levels and you know went right there. The pictures are
available and you can look them up, as Joe and
I have of the beating that took place December eleventh
of twenty twenty three. They had Bryson and Lauren had
(12:31):
gone out. They'd gone to Nashville for a couple of days.
They're both from Mississippi in the Gulfport area and that's
where their families are from. They went to Nashville for
a little vacation. They'd gone out to a bar and
you know, they were drinking. Bryson when they left the bar,
Bryson accused Lauren of having sex with a bartender or
(12:52):
somebody at the bar. Think about that for just a minute.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
Yeah, the dynamics of that's that's crazy talk in and
I mean that. Yeah, how do you show up, you know,
all the way from golf Board if you if, if
you're not, if you're not familiar with geographically where these
two locations are are situated. You know, it's kind of
(13:16):
a drive, you know, from the Gulf Board area, going
from the Gulf Coast, you know, golf Board, Uh, all
the way up to Nashville.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
Yeah. Uh?
Speaker 1 (13:25):
And logistically, how let me you know, how does that
work out? You know? You do you do the math here?
You're you're actually going to accuse her of engaging in
sexual congress with an employee of this bar. And at
this moment time, I don't care how much firewater you
got on board at that point in time. How do
(13:46):
you even do how do you even do the calculus
on that?
Speaker 2 (13:49):
Dude?
Speaker 1 (13:50):
You know that you're going to sit here and actually
accuse this young woman who you've been involved with for
years and years? How are you how are you going
to How does that? How does that work out?
Speaker 2 (14:01):
Doesn't You're crazy? Man? You know? He She was showing
another vanittion. She talked to a guy. Right you're in
a bar having a drink. Guy, I asked you a question.
You talk to him. That's what happened, and that's what
sent Bryson Rivers over the edge. They left the bar
and inside the bar or inside the car rather, he's
hitting her. He is beating his girlfriend in the car
(14:21):
as they're driving now. Bryson Rivers mother called him several times.
It's a mother's intuition to know when a child is
messing up. It's they know what's going on. They know
the sound of A parent knows the sound of their
child's voice. But a mother even takes it a step
farther than a dad. They catch things that normal people
(14:45):
can't when when a woman becomes a mother, they become
like a superhero. And Bryson's mother knew something bad was happening,
and she kept calling Bryson and at one point during
one of these phones calls, she could hear a female
voice crying out for help, and in that voice she
(15:05):
heard fear, panic, everything. And it was Bryson River's mother
who called police and described a couple having a disagreement,
a physical disagreement inside a car. And the police found
the car parked in a parking lot in Nashville. The
windows were fogged up. It is December eleventh, by the way,
(15:27):
so it is wintertime in Nashville, not extremely cold, but
certainly chilly. The windows inside the car have fogged up.
The police arrive on site and Lauren is able to
escape out of the car. She is now wearing just
panties on her bra and blood everywhere. Her head is
a mangled mess of swollen blood. When they looked inside
(15:50):
the car, there's blood everywhere. Inside the car they found
two rocks and a pistol that were all covered in blood.
So Bryson Rivers apparently allegedly beat his girlfriend with two
rocks and a pistol, and by the way, Joe he
(16:10):
had blood on him as well. Police were concerned he
was injured, that this had been a mutual attack, until
they discovered he didn't have any injuries, he didn't have
any play coming from him. The blood on Bryson Rivers
belonged to Lauren Johanson.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
And for that one moment in this absolute horror show,
there was a ray of hope. It came in the
form of Miss Rivers, Bryson's mother, where she was able
to direct the police to intervene in this circumstance. Maybe,
(16:58):
just maybe there was a chance that Lauren could have survived,
but the story takes a much darker turn after that. Dave,
(17:23):
I want to reveal something to you that I don't
know that I've ever talked about on bodybacks before. Maybe
I have. It's hard to say, you know, my first
exposure to massive trauma was not in the morgue as
an autopsy assistant or later as a corner investigator, but
(17:46):
my first exposure to massive trauma as a young man.
While I was in college. I got a job as
an emergency room technician, and essentially, you know, it meant
that I was cleaning a lot. They taught me how
(18:08):
to do blood pressures and if there were you know,
violent patients that came in, I would be the person
to you know, restrain them in some way and just
deal with the things to make life easier for the
actual people that were you know, rendering aid, the nurses
and of course the physicians. That's where I first saw
(18:32):
you know, trauma, and it was great for me going
into forensics because this is it's almost like living pathology
that you're seeing these people that we had our deaths
that would come into the mercy room, but you would
actually see people that were still alive, and if they
sustained trauma, you could actually see now, just imagine this,
(18:55):
You could actually see the result of the trauma before
your eyes. Eyes worsen, you know, when you're thinking about
hemorrhage and all of those sorts of things. And I
remember how shocking it was because when.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
So somebody comes in having just gone through a violent event. Yeah,
and you're actually watching as the wounds worse, they swell more.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Yeah. And that's that's the key word here. Wow, this
idea of swelling, because the little vessels are all broken
just beneath the skin, and so you've got you've got
blood that's leaching out and you've heard me use this
term into what's called the interstitial tissue, right, and it
begins to swell, and it's a it's a response, a
trauma response that your body has as a result of this.
(19:41):
And Dave, there would be people that would come in.
I have a vivid memory of this. There would be
people that would come in and I remember as a
very young man standing bearing witness to this, thinking, how
how's this person alive? And you would hear them through
the crusted blood, you would hear them through the swelling.
(20:07):
You would hear them mumble something, and it's almost shocking
that they're actually I wouldn't say alert and oriented, but
they're conscious. And because you look at this, particularly through
you know, a young man's eyes, I had no experience
with this sort of thing to begin with, None of
us do when we start off in life like this.
(20:27):
I was shocked by my measure at that point time
the person was still living, was still drawing breath. And
when I see these images of Lauren in these circumstances
and the swelling, which you know, fancy term for that
is echamosis, this trauma response, I'm thinking probably there may
(20:50):
have been some technician, some young technician in there that
bore witness to this, that was in the same shoes
I was in all those years ago, thinking how how
in the world world is she still alive? Because they're
even on my scale, Dave, this is this is horrific
stuff that we're talking about.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
What did the pictures tell you about the injuries to
Lauren Johansson from that night and the items that the
police found in the car, What do you get out
of all that?
Speaker 1 (21:21):
Well, look, my first blush is when I take when
I take a look at at this image in life.
It's it's these are not post mortem images.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
This is.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Was a beautiful, living, breathing young lady. When I take
a look at these photos that they took, it took
of her, uh, post this first event, her eyes are
bilaterally swollen, and that's commonly what we refer to as
raccoon eyes. That tells me that if it, if it
(21:57):
hadn't happened, if there was not an indication of it.
As a death investigator, I would make kind of the
intellectual leap here and say that she's got underline fracture,
probably maybe even a basel er skull fracture.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
Okay, looking at her eyes, Joe, Yeah, and seeing how
her head appears to be lopsided, right, can you tell
what could have been used to cause us? Was it
a fist, an open hand, or rock a gun? Can
you kind of tell what that is?
Speaker 1 (22:30):
You know, after she was after she's in obviously she's
been cleaned up, you know, relative.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
To this blood wiped away.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
Yeah, the blood's wiped away. And there are not a
lot of in just the image that we have in
this status, there are not a lot of what we
refer to as specific pattern injuries that draws into question
here the contact that came about as a result of
(23:03):
wielding these rocks. You know, the rocks have been weaponized.
And also you've got a firearm that is not being
used as as a firearm. It's being used as a
bludgeon at this point in time. And the thing about
and typically you know, I'm sure that people have heard
(23:23):
the term pistol whipping, and that's a real thing. It
does occur.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
I've only heard it in movies before now, in the
movie JFK when they showed the Ana, Yeah, Ed Asner's
character beating up Jack Leman's character with the pistol. And
then in Goodfellas where you know he got Henry Hill
after his girlfriend future wife has been across.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
Yeah, it was a thirty eight caliber snubnose that he
had and he used it almost like in that instance,
he used it almost like brass knuckles.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
Right, Is that what we're talking about with a pistol whipping.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
That is a pistol whipping, and it's a methodology that
has been used. It's almost like, see, how can I
say this. It's almost like the individual that is wielding
the handgun in this particular case is using it as
a precursor, okay to what could happen in the final moments, like, Okay,
(24:24):
we're ramping up at this point in time, I'm going
to take this pistol and I'm not going to shoot you.
I'm going to beat you with it. And typically with
a weapon, and a lot of it has to do
with the various surfaces. Let's say, for instance, you gave
the example from the movie Goodfellas that was a revolver
that Henry Hill, that the character of Henry Hill was
(24:45):
wielding at that point in time. I've seen pistol whippings
with a revolver where the wheel part of the weapon
is kind of extended out on both sides, and I've
seen there's kind of these indentations along the wheel, along
the revolving part of the weapon. I've seen that actually
(25:06):
imprinted onto people's skin. I've actually seen if someone has
the hammer on the back of a weapon, which is
where the hammer is not internal, it's external and it
kind of sticks out on the back. You see this
like an old cowboy weapons, that particular feature can be
(25:26):
driven into the skull and it's almost used almost like
a spike, if you will. The weapons have so many
handguns have so many little features on them that are
unique to those weapons. You can actually take a firearm
and if you're keen enough to do this, compare the
(25:50):
actual weapon that was used to images of the weapon
or better yet, and I've done this in the morgue
where somebody's been beaten to death with a pistol. Actually
the police will actually bring that weapon to the morgue
and hold it adjacent to the entries Dave that we're
witnessing on the autopsy table and take a comparative photograph
(26:14):
at that point in time. It's amazing what you can
come up with this. The one thing that's striking to
me about this though, are the rocks, because rocks, as
we know, and they don't really define the rocks here. Yeah, okay,
if you go out too, Yeah, if you go out
and you pick up, like, I don't know, say, a
piece of kind of quartzy kind of rock that's out there,
(26:36):
it's got these little sharp angles on it that's going
to have a very definitive pattern to it. But if
it's if it's like a river stone, and we you know,
if you've ever been to the mountains and you've been
in one of those cold streams up there where the
water is rushing over there. They're very smooth, aren't they.
(26:56):
Native Americans would take those stones and make like access
out of more bludgeons out of them because they had
this kind of predictable, predictable structure to them. That's going
to appear different than this kind of jagged rock that
you might find out. But she's got a significant laceration
that you can see in the photo. As a matter
(27:17):
of fact, it's kind of elliptical in shape. And referring
back sound like I'm in court if you'll allow me
to refer back to the images as you're as you're
looking at this in her hairline, there's this kind of
elliptical laceration that's that's in dwelling there. That's that's very nasty.
(27:42):
It's right at the edge of her hairline, and it's shape,
there's actually kind of a pattern to it. Well, what
could in fact generate that, Well, if you've got a
weapon that actually has a curved edge to it that's
that's milled, it's manifest action like that that specific pattern
(28:03):
could be married up. She's also got and this is
kind of interesting, Dave, just looking at this she's got
a what I would say is probably an abrasion. Perhaps
that's over her left eye. And again it's kind of elliptical.
You know what that looks like?
Speaker 2 (28:22):
To me?
Speaker 1 (28:23):
That looks like almost as if the end of the barrel,
the opening of the muzzle was driven into her forehead
right there, because it's got that kind of rounded appearance,
and that.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
Would like maybe he was pointing forehead and.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
Then driving it, you know. And again that goes to
this domestic violence piece because one of the things, you know,
we use that term domestic violence all the time. You know,
a term I like to use quite a bit is
the term menacing, and menacing is an element of domestic violence.
(28:59):
And whence if you've ever been menaced in your life,
and what that means is it's a threat, but it's
more than a threat. It's like, you know, people can
menace you with their eyes, with their words, but they
can also menace you with weapons that can display it
to you, that can shove it in your face and
that sort of thing. And Dave, they're locked up in
(29:21):
this in this car together for a protracted period of time.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
It was apparently an hour. Okay, that's what we're getting
from what missed, what Chelsea Rivers is telling police about
the beating, and as they put the information together from Lauren,
the timetable from when they left the bar. I mean,
all of these things coming together an hour straight of beating.
(29:50):
And that's why the charges included kidnapping and not allowing
her to leave in coercion and a few other things,
because you've got her phone from her, see, he actually
was able to get control of her phone where she
was trying to call nine one one, trying to call
for help. She said that she was screaming once they
got parked, she was screaming at passing cars, hoping somebody
would hear her screaming. And it was during one of
(30:12):
those calls to his mother when Chelsea Rivers called his
phone that you know, I can imagine him saying, hey,
shut up, I'm talking to my mom. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
you know. And then and so when police arrive and
they see her, they see the foggy windows, and as
they approach, she has the ability to get away because
he's now afraid because real men showed up. Wait a minute, yeah,
(30:34):
because this real guy is beating up a girl and
now these cops show up immediately his demeanor has to change. Oh,
it's all her fault. She was scratching me, she was
threatening me. What did the police see inside that car
in terms of blood because they said it was a
bloody mess. Are we talking cast off because it's very tight?
Speaker 1 (30:50):
No? No, no, you're you're right, it's going to be
the Yeah. And here we have an event where someone
is you know me cases we talk about on body
backs or things that happen after death. Okay, now this
is a dynamic event. This is her trying to shield herself.
And one of the things we cannot pick up on
in the imagery that we have right now. I bet
(31:13):
you dollars to donuts right now, if we had, if
they had, if we could go back in time and
take a look at her arms, I guarantee you, my friend,
that we would see contusions on her arms where she
was blocking or attempting to block. And of course, anytime
you block somebody like this that's in this state of mind,
(31:33):
that just infuriates them even more. It drives that temperature higher.
And Dave, you know, looking at Lauren, and she's a
little video thing. I mean, she ain't big as a minute.
She's diminutive. And I'm glad you brought that up about
the real men showing up here, because you know what
(31:54):
type of man using air quotes here, as Nancy always says,
what type of man beats down a tiny, little willowy
woman like this and can actually feel good about it.
I guess at some point in time, somebody will stand
up and say, well, you don't understand still, waters run deep.
(32:17):
He had a lot going on. But I do know this.
I do know this. It's as a result of not
just his actions, but also the actions of that judge
up there in Nashville who allowed him out of jail,
(32:40):
and somebody that had created arguably one of the most
horrific scenes that you can possibly imagine as an investigator.
She allowed him to leave custody, to leave custody, he
was not They were used that bond. His mother met it.
(33:03):
And it's at that point in time I think I
think that Lauren's fate was sealed. Holy smokes, you know
(33:29):
I'm thinking about this, David. I'm thinking, you know, there
are certain times when we can't take the measure. I
think of the decisions that the judiciary makes so many times,
you know, you want so desperately to grab somebody in
one of those black robes and drag them out to
(33:52):
emergency rooms, into crime scenes and to see the weeping
parents and have them visually see what's going on because
it's and look, I know, justice is blind, and you
can tell me that all day long. I've stood over
too many dead victims over the course of my career
(34:14):
and over the course of what I've done in the
media to simply take that and say, okay, well we'll
just move on. No, no, no, no. It's something like this
where you witness what happened and then you see the
end result. Here, I don't understand, we've got this.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
How do we go from in jail, locked up in Nashville,
I don't know, six months later being dead?
Speaker 1 (34:40):
Being dead? Yeah, And the next thing we know, you know,
they're popping up on the radar down Mississippi and what's
going on?
Speaker 2 (34:48):
What's going on.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
That he's now walking the streets and he's not only
had this is the thing. Not only is he walking
the streets, he's walking streets in Mississippi. He's not walk
in the streets in Nashville.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
Man, Yep, you know, Joe, I'm gonna give you a
very quick thumbnail sketch of the timetable between December eleventh,
when Bryson Rivers is arrested for nearly killing Lauren Johanson
by beating her in their car in Nashville, to the
time he gets out of jail on June twenty eighth,
see when doctor Johanson was with Lauren in Nashville. They
expected the bond of two hundred and fifty one thousand
(35:23):
dollars to keep Bryson Rivers in jail until the case
went to court. At that point they were hoping to
get a conviction and have him sentenced for up to
life in prison for nearly killing her. But that's not
what happened. Bryson Rivers attorney was able to get a
judge to lower his bond from two hundred and fifty
one thousand to one hundred and fifty thousand. Judge Cheryl
(35:44):
Blackburn in Nashville lowered it. That meant his mother, Bryson
Rivers mother only had to come up with fifteen grand
to get him out, and she did. He was released
and there were a number of conditions that applied to
his release from jail. He didn't abide by any of them.
So Doctor Johansson, Lauren's father, wrote this on go fund
(36:04):
to me about when Bryson Rivers got out of jail
on the twenty eighth. He said, early Tuesday morning, Kaylin
by the way, Kaylin is Lauren's sister, and they were
living together in Mississippi, and Kylen found the front door open.
Her cats were outside in the front yard. Lauren was gone.
(36:26):
A security camera had been ripped off the house, and
doctor Johanson said that Lauren's life three point sixty was
cut off at four one am. So the thought is
that Bryson Rivers kidnapped Lauren that morning at four oh
one am. She was reported missing right away to the
police two separate times. Doctor Johansson said, I called and
(36:48):
talked to anyone and everyone who would listen and help
me find her. The next day we found her car
and Bryson ran from the car. Now let me give
you this very quickly here because second is the day
they believe Lauren was killed. It was Wednesday, July third.
Hattiesburg Police Department used on Star. They couldn't find where
(37:11):
Lauren was. They knew that Bryson Rivers probably had her.
They knew that his monitoring ankle Brasil wasn't working and
they couldn't find him well. On Star was able to
track Lauren Johansson's car. They located in July third at
Wolf River Cemetery. Think about that, it's in a cemetery.
Hattiesburg Police Department requests the Sheriff's Department's help in conducting
(37:34):
a welfare check at that location. As deputies find the
car in the cemetery, Bryson Rivers is in the car,
He gets out and Bryson Rivers runs away from the
car into the woods. When they get to the car
and doctor Johansson is with the medical examiner when they
found her body in her own car, wrapped in trash
(37:58):
bags and sheets. Lauren's father, doctor Lance Johansson, said this,
I knew she was dead 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. She was basically beaten to death.
Her face was smashed in, her head was smashed in,
(38:20):
She was brutally beaten to the point she couldn't see
out of either eye when she finally died, and there
were multiple holes in her head. I helped the coroner
lift her body out of the car. It was just mutilated.
That was doctor Lance Johansson talking about his daughter Lauren
and finding her body.
Speaker 1 (38:40):
Dave, I'm going to give you one word here that
issued forth from doctor Johansson's lips. Mutilated. Let that sink
in just for a second. Mutilated. Now, when she was
(39:06):
found in her car, by the way, her body was
wrapped in sheets and plastic. She's lying there in that car,
and her daddy is the one that actually found her.
(39:31):
In this state, I'm you know, I think that I
could say that words fail me, but they really don't.
There's a way to describe this. I think failure. Failure
is the biggest one. But here's the thing we have
(39:56):
to reflect back on here because this this is all
going to play out in court relative to him. And
I'm thinking about back to things that I've heard Nancy
Gray say over the over the years where they talk
about you can't use you can't use prior bad acts
(40:16):
in a case to to impugne the person. And I
really wonder how all of this is going to come
into play, because you know, it's like the old poem,
you know, for the want of a nail, a horseshoe
was lost for the one of the horseshoe, you know,
horse was lost, so forth and so on. If it
wasn't for that one thing back in time, the fatal
(40:42):
event would not have occurred here. And of course Rivers
uses the same methodology with her. He beats her to death.
He actually has a pistol with him. Now this is
this is an individual who has been accused of arguably
(41:05):
one of the most horrific things you can be accused
of period where a weapon was previously involved handgun. Now
he's got his hands on another weapon. And not only that,
he's planned this out. He knows And I have to
back up here and say that her she was domiciled currently.
(41:27):
You know, she was a college student. She's going to
University of Southern Mississippi. That's in Hattiesburg. Now that's due
north of Gulfport. So she was there with her sisters.
He was familiar with this property, familiar enough to the
point where he had disabled the security cameras. He's familiar
(41:49):
enough with the property to know where she slept inside
of this environment.
Speaker 2 (41:58):
We know that her dad helped find her body. You
mentioned sheets back trash bags. He mentioned mutilated. What kind
of injuries are we talking about? Because she hadn't fully recovered.
I mentioned this before we started taping, having had a
couple of head injuries in my life. I know that
my last concussion, I didn't really feel good about driving
(42:21):
no for almost a year. Yeah, and she had serious
She was beaten so bad in December, Joe, that she
couldn't have been fully recovered. Now by the time this
takes place six months later.
Speaker 1 (42:34):
There is no way in God's green earth that she
would have been to the point where she was able
to really handle life in the way that she would
have prior to that. And she would there still would
have been evidences there, right, she's still injured, Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (42:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:54):
And the thing about it is one of the things
that we do in forensics is that we have this
kind of layering of injuries when and again back to
this idea of chronic abuse. You see this with children
with like chronic cases of child abuse, where you'll have
these overlapping injuries that occur over a period of time.
And let me tell you something. If somebody gets let's see,
(43:17):
how can I phrase this. If somebody gets to the
point where they're going to go out of town with
you and beat you to the extent that he beat her.
This ain't his first rodeo. He's put hands on her before,
and I don't know, I don't know to what degree,
and maybe some of that will come out. He's harmed
(43:39):
her before. I have no doubt in my mind, just
knowing what I know about cases like this.
Speaker 2 (43:46):
Her dad said Stockholm syndrome. Joe.
Speaker 1 (43:48):
Yeah, and that she you know, this person that is
pretty wicked, I'd have to say. For some reason, she
feels compelled to protect him, to still stay within that circle,
within their little confined space where she's you know, he
(44:09):
can lrd over her at any moment time that he
wants to, and also taking that to to a more
intense level, he feels like that he can put his
hands on her to any degree that he wants to.
He had there was no shame in him leaving Nashville
to come back down south to Gulfport Hattiesburg, that area
(44:31):
that she that she uh, you know, that they lived
in where they both had a life. He felt no
shame in that he's going to return to it. So
he feels very comfortable, apparently in this environment doing what
he has done to this poor young lady that had
such a bright future. But Dave, I got to tell
(44:51):
you something here, and in this case, I I came
across something that I in all of my years in
forensics and as a medical legal death investigator, I never
encountered on street ever. And it's a statement that doctor
(45:14):
Johansson made. Not only did he use the word mutilated, Dave,
but he also revealed something else. He helped helped the
(45:35):
corner remove his precious baby's body from that car. He
helped with that. Now I go on and on about
the value of evidence, I talk about the cards principles,
(45:56):
I talk about all of these issues in forensics, and
just for a moment, we have to consider that, aside
from the science, that there is horror here that none
of us can appreciate. Doctor Johnson can because not only
(46:18):
did he bear witness to this slow motion train wreck
where he sat there helpless, probably hopeless, he was there
to view where her life terminated and how she was
treated in death. I'm Josephcott Morgan, and this is body
(46:43):
backs
Host
Joseph Scott Morgan
Popular Podcasts
Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club
Welcome to Bookmarked by Reese’s Book Club — the podcast where great stories, bold women, and irresistible conversations collide! Hosted by award-winning journalist Danielle Robay, each week new episodes balance thoughtful literary insight with the fervor of buzzy book trends, pop culture and more. Bookmarked brings together celebrities, tastemakers, influencers and authors from Reese's Book Club and beyond to share stories that transcend the page. Pull up a chair. You’re not just listening — you’re part of the conversation.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com