Man arrested in death of Black woman found hanging last month in Jackson, MS – National & International News

 

Jackson PD announce arrest in death of Black woman found hanging last month

On August 3, Jackson police responded to a call on the 500 block of Road of Remembrance. There they discovered the body of a young Black woman hanging from a tree behind an abandoned house. The woman was identified as Tasia Fortune, 29, a mother of four who had lived in Mississippi for the past decade. Police treated it as a suspicious death but initially said little in public as they investigated the circumstances.

A few days after Fortune’s body was found and sent to the medical examiner, police arrested a man named Terrence Anderson on an unrelated charge. He was interviewed and admitted arguing with Fortune before her death but said he had nothing to do with her death.

As the weeks past, the case attracted national attention. Some Black Mississippians, including young people in Jackson, expressed feeling unsafe. Earlier this week, Fortune’s mother Christy Spivey expressed frustration at a lack of updates on the case from authorities and the delay in receiving a determination from the medical examiner on her daughter’s cause of death. JPD said they had been reaching out to the state medical examiner’s office to learn when they could expect a determination.

That all changed on Thursday night when the medical examiner officially ruled Fortune’s death as a homicide. Immediately thereafter, Jackson Police sought to carry out a arrest warrant. Today, Jackson Police Chief RaShall Brackney announced that JPD had arrested 51-year-old Jacques “Jock” Ratliff in connection with Fortune’s death. Chief Brackney said that Ratliff, who is Black, had an “association” with Ms. Fortune, but would not elaborate further. Brackney also said that the investigation was still in progress and that further arrests in the case would likely be forthcoming.