Man arrested in connection with death of Tasia Fortune as medical examiner rules her hanging death a homicide
TheGrio...
The mother-of-four’s body was discovered hanging from a tree on August 3. Now, police have arrested a suspect, while other search warrants have been conducted.
One day after Jackson, Mississippi, authorities confirmed they were investigating 29-year-old Tasia Fortune‘s death as a homicide, a man was arrested in connection with the case.
Police arrested a man who was walking along a city street, Jackson Police Chief RaShall Brackney said during a news conference on Friday. Brackney identified the man as Jacques Ratliff. Two other search warrants were executed in the case, and while Ratliff was not at either location, police spotted him walking along Capitol Street and took him into custody.
Late Thursday, the medical examiner officially ruled Fortune’s hanging death a homicide. Her body was discovered on August 3 behind a home on Road of Remembrance Drive. The home had been abandoned and had no registered occupant since at least 2023.
Brackney revealed more than 15 people had been interviewed regarding the case, which has drawn national attention due to the string of several Black men and women who have been found hanging in Mississippi and in the greater South. On Thursday, Democrats demanded the Department of Justice investigate the number of Black Americans found hanging from trees.
Led by Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass), the letter calling for aciton from the DOJ held signatures from largely members of the Congressional Black Caucus and Congressional Progressive Caucus, demanded action from Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel to conduct thorough investigations into the deaths.
“The series of deaths raises significant suspicion of foul play, given the role of lynching in our nation’s history,” the letter read. “Each of their deaths should be treated with the utmost seriousness and investigated without bias by the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).”
Fortune’s family was notified of the arrest and has, from the beginning, said that she would not have killed herself.
“She did not do this to herself,” Christy Spivey told ABC News last month. “I know my daughter.”