Strange Fruit · September 30, 2026, 12:31 AM CT
Key Facts
- Tasia Fortune, 29, was found hanging from a tree behind a vacant home in Jackson on Aug. 3.[1][2]
- Jackson Police Chief RaShall Brackney says the manner of death was homicide and the hanging was “a staged event.” The cause of death and the motive have not been released.[1][2]
- Jarques Ratliff, 51, Earnest Lloyd Jr., 25, and Eric Clark, 45, are charged with murder. All three are Black. Ratliff has pleaded not guilty, and Lloyd is reported to have done so as well.[1][2]
- People charged with crimes are presumed innocent. Their cases have not gone to trial.
For nearly two months, many people in Jackson did not know whether someone was hanging Black people from trees.
“People justifiably didn’t know if we had a killer on the loose who might hang people for racial reasons,” Municipal Court Judge Jeff Reynolds said at a hearing on Monday, Sept. 28.[2]
Police in Jackson, Mississippi, say the hanging of Tasia Fortune, a 29-year-old Black mother of four, was staged after she was killed, and three men have been charged with her murder.[1][2]
Video: Associated Press, September 29, 2026 — “Tasia Fortune's hanging was 'staged,' Jackson police chief says”. Matched to this story by shared names and terms in its title; watch the original for full context.
Where It Happened
The pin marks Jackson as named in the report, not an exact address. Map data: OpenStreetMap contributors. Street photo (2010): /\ \/\/ /\ from Jackson Mississippi, USA, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0.
What police say happened
Fortune, a Kentucky native and mother of four, was found on Aug. 3 hanging from a tree behind a vacant home in Jackson.[1][2] Officials believe she may have been dead for two or three days before she was found.[3]
Speaking to reporters on Monday, Chief Brackney said police now believe the hanging was staged. “So at this time, we do know the manner of death was homicide,” she said. “We also are confirming that this was a staged event, and often we know that these events are staged so that we can derail the investigation, pointing in another direction.” She described the case as “a drug case gone very wrong.”[1]
A Jackson police detective testified that, according to a witness account, three suspects picked Fortune up from a home on Capitol Street in early August, left with her for a period, and came back without her.[1] At an earlier hearing, a detective said there may have been an issue over missing illegal narcotics, and declined to release more because the grand jury has not received all of the evidence.[3] Brackney also confirmed “there was a known association” between Fortune and the charged men.[1]
Who is charged, and what they say
Ratliff was arrested in mid-September and pleaded not guilty at a Sept. 14 hearing. He told the court that Fortune was his friend.[2][3] His attorney, Toney Baldwin, said, “My client said he’s not involved and that’s absolutely what I believe.”[3] Ratliff’s stepdaughter also maintained his innocence in court.[2]
Lloyd was arrested last week and, according to local reports cited by Global News, pleaded not guilty.[2] Clark turned himself in on Friday after a warrant was issued. Judge Reynolds set his bond at $5 million; bond was denied for Ratliff and Lloyd.[1][2] Brackney said she expects more arrests and conspiracy charges.[1] A hearing to decide whether Ratliff’s case goes to a grand jury resumes Sept. 30.[2]
Video: 16 WAPT News Jackson, September 16, 2026 — “JPD makes arrest in death of Tasia Fortune, who was found hanging”. Matched to this story by shared names and terms in its title; watch the original for full context.
What Fortune’s family says
After the first arrest, the family said they were “grateful for the silence to be broken” and asked the public to “have patience and wait for the rest of the facts to come out before jumping to conclusions.”[1] Her mother, Christy Spivey, has said her daughter had been struggling with homelessness and was trying to get her children back, and had talked about starting a cleaning business. Spivey has said she believes police are “headed in the right direction,” and that she wants to know what evidence they have.[2][3]
Why the first question was lynching
The discovery struck a nerve in a state with a documented history of racial terror. “We know we have a very sordid history around lynchings and racial terror across this nation and particularly around the South,” Brackney said. “That is still a very current narrative. It is still a very raw narrative.”[2] The Equal Justice Initiative’s Lynching in America documents more than 4,400 racial terror lynchings in the United States between Reconstruction and World War II.[4]
What is still unknown
- The cause of Fortune’s death has not been released.[2][3]
- A motive beyond police’s description of a drug dispute has not been made public, and the case has not been presented in full to a grand jury.[1][3]
- Whether more people will be charged. Police say they expect to.[1]
About the Strange Fruit Series
“Strange Fruit” is the title of a 1939 protest song, first written as a poem by Abel Meeropol and recorded by Billie Holiday, about lynchings in the American South. This series follows reports of people found hanged. The Fortune case draws national coverage, and it opens the series because it is why the series exists: a hanging in the South, and the first question so many people asked. Later entries will look for cases that got less attention. A story appearing here does not mean the death was a lynching or a crime. Many hangings are ruled suicides. We report what officials say, what families say when a source quotes them, and what is still not known, and we link to the original reporting.
If you or someone you know is struggling, you can call or text 988, the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, at any hour.
How to Verify This Yourself
Read the original reports at ABC News, Global News (with the Associated Press) and NBC News. Those pages are the primary sources for everything above.
References
- ABC News. Tasia Fortune’s hanging was ‘staged’ in ‘drug case gone very wrong’: Police chief. ↩
- Global News, with files from the Associated Press. Jackson woman’s hanging was ‘part of a staging’ after death, police say. ↩
- NBC News. Police believe Tasia Fortune’s hanging was staged as new details revealed in court. ↩
- Equal Justice Initiative. Lynching in America. ↩
Investigative methodology: this post was first produced automatically from a single local-station report. It was revised by hand from ABC News, Global News and NBC News reporting. Quoted words are verbatim from those reports. Graphic detail about the method reported by one outlet has been left out on purpose. The videos are from the Associated Press and WAPT (the ABC affiliate in Jackson) and were matched to this story by shared names and terms in their titles.
Kemetic Minds Editorial Desk
Verified NewsroomPrimary-sourced investigative intelligence on civil rights, voting rights, federal policy, and consumer protection. Sourced from primary legal filings, government statistics, and direct field reporting.