Arrest over the death of a Black woman found hanged in Mississippi

Jarques Ratliff, 51, a Black Jackson, Mississippi resident, was arrested on a murder charge on September 12 in connection with the death of Tasia Fortune, a 29-year-old Black mother of four whose body was found hanging from a tree behind an abandoned home in Jackson on August 3; Mississippi's state medical examiner ruled her death a homicide the night before the arrest, after weeks of what her family and Jackson residents described as slow, unclear communication from police. Jackson Police Chief RaShall Brackney said Ratliff had an 'association' with Fortune that she declined to detail, and that additional arrests were expected as investigators, who had already interviewed about 15 people, continued following the evidence. Fortune's mother, Christy Spivey, said she never believed her daughter died by suicide -- 'Even if she could climb that tree, no, no, she would never' -- and that police had not shared a motive or forensic basis for the arrest. Ratliff pleaded not guilty at a September 15 hearing, where a judge denied him bond and prosecutors said Fortune had been hanged with a black cable cord and that Ratliff had tried to hide from officers in a vehicle at the time of his arrest.

The case drew national attention amid Mississippi's history of racial lynching, with more than 50 members of Congress, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, sending a letter to the FBI and Justice Department in early September citing at least 10 reported hangings of Black Americans in 2026 and calling for an independent investigation into a pattern they described as possible 'modern-day lynchings.' Police pushed back on that framing, saying they had never named any prior suspect and would only make public statements supported by forensic evidence; two other Mississippi hanging deaths over the past year, of a Black university student and a homeless white man, were each ruled suicides. Family and friends recalled Fortune, who grew up in Kentucky, as a former star cross-country runner and woman of strong Christian faith who had experienced periods of homelessness but was working to start a cleaning business before her death.