After the father of Lauren Johansen – the 22-year-old Mississippi nursing student allegedly slain by her ex-boyfriend – decried how her accused murderer’s release was handled by authorities, the office that supervised the release has admitted they made a mistake that may have cost the young woman her life.
Johansen’s ex-boyfriend, 23-year-old Bricen Rivers, is charged with murdering Johansen after posting bond and absconding to Mississippi to kill her. Rivers was in custody at the Davidson County Jail in Tennessee for beating and kidnapping Johansen in December of last year. In a conversation with Nashville station WSMV4, an official with the county clerk’s office admitted that they signed off on a document that allowed Rivers to leave jail without ensuring he had a proper ankle monitor.
Chief Deputy Clerk Julius Sloss said one of the office’s employees overlooked a significant part of Rivers’ release that allowed him to return to Mississippi when he was supposed to stay in Davidson County.
“It’s the truth,” Sloss said. “We don’t have anything to hide. I mean if we were the ones who made a mistake on something we are going to be the first to tell you. That’s an obligation, that’s a duty.”
The clerk’s office typically includes the court order to detail what should be done for an inmate’s release when providing release forms to the Davidson County Sheriff’s Office. Sloss went on to say that an employee overlooked proper adherence to that process.
“In this particular incident our employee made the mistake where he did the recognizance part right, but when he sent the release over, the release unfortunately did not contain the conditions of the bond,” Sloss said.
Because of the error, the local sheriff’s office was not aware that Rivers was supposed to stay in Davidson County or that his bond agent was supposed to pick him up between 7 a.m. and 4 p.m. to take him to Tracking Solutions, the GPS tracking monitor company that was supposed to provide the ankle monitor. Instead, Rivers was released from jail unsupervised.
“We have talked to the employee about that, and he doesn’t know exactly how he missed it,” Sloss added.
The admission from the clerk’s office comes after Johansen’s father publicly stated that he believed her death was preventable based on how Rivers’ release was executed.
“If he had an ankle monitor on and things were done properly, I think there is no way possible this could have happened,” Lance Johansen told the station.
