Another 84-year-old who won't retire

Body of Mississippi nursing student, 22, is found mutilated in a cemetery after surgeon father warned Nashville judge her life was in danger

Respected surgeon Lance Johansen pleaded with the judge not to let his daughter's boyfriend out of jail, or he would kill her.

Bricen Rivers, 23, was in jail for holding his longtime girlfriend Lauren Johnsen, 22, captive and viciously beating her while the were on vacation together in Nashville.

'I sat in the courtroom in Nashville and told the judge that if they let him out, he was going to kill her,' he said.

His words were prophetic, as Lauren's body was found mutilated and dumped in her own car on Wednesday, 

'He had assaulted her — this was probably the fifth or sixth time where they would get into a fight and he would beat her. We would get her away from him for a while, but he would find a way to weasel back in it.'

Dr Johansen drove from Biloxi, Mississippi, to make the impassioned plea to the court in Nashville after Rivers' arrest in December, and for a time, it worked.

But after rotting in jail for seven months, Rivers' lawyer convinced Judge Cheryl Blackburn [84] to lower his bail from $250,000 to $150,000 so he could get out.

He was supposed to go straight to a company that would install a GPS ankle monitor as a condition of his bail, but instead he disappeared.

'They let him out and didn't tell us, and didn't put the ankle monitor on him. They just let him walk out of jail,' Johansen told WLOX. 

The father had no idea Rivers was out of jail until he got a voicemail from Davidson County District Attorney's Office on Monday.

'This is Bailey calling from the district attorney's office in Nashville. Bricen Rivers was released from custody,' the message shared with WLOX began.

'He was supposed to report straight to a GPS company and be put on a GPS monitor and he was not to leave Davidson County. 

'But as soon as he was released, he did not report to that GPS monitoring company, and he has not been heard from. I wanted to make sure Lauren is safe.'

But Lauren was not safe.

Johansen desperately tried to call her, but she didn't answer, and he said texts he received from her number 'didn't really look like the way she talks'.

About 4pm on Tuesday, he got a notification that her Life360 tracker was turned off.

Then his younger daughter, who lived with Lauren, said she found the security camera smashed and the door sitting open. Lauren was nowhere to be found.

Johansen filed a missing persons report with the local Hattiesburg Police in Biloxi, but when he called the next morning, he claimed very little had been done.

'We assumed they were going to track the vehicle and try to find her, but they never did it until Wednesday at 3 pm when I insisted they find out where the car was,' he said.

Lauren's car pinged at the Wolf River Cemetery in an isolated part of Gulfport, Mississippi, and police rushed to the scene.

Rivers was in the car, but fled into the woods as soon as police showed up, leading them on an hours-long chase.

Johansen said as soon as he arrived at the scene he knew Lauren was dead. 

So I Googled the Judge, and uh oh:

Defense Attorneys Question the Competency of Judge Cheryl Blackburn

Multiple motions filed asking judge to remove herself from cases

By Steven Hale April 12, 2024

“Multiple” — that’s bad

Nashville defense attorneys have taken the extraordinary step of challenging the competency of longtime Criminal Court Judge Cheryl Blackburn. Nearly three years after the judge suffered a stroke at the courthouse, the legal filings bring into partial public view what had increasingly been the subject of hushed courthouse chatter. 

The Banner has learned of multiple motions related to Blackburn’s capacity that have been filed under seal. However, one motion filed publicly in a felony assault case on Wednesday shed some light on the doubts being raised about her ability to oversee serious criminal cases. 

Nashville defense attorney Kevin Kelly filed the motion seeking a postponement of his client’s trial so that he could research his client’s “constitutional rights to have this trial heard by a Judge who is competent to rule on issues related to this trial.” Kelly goes on to cite “this Honorable Court’s recent recusal and transfer in an unrelated case that was granted in response to a motion calling the Court’s competency into question.” 

Kelly told the Banner he couldn’t comment on the matter beyond saying that he has an obligation to advocate for his client. A hearing on his motion is scheduled for Friday morning. 

Former Public Defender Dawn Deaner said that motions to remove a judge are not made lightly and involve significant risk to attorneys and the people they represent.

“There is this underlying concern as a lawyer that if you file a motion that a judge might find offensive, that they will take it out on you, the lawyer, or they will take it out on your clients, or they will take it out on your future clients,” she said. 

In her view, some judges are very much seen as “kings and queens” of their courtroom.

“And it’s kind of like the old saying, ‘If you come at the king, you better not miss.’”

Blackburn got her undergraduate degree from Vanderbilt University in 1969 and has been on the bench in Nashville since 1996.