JACKSON, Miss. (Queen City Newsfeed) — Investigators are still working to determine how a 29-year-old Jackson woman died after her body was discovered hanging behind an abandoned house last week, a case that has drawn the attention of a city councilman and reignited concerns among Black Mississippians about how these deaths are investigated.
Jackson police found the body of Tasia Fortune in the backyard of an apparently vacant home in the 500 block of Road of Remembrance on Aug. 3. Hinds County Coroner Jeramiah Howard identified her. Her body has since been sent to the Mississippi State Medical Examiner’s Office for an autopsy. Police have released few details and have not said whether they believe the death is suspicious.
A memorial of flowers, pinwheels and stuffed animals now marks the spot where she was found, standing out against the otherwise neglected property.
A mother pushes back on the idea of suicide
Fortune’s mother, Christy Spivey, said her daughter had just returned from a family reunion trip to Kentucky before she died. Fortune, who had lived in Mississippi for more than a decade, was the mother of four children. Spivey described her as devoted to her kids and said nothing about her behavior in the days before her death suggested anything was wrong.
Spivey has firmly rejected any suggestion that her daughter took her own life, telling reporters she is certain that was not what happened based on what she knew of her daughter’s state of mind.
No suspects have been named in the case. Local outlets have reported that investigators spoke with a man who admitted to arguing with Fortune but denied any role in her death. That man was taken into custody days later on an unrelated firearms charge. As with any person connected to an ongoing investigation, he has not been charged in Fortune’s death and is entitled to the presumption of innocence.
Jackson City Councilman Kenneth Stokes sent a letter to the U.S. Attorney’s Office asking for federal help in the case, WAPT reported. “We sent a letter to the U.S. Attorney’s Office asking for help to make sure we catch and convict the person or persons involved with hanging a young lady in Jackson,” Stokes told the station. Stokes said that regardless of whether race played a role in Fortune’s death, Mississippi’s history of lynching means public officials have a responsibility to call the death unacceptable.
Part of a troubling pattern
Fortune’s death is the third hanging death in Mississippi in less than a year to draw statewide attention. Trey Reed, a Black Delta State University student, was found hanging on campus in Cleveland last year. A coroner’s preliminary review found no signs of foul play, and police ultimately ruled his death a suicide, though his family has pushed for an independent autopsy and access to surveillance footage. Around the same time, Cory Zukatis, a white man in his 30s who was unhoused, was also found hanging in Vicksburg. The state medical examiner ruled his death a suicide as well.
The cases come on the heels of renewed scrutiny of how Mississippi authorities investigate the deaths of Black residents, following the death of 18-year-old Nolan Xavier Wells. Wells went missing during a Fourth of July boating trip off the Mississippi Gulf Coast and was found dead two days later. His family says the circumstances remain unclear.
Bernice King, daughter of the late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., addressed Fortune’s death in an Instagram post this week. She cautioned against rushing to conclusions but said the fear and history the case evokes for Black communities in Mississippi cannot be dismissed, calling transparency, thoroughness and truth essential. King said she is praying for Fortune’s family as they grieve and said they deserve answers, adding that Fortune deserves dignity and that the investigation into her death must be complete and transparent. She said justice requires truth pursued without fear, indifference or delay.
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Spivey said she does not want her daughter’s case framed around race, but the pattern of hangings in the state has kept that question in the background of the investigation regardless.
Queen City Newsfeed will continue to follow this story as investigators release more information.
