NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Newly obtained photos from Brooke’s Bail Bonding appear to show Bricen Rivers was in violation of his bond conditions at the time he pulled into the company's parking lot before leaving again for Mississippi.
Security cameras captured the footage outside the building just four days before Lauren Johansen's murder in Mississippi, and according to Brooke Harlan, the company's owner, it shows Rivers driving in Johansen's car with her in the passenger seat.
I break down this case in the player above.
The bonding company was under court order to return Rivers to jail if he had any contact with Johansen after his release.
It's unclear why that never happened.
NewsChannel 5 Investigates shared these findings with Lauren's father, Dr. Lance Johansen, who said his daughter was most likely held against her will if she was spotted near Rivers.
Four days after the image was captured in Nashville and seven hours away in Mississippi, Dr. Johansen learned the tragic news.
“Everybody wants to point the finger at somebody else. Well, my daughter’s buried six feet under the ground now,” Dr. Johansen said.
Lauren’s body was found brutally beaten in a car left near a cemetery in rural Harrison County, Mississippi.
Harrison County Sheriff’s deputies spent roughly six hours tracking down Rivers in the nearby woods.
Rivers was eventually arrested and charged with Lauren's death and now sits in a Mississippi jail on a $1 million bond.
So, how does someone who was wearing a GPS device meant to keep him in Nashville, Tennessee, become a murder suspect in rural Mississippi?
“It looks like every step of the way there’s a mistake made. Even when people find out they’ve made mistakes, they don’t want to take ownership,” Dr. Johansen said.
Harlan promised several times to sit down and answer our questions about her bonding company's actions but never showed up for a scheduled interview.
She later told NewsChannel 5 Investigates over the phone that her agent did not read the first page of the judge's order they signed, detailing Rivers' bond conditions.
NewsChannel 5 Investigates explained Harlan’s reasoning to legal analyst Nick Leonardo who said it's deferring blame.
“Then why did you rush around to try to have this defendant placed on electronic monitoring? Because you were aware of the conditions of the bond,” Leonardo said.
The order from Judge Cheryl Blackburn explained to all parties, including the bonding companies, that Rivers was to remain in Nashville and have no contact with the woman he was accused of beating last December.
What happened in Nashville?
Metro Nashville police said they found Rivers lying on top of Johansen in a parked car. She was covered in blood from a cut to her forehead and her eye was swollen shut.
Johansen was later taken to a nearby hospital and treated for multiple injuries. Rivers was charged with two counts of aggravated kidnapping.
Judge Blackburn then lowered Rivers' bond from $250,000 to $150,000 in April, but Rivers wasn’t released until the bond was posted on June 24.
Brooke's Bail Bonding and On Time Bonding split the cost of Rivers' $150,000 bond.
The amended order noted that Rivers should have been taken by his bonding company to Tracking Solutions in Nashville for a GPS monitor.
Court officials have acknowledged that an error by one of their clerks meant the Davidson County Jail did not have Rivers' bond conditions when he was released.
That meant Rivers' walked out of jail without supervision before calling Brooke's Bail Bonding himself.
Harlan insisted that Rivers was released from jail too late in the day, so instead she chose Freedom Monitoring Services — which is owned by one of her bonding agents.
That agent, Nakeda Wilhoite, would go on to send a letter to Judge Blackburn claiming she was unaware of the judge's conditions for release at the time she installed his ankle monitor but insisted she set up "zones" for Rivers' device on June 28 when she learned of the order.
“If those exclusion zones were set up, did the technology fail? Or is that just an outright lie as to when you set up those exclusion zones? I mean, that’s a real problem,” Leonardo said.
What happened at the bonding office?
When Rivers returned to Brooke’s Bail Bonding the next day on June 29 to replace his device — allegedly with Lauren in the car — Wilhoite and Harlan were aware that Rivers couldn’t have contact with Johansen or leave for Mississippi once again.
“When your signature is on this document, quite frankly, you’re stopped to deny that you were completely unaware of the bonding conditions. Even more troublesome is here at the very bottom of the page,” Leonardo said.
The bottom of the first page of the amended order reads:
“The bonding company is to surrender the defendant to the custody of the Davidson County Sheriff’s Office upon notification by the monitoring company of any violations of the Court Order. By signing this Order, the bonding company acknowledges the conditions of the bond and its responsibility to surrender the defendant as soon as possible after notification by the monitoring company. Failure to respond to violations in a timely manner may result in suspension of bond privileges and for other penalties as deemed appropriate by the Court.”
“Now that’s some serious language for the bonding company and clearly in this case, that’s the problem that both of these bonding companies have. They were in open court, and they know what is expected of them and that didn’t happen,” Leonardo said.
We know that Wilhoite filed paperwork with the state to incorporate Freedom Monitoring just seven days before her boss Harlan asked her to put a GPS monitor on Rivers.
We did reach out to Wilhoite who declined to comment.
Leonardo said this is a perfect example of why bonding companies shouldn’t be responsible for installing GPS monitors required by the courts.
He said this is something that should be done right before someone is released from jail.
For that to happen, Leonardo says municipalities need to make sure jails have the resources to install these devices on-site.
“We don't want to count on defendants in our system to take themselves to electronic monitoring and to install. A monitoring device, right? These are serious cases and so we want this handled before they walk out of jail,” Leonardo said.
