Second Arrest Made in Tasia Fortune Hanging Death as Jackson Police Seek Third Suspect
Jackson, Miss. — Police in Mississippi have arrested a second man in the death of Tasia Fortune, a 29-year-old Black woman whose body was found hanging from a tree behind an abandoned home in Jackson on Aug. 3, and authorities said they are seeking a third suspect.
Jackson police said late Tuesday that they had arrested 25-year-old Earnest Lloyd Jr. in connection with Fortune’s death. Lloyd is Black, as are Fortune and the first man arrested in the case, 51-year-old Jarques Ratliff. Lloyd appeared at a brief hearing Wednesday in Jackson.
Ratliff was arrested in September on a murder charge. He has pleaded not guilty and remains jailed without bond.
Fortune’s mother, Christy Spivey, attended Wednesday’s hearing and said afterward that she was overjoyed to see arrests made in her daughter’s death. But she also said neither she nor several of Fortune’s friends knew Lloyd, and she cautioned that all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty.
“My family is not the only family that this is affecting,” Spivey said, referring to the defendants’ relatives. “I feel for them as well. The only difference is that mine can never come back.”
She added, “I’ll never truly have peace.”
Police said in a statement that they had issued an arrest warrant for a third suspect but did not release the person’s identity or describe any alleged connection to Fortune’s death. Investigators also said they expect to issue additional warrants.
After Ratliff’s arrest, Jackson Police Chief RaShall Brackney said Ratliff had an “association” with Fortune but did not elaborate. Brackney also said at the time that police had interviewed more than a dozen people and collected forensic evidence as part of the investigation.
Police have not suggested a possible motive for the killing or said whether they believe race played a role. Still, the case has attracted widespread attention because the manner of Fortune’s death recalled the history of lynchings in Mississippi and across the South.
Her death came one year after the hanging deaths of 21-year-old Trey Reed, a Black student at Delta State University in Cleveland, Mississippi, and Cory Zukatis, an unhoused White man, in Vicksburg. Both deaths were ruled suicides, though Reed’s family and attorneys have called for an independent autopsy.
Fortune was a Kentucky native who had four children and had lived in Jackson for about a decade, according to relatives. Spivey said earlier this month that her daughter’s loved ones “still don’t have a lot of answers.”
Spivey has previously said Fortune struggled with homelessness in recent years and that she was not sure where her daughter was living at the time of her death. Before she died, Spivey said, Fortune had talked about starting a cleaning business and was trying to get her life in order.
The arrests mark a significant development in a case that has renewed painful questions about race and violence in Mississippi. But with a third suspect still sought and no motive publicly disclosed, the investigation remains far from complete — and for Fortune’s family, the answers they are seeking have yet to fully arrive.