Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan: A Judge's Decision - The Death of Lauren Johansen

Episode Date: July 28, 2024

Bricen Rivers nearly beats 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 Rivers bond, and lets him out to finish what he started. On this episode of Body Bags, Joseph Scott Morgen 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 relationship00:13:39.86 Discussion of Nashville trip, how much effort it would take00:18:40.36 Talk seeing trauma in hospital00:23:22.52 Discussion or rocks as a weapon, pistol whipping00:28:29.50 Discussion of wound to Lauren's head at hairline00:32:02.27 Talk about man abusing woman, judge lowering bond00:36:15.69 Discussion of Lauren being kidnapped from home00:40:38.20 Discussion of wounds Lauren suffered before death00:43:48.59 Talk about Lauren wasn't recovered from December 11 beating00:46:41.34 Conclusion Lauren's father helped recover her bodySee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Body Bags with Joseph Scott Moore. Every now and then, I try to recenter myself as a dad. Because, you know, when your kids get older and they get out of the house, many times you forget those moments 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 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 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 opens. And you look down and you see the fragility of what you're holding. And you know that it 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 a father, another father who probably had the same experience. of his little girl that he probably 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 Lauren Johansson.

Hattiesburg, Mississippi. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan, and this is Body Bags. Brother Dave, I've got to tell you, man. We have these moments where I will come to the mic and i'll sit down and we've discussed a 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 task, 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 22 years old. Lauren Johansson is 22 years old. She's an RN student. She's studying to become a nurse. Her dad is a doctor. And Bryce Rivers is her 23- old on again, off again boyfriend. And in this case today, we're going to talk about domestic violence. The impact of how somebody in a relationship over a period of years. Crying out for help in on one day, crying out for their life in one day.

And within 48 hours, while the swelling is still so severe, one eye cannot even be opened. And yet telling the person who did this incredible damage, 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. We have friends that do those things. Oh, yeah. But over the years of covering crime and domestic violence issues, and we have cases that are not that dissimilar. But in this case, Lauren Johansson was beaten by her boyfriend 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 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 lauren johansson yeah and uh you know the her daddy in particular has pretty plainly stated you know that system did fail for his daughter and i you know you and i were talking about this just a moment ago um we've you know you and both got, you know, kids that we're proud of and that

we love, but, you know, as a parent, you, 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, 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.

Yeah. 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, when your knee's crying out to God saying, please help them, you know, seize the light because I can't do this. Yeah. You know, on my own. I can't intervene any further.

But yet it happens. And, Dave, it's almost like a science experiment where goal you have a hypothesis and you put that into work with a 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 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, where you know that if this continues on, we're going to wind up with the same result. Right. And I don't know.

I don't know enough about Lauren's relationship with Bryson. But I can tell you this. There were signs, I think, probably, along the way. And, dude, the biggest sign was that trip to Nashville. And it's striking to me, you know, that, you know, what would compel her. Because you and I have seen the images. Yeah. And the images are horrific.

I mean, even by my by my measure, these things are horrific. And these are photos that are taken 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, 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 have great sympathy for this for this person that's doing these horrible things 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 isn't he a surgeon? He's a doctor. I believe. Yeah. Orthopedic surgeon.

Yeah. And so he and he was there when they found her body. And here's what happened. OK, 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 coed. Right. Yeah. to high school where he was the star football player and she's the beautiful co-ed right yeah 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 know it like we don't i 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 firsthand accounts. I don't know all of the relationship issues, but I will tell you this. And was her mother had their 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 sibling. 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 GoFundMe writing. He talked about Lauren and what she was like, but just to back up for a minute, 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 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 that Lauren and Bryson 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 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 11th of 2023. They had Bryson and Lauren had 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 somebody at the bar think about that for just a minute yeah the dynamics of that that's that crazy talk. Yes. And I mean that. Yes. How do you show up, you know, all the way from Gulfport? If you're not familiar with geographically where these two locations are situated, you know, it's kind of a drive, you know, from the Gulfport area. You're going from the Gulf Coast, you know, Gulfport all the way up to Nashville. Yeah. And logistically, let me you know, how does that work out? You know, you do the math here. You're you're actually going to accuse her.

Yes. Of engaging in sexual Congress with an employee of this bar. Yes. And at this moment, Tom, I don't care how much firewater you got on board at that point in time. How do you even do, how do you even do the calculus on that dude? You know, that you're going to sit here and actually accuse this, 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 it doesn't you're crazy man you know he she was showing another man she talked to a guy right you're in a bar having a drink guy asks 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 as they're driving now bryson river's mother uh 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 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 can't. 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 phone calls, she could hear a female voice crying out for help. And in that voice, she heard fear, panic, everything. And it was Bryson Rivers' 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 11th by the way so it is winter time 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 and

her bra and blood everywhere. Her head is a mangled mess of swollen blood. When they looked inside 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 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 injuries. He didn't have any blood coming from him.

The blood on Bryson Rivers belonged to Lauren Johansson. 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, just maybe, there was a chance that Lauren could have survived. But the story takes a much darker turn after that. Dave, I want to reveal something to you that I don't know that I've ever talked about on Body Bags 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 coroner investigator.

But 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 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, 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 we had our deaths that would come into the emergency room. But you would actually see people that were still alive. And if they sustained trauma, you could actually see that. Just imagine this. You could actually see the result of the trauma before your 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.

So somebody comes in having just gone through a violent event. Yeah. And you're actually watching as the wounds get worse. They swell more. Yeah. And that's the key word here. Wow. This idea of swelling. Never thought of swelling. Because the little vessels are all broken

just beneath the skin. And so you've got blood that's leaching out. And you've heard me use this term into what's called the interstitial tissue. And it begins to swell. And it's a response, a trauma response that your body has as a result of this. 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 is this person alive? And you would hear them through the crusted blood. You would hear them through the swelling. 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. Because you look at this, particularly through a 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

i was shocked by my measure at that point in 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 ecchymosis, this trauma response. I'm thinking probably there may 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 is she still alive? Because even on my scale, Dave, this is horrific stuff that we're talking about. 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? 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 postmortem images. This is was a beautiful, living, breathing young lady. When I take a look at these photos that they took of her 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 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 underlying fracture, probably maybe even a basilar skull fracture. 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 those was it a fist an open hand or rock a gun can you kind of tell what that is you know after she was after she's and obviously she's been cleaned up um you know relative to this the blood wiped away, the blood is 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 that draws into question here. The contact that came about as a result of wielding these rocks.

The rocks have been weaponized, and also you've got a firearm that is not being used 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 the term pistol whipping um and that's a real thing it does occur i've only heard it in movies before now and i'm wondering no no no no in the movie jfk when they showed uh the banister yeah ed asner's character beating up Jack Lemmon's character with the pistol. And then in Goodfellas where Henry Hill, after his girlfriend, future wife, has been assaulted. Yeah. It was a.38 caliber snub nose that he had. And he used it almost like, in that instance, he used it almost like brass knuckles.

Right. Is that what we're talking about with the pistol whipping? That is a pistol whipping. And it's a methodology that has been used. It's almost like, let's 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, we're ramping up at this point in time.

Right. I'm going to take this pistol and I'm not going to shoot you. I'm going to beat you with it. Yeah. 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 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 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 in old cowboy weapons. That particular feature can be 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 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. You 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 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. Okay. They just mention two.

Yeah. If you go out and you pick up like, I don't know, say a piece of kind of quartz-y kind of rock that's out there. It's got these little sharp angles on it. That's going to have a very definitive pattern to it. But 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, they're very smooth, aren't they? Native Americans would take those stones and make like

axes out of them or bludgeons out of them because they had this kind of 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 of fact, it's kind of elliptical in shape and referring back, I sound like I'm in court, if you'll allow me to refer back to the images. As you're looking at this, in her hairline, there's this kind of elliptical laceration that's indwelling there that's very nasty. It's right at the edge of her hairline and its 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 milled, it's manufactured like that, that specific pattern 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 to me? 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 would like, maybe he was pointing it right at her forehead and threatening to kill you and then driving it, you know. And again, that goes to this domestic violence piece, because one thing, 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. And 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 people can menace you with their eyes, with their words, but they can also menace you with weapons. They can display it to you. They can shove it in your face and that sort of thing and dave they're locked up in this in this car together for a protracted period of time it was apparently an hour okay that's what we're getting from what miss what uh chelsea rivers is telling police about the beating the 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. And that's why the charges included kidnapping and not allowing her to leave and coercion and a few other things, because he got her phone from her. See, he actually was able to get a control of

her phone as she was trying to call 9-1-1 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 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, 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, 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 no no no you're you're right it's going to be the and and here we have an event where someone is you know many of the cases we talk about on body bags are 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 you dollars to donuts right now, 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, that just infuriates them even more. It drives that temperature higher. And Dave, looking at Lauren, she's a little bitty old 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. 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. 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 in Nashville who allowed him out of jail 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 reduced that bond. His mother met it. And it's at that point in time, I think, I think that Lauren's fate was sealed.

Holy smokes. You know, I'm thinking about this, Dave, and 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 emergency rooms and to 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 and over the course of what I've done in media to simply take that and say, okay, 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. How do you go from in jail, locked up in Nashville to six months later being dead? Being dead. jail locked up in nashville i don't six months later being dead being dead yeah and the next thing we know you know they're popping up on the radar right down mississippi yeah and what what's going on well what's going on that that he 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 the streets in mississippi he's not walking the streets in Nashville, man. Yep.

You know, Joe, I'm going to give you a very quick thumbnail sketch of the timetable between December 11th when Bryson Rivers is arrested for nearly killing Lauren Johansson by beating her in their car in Nashville to the time he gets out of jail on June 28th. See, when Dr. Johansson was with Lauren in Nashville, they expected the bond of $251,000 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 $251,000 to $150,000. Judge Cheryl Blackburn in Nashville lowered it.

That meant his mother, Bryson Rivers' mother, only had to come up with $15,000 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 Dr. Johansson, Lauren's father wrote this on go fund to me about when Bryson rivers got out of jail on the 28th, he said early Tuesday morning, Caitlin,

by the way, Caitlin is Lauren's sister and they were living together in Mississippi. And Caitlin found the front door open. Her cats were outside in the front yard. Lauren was gone. A security camera had been ripped off the house. And Dr. Johansson said that Lauren's Life 360 was cut off at 4.01 a.m. So the thought is that Bryson Rivers kidnapped Lauren that morning at 4.01 a.m. She was reported missing

right away to the police two separate times. Dr. Johansson said, I called and 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 here, because July 2nd is the day they believe Lauren was killed. It was Wednesday, July 3rd. Hattiesburg Police Department used OnStar. They couldn't find where Lauren was. They knew that Bryson Rivers probably had her. They knew that his monitoring ankle bracelet wasn't working and they couldn't find him. Well, OnStar was able to track Lauren Johansson's car. They located it July 3rd at Wolf River Cemetery.

Think about that. It's in a cemetery. Hattiesburg Police Department requests the Sheriff's Department's help in conducting 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 Dr. Johansson is with the medical examiner when they found her body in her own car, wrapped in trash bags and sheets. Lauren's father, Dr. Lance Johanson, 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. 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 dr lance johansson

talking about his daughter lauren and finding her body. Dave, I'm going to, I'm going to give you one word here that issued forth from Dr. Johansson's lips. Mutilated. Let that sink in just for a second. Mutilated. Now, when she was 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 in this state. 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 is the biggest one. But here's the thing we have to reflect back on here, because 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 in, in a case to, to impugn the person. And I really wonder how all of this is going to come into play because it's like the old poem, for the one of a nail, a horseshoe was lost, for the one of the horseshoe, a horse was lost, so forth and so on. If it wasn't for that one thing back in time,

the fatal 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 an individual who has been accused of arguably one of the most horrific things you can be accused of, period, where a weapon was previously involved, a handgun. Now he's got his hands on another weapon. And not only that, he's planned this out. I have to back up here and say that she was domiciled currently. She was a college student.

She was going to the University of Southern Mississippi. That's in Hattiesburg. Now, that's due north of Gulfport. Okay. 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 was familiar enough with the property to know where she slept inside of this environment.

We know that her dad helped find her body. You mentioned sheets, 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. 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. No. By the time this takes place six months later. No, 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 have there still would have been evidences there. Right. So she's still injured. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. 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 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 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 to what degree, and maybe some of that will come out.

He's harmed her before, I have no doubt in my mind, just knowing what I know about cases like this. 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 can lord 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 that she that she, 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 has

such a bright future. But Dave, I got to tell you something here. And in this case, I came across something that I, in all of my years in forensics and as a medical legal death investigator, I never encountered on the street, ever. And it's a statement that Dr. Johanson made. Not only did he use the word mutilated, Dave, but he also revealed something else. remove his precious baby's body from that car. He helped with that.

And I go on and on about the value of evidence. I talk about LeCard's principles. I talk about all of these issues in forensics. But just for a moment, we have to consider that aside from the science, that there is horror here that none of us can appreciate. Hanson can, because not only 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 Joseph Scott Morgan, and this is Body Packs. This is an iHeart Podcast.