The mother of Tasia Fortune, a 29-year-old Black woman whose body was found hanging from a tree behind an abandoned home in Mississippi last week, says she cannot accept the idea that her daughter died by suicide.
“She did not do this to herself,” Christy Spivey told ABC News. “I know my daughter and she did not do this to herself.”
Spivey said she last saw Fortune, a mother of four, on July 26, when her daughter traveled from Mississippi to Kentucky for a family reunion. Fortune had been living in Mississippi for more than 10 years.
“She was better than I had seen her in a long time. She was at peace,” Spivey remembered.
Authorities said Fortune’s body was discovered in Jackson on Aug. 3 and appeared to have been there for approximately three to four days.
Her cause of death has not yet been determined, and her family is waiting for the official autopsy findings as they search for answers.
Investigators have not publicly said whether they believe Fortune’s death is suspicious, stating only that they are continuing to work “to determine the circumstances surrounding the death.”
“This has just devastated us,” Spivey said. “Tasia was strong-minded, she was full of laughs and love, she had faith in God … She had so little and gave so much.”
Fortune’s death in Mississippi comes as the Magnolia State has made national headlines recently following the mysterious death of 18-year-old college athlete Nolan Wells, who was found dead on Horn Island in the Gulf of Mexico last month, days after his friends left him there during a Fourth of July celebration.
Wells’ parents say how their son died remains a mystery and there have been conflicting stories and missing details.
Spivey told ABC News she “does not want [Fortune’s] name associated with” the death possibly being racially motivated.
Other local and national figures are calling for justice for Fortune, with some pointing to the state’s tumultuous history of lynchings.
“We should not rush to conclusions, but we also cannot dismiss the fear and painful history these circumstances evoke for black communities, especially in Mississippi. That history makes transparency, thoroughness, and truth essential,” Martin Luther King Jr.’s daughte Bernice King wrote on Facebook.
On Wednesday, Jackson City Councilman Kenneth Stokes penned 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 released little information about Fortune’s death and no suspects have been identified.
One man, Terrence Anderson, was interviewed by police and revealed he had argued with Fortune but was not involved in her death, WLBT reported.
Police said that the two were in a relationship, which Anderson denied. He denied any involvement with her death but told police that he had been in an argument with her.
There have been two other hanging deaths in Mississippi in the past year. Trey Reed, a 21-year-old black student, was found dead in a tree at Delta State University in Cleveland, and Cory Zukatis, a homeless white man in his 30s, in Vicksburg.
Both deaths were determined to be by local authorities.
Reed’s parents now say that civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who took up the case, never provided them with the results of an independent autopsy paid for by former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick and has not answered their calls for months, according to the Mississippi Free Press.
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