'She Would Never Climb That, Ever, Ever': Family Seeks Justice in Slaying of Mother Found Hanging in a Tree

Tasia Fortune's mother spent five weeks insisting her daughter had not taken her own life.

On Thursday, Sept. 10, 2026, the Mississippi State Medical Examiner's Office determined that the 29-year-old's death was a homicide, more than five weeks after her body was found hanging from a tree behind an abandoned house in Jackson.

The following afternoon, Jackson Police Chief RaShall Brackney announced the arrest of 51-year-old Jarques Ratliff on a murder charge. Brackney said Ratliff had an 'association' with Fortune but declined to describe their relationship, and she stressed that the investigation remained active.

What Police Have Said About the Arrest

The medical examiner's determination allowed police to execute warrants they had already obtained, Brackney said. Investigators carried out two search warrants before arresting Ratliff after officers encountered him walking along Capitol Street on Friday afternoon.

Mississippi Today reported that Ratliff was arrested on Capitol Street, near the area where Fortune was found. Police said they had interviewed nearly 15 people and collected forensic evidence as they investigated the death.

Ratliff had a Jackson address, according to Jackson Police Department public information officer Tommie Brown. His name was not initially visible in the Hinds County jail log, according to Mississippi Today.

Ratliff was expected to appear in Jackson Municipal Court no later than Monday morning, André de Gruy, Mississippi's state defender, told the Associated Press. It was not immediately clear whether Ratliff had an attorney.

Brackney has disclosed little about the evidence against him. She has not released a motive or described the specific evidence that led investigators to Ratliff. Fortune's mother, Christy Spivey, said police did not tell her whether DNA evidence played a role in the arrest.

The chief described the arrest as an important development, but not the end of the investigation. She said detectives expected additional arrests as they continued to follow the evidence.

Ratliff's arrest is an allegation of criminal involvement, not a finding of guilt. Any account of his role should therefore remain attributed to police and framed around the murder charge.

The Mother Who Refused to Accept a Suicide

Christy Spivey had rejected that explanation from the beginning. Asked whether her daughter could have taken her own life, she told the Associated Press, 'Absolutely not. Even if she could climb that tree, no, no, she would never, ever, ever.'

Her reaction to the arrest was immediate.

Spivey said that when police told her, she started crying and thanked them repeatedly. She also said officers gave her no motive and did not tell her whether DNA had led them to the arrest, and that she did not know Ratliff, though she had begun asking her daughter's friends whether they did. The family, she said, remains in disbelief and still lacks answers.

Those close to Fortune have pushed back against a death defining her. Her obituary, posted by a funeral home in Central City, Kentucky, describes Tasia Sidea Fortune as a star cross-country athlete who skipped her junior year of high school and held a strong faith, and records a legacy of resilience.

Spivey said Fortune spent part of her childhood in foster care and moved between group homes as a teenager before leaving for Mississippi, where she lived in Jackson for a decade. She had four children, was close to her siblings, and had been struggling with homelessness in recent years.

A Case Weighed Against Mississippi's History

The image of a Black woman found hanging from a tree in Mississippi has inevitably drawn attention to the state's history of racial violence and lynching. Brackney acknowledged those concerns while insisting that investigators base their conclusions on evidence.

Two similar deaths preceded this one. In less than a year, Mississippi authorities investigated the hanging deaths of Demartravion 'Trey' Reed, a 21-year-old Black student at Delta State University in Cleveland, and Cory Zukatis, an unhoused white man in his thirties found in Vicksburg.

Both were determined by authorities to be suicides, and Reed's family publicly disputed that finding in his case and sought an independent autopsy.

Brackney declined to link them. Asked whether Fortune's death was connected to the other cases, she said she would not make that determination and that such a determination would fall to the FBI, describing Fortune's case as very local based on how her department was viewing it.

No federal finding has been made linking the three deaths. She confirmed on Saturday that nobody else had been arrested overnight while repeating that she expects more arrests.

More than five weeks after Fortune's body was discovered in a Jackson backyard, investigators have made their first arrest. But police have released few details about the evidence, motive, or the circumstances surrounding her death, leaving her family still seeking answers.