Second man arrested in connection with hanging death of Tasia Fortune as her mother ‘feels’ for all involved
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A 51-year-old man was previously arrested for his alleged role in the death of the 29-year-old who was found dead behind an abandoned Mississippi house on August 3.
Authorities in Mississippi have apprehended a second man in connection with the death of Tasia Fortune. The 29-year-old Black woman was found hanging from a tree behind an abandoned house, and the news of an additional arrest has pleased Fortune’s mother, Christy Spivey.
Jackson police revealed late Tuesday that 25-year-old Earnest Lloyd Jr. was in their custody. Officials arrested 51-year-old Jarques Ratliff last week. Lloyd was charged with murder for his alleged role in the killing of the mother of four.
According to Spivey, neither she nor several of her daughter’s close friends knew Lloyd.
“My family is not the only family that this is affecting,” Spivey said. “I feel for [the families of those arrested] as well. The only difference is that mine can never come back. I’ll never truly have peace.”
Ratliff is facing murder charges. During his hearing, he pleaded not guilty and is currently being held without bond. A warrant has been issued for the arrest of a third suspect, and additional warrants are expected.
Fortune’s body was discovered on August 3 among a rash of recent hanging deaths across the South, leading hundreds of people to share the statement: “Black people don’t hang themselves” on social media. More than half a dozen Black men and women have been found hanged in the South since 2024, ranging from college students to men in their near 40s. Although some of those deaths were ruled suicides, it continued to raise skepticism in the community at large.
In Mississippi, Fortune’s death, along with the hanging deaths of several Black men, has evoked feelings of lynchings that occurred within the state during the early 20th century.
“Black folks down here in 2026, we are feeling and experiencing some of the same things we felt in 1956 and 1966, and that should not be happening,” Brad Jackson, an activist in Jackson, said of Fortune’s death. “But because it’s Mississippi and the racist history of our state, our skin has been toughened a lot to deal with it.”
Spivey says she does not believe race played a factor in her daughter’s death, stating that it felt “personal.”