JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — The hanging death of Tasia Fortune, whose body was found outside an abandoned house, has shaken her family and community in Mississippi, where two other people have been found hanging from trees in less than a year.
Police have not indicated whether they consider the 29-year-old Black woman’s death suspicious, saying only that they are actively working “to determine the circumstances surrounding the death.”
A week after her body
was found, a memorial with a photo of her face surrounded by pink and white balloons, flowers and teddy bears remained Monday behind the home in a predominantly Black neighborhood.
Jackson police officers responded to the home on Aug. 3 and discovered a body hanging in the backyard. Hinds County chief medical examiner investigator Jeremiah Howard later confirmed the identity as Fortune.
Her body is now in the custody of the Mississippi State Medical Examiner’s Office, where an autopsy will be conducted to determine the cause and manner of death.
Here's what we know so far about Fortune's death:
Christy Spivey, Fortune's mother, told ABC News on Sunday that she last saw her daughter on July 26. Fortune, a mother of four who had lived in Mississippi for more than 10 years, had traveled to Kentucky for a family reunion.
She described her daughter as a loving mother who was not behaving out of the ordinary.
“She did not do this to herself," Spivey told the outlet. "I know my daughter, and she did not do this to herself.”
On Wednesday, Jackson City Councilman Kenneth Stokes wrote a letter to Mississippi U.S. Attorney Baxter Kruger asking for assistance in the case. In the letter, Stokes referred to Fortune as a murder victim.
Jackson police have commented very little on Fortune's death. They have not identified any suspects or person of interest.
Local media report that a man interviewed by investigators said he had argued with Fortune but had no involvement in her death. Police have not disclosed how the man, who was arrested last week on an unrelated charge of being a felon in possession of a firearm, is acquainted with Fortune.
Fortune's death comes less than a year after the hanging deaths of 21-year-old Trey Reed, a Black student at Delta State University in Cleveland, and Cory Zukatis, an unhoused white man in his 30s, in Vicksburg.
Police in Cleveland concluded Reed's death was a suicide. Autopsy results were consistent with a preliminary examination of the body by the Bolivar County coroner, which found no evidence of foul play.
Reed's family and their attorneys called for an independent autopsy and for authorities to share security camera recordings.
The Mississippi State Medical Examiner determined Zukatis died by suicide.
How law enforcement agencies in Mississippi, a state with a tumultuous civil rights history, handle death investigations of Black residents has drawn extreme interest in recent weeks with the case of Nolan Xavier Wells.
The 18-year-old joined friends on a Fourth of July boat excursion to an island off Mississippi’s Gulf Coast but did not return with them. His body was found two days later.
Wells’ parents say how their son died remains a mystery and there have been conflicting stories and missing details.
Spivey, Fortune’s mother, told ABC News she “does not want her name associated with” the death possibly being racially motivated.
Berniece King, daughter of the late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., cautioned people to “not rush to conclusions.” At the same time, Fortune's death is triggering.
“We also cannot dismiss the fear and painful history these circumstances evoke for Black communities, especially in Mississippi," she said in a statement. “That history makes transparency, thoroughness, and truth essential."
