Boyfriend arrested after nursing student, 22, found beaten to death

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The father of a 22-year-old nursing student who was found beaten to death had told a judge that her boyfriend would kill her if he was released from jail.

On July 3, the body of Lauren Johansen was found wrapped in plastic trash bags and a sheet in the Wolf River Cemetery in Harrison County, Miss., according to news outlet WLOX.

Johansen’s father, Lance, told the Daily Mail his daughter’s boyfriend, Bricen Rivers, was bonded out of jails prior to her death – Rivers was behind bars for aggravated kidnapping for allegedly beating Johansen and holding her hostage during a trip to Nashville, Tenn., last December.

“I sat in the courtroom in Nashville and told the judge that if they let him out, he was going to kill her,” Lance said in an interview with WLOX. “He had assaulted her – this was probably the fifth or sixth time where they would get into a fight and he would beat her.”

Twenty-three-year-old Rivers was arrested on July 4 after a six-hour manhunt. He faces a murder charge and is currently held on a $1 million bond.

Johansen attended the University of Southern Mississippi where she studied nursing.

According to the New York Post, Johansen was reported missing on July 2 after her sister woke up alone in the apartment they shared. The apartment’s front door was left wide open and a security camera was destroyed.