A man was arrested Friday in connection with the disturbing hanging death of a Black mother of four in Mississippi, one day after state medical examiners ruled the case a homicide.
Jackson police took 51-year-old Jacques Ratliff into custody as he walked along Capitol Street, just hours after officers carried out search and arrest warrants tied to the death of Tasia Fortune.
“That arrest today is an important development in this investigation, but it is not the conclusion,” Jackson Police Chief RaShall Brackney told reporters, emphasizing that the case remains active and that more arrests are expected.
“We understand the questions, and the desire for answers, given Mississippi’s history,” Brackney said, adding that authorities are approaching the highly sensitive investigation with a “global lens.”
Fortune was found dead Aug. 3, hanging from a tree in the backyard of an abandoned house in Jackson.
Her mother, Christy Spivey, was overcome with emotion after learning that a suspect had been arrested.
“I just started crying and told them ‘thank you, thank you, thank you,’” Spivey told reporters.
Spivey said investigators have not told the family a possible motive or whether DNA evidence played a role in the arrest. She also said she did not know Ratliff, and that her family is still in “disbelief” and “shock.”
“We still don’t have a lot of answers,” she said.
Spivey last saw her 29-year-old daughter on July 26 at a family reunion in Kentucky, before Fortune traveled back to Mississippi.
“She was better than I had seen her in a long time. She was at peace,” Spivey told ABC News.
Fortune’s death followed two other hanging deaths in Mississippi within the past year: 21-year-old Delta State University student Trey Reed and Cory Zukatis, a homeless man in his 30s.
Both of those cases were ultimately ruled suicides by authorities.
Fortune, whose whole name is “Tasia Sidea Fortune,” had lived in Jackson for 10 years after moving from Marion, Kentucky.
Relatives describe Fortune as religious, bright and athletic.
Fortune was “intelligent and talented, having skipped her junior year of high school,” her obituary says.
“She was also a star cross country athlete. But no matter what, she never lost her faith in God. She leaves a powerful legacy of resilience, rooted deeply in her unwavering faith.”
With Post wires
