Police charged a 51-year-old man with murder after the state medical examiner determined Fortune’s death was a homicide.
JACKSON, MS — Mississippi police have arrested a 51-year-old man in the death of Tasia Fortune, a 29-year-old Black mother of four whose body was found hanging from a tree behind a vacant Jackson home in August, after the state medical examiner determined that her death was a homicide.
Jackson Police Chief RaShall Brackney announced Sept. 11 that officers had arrested Jarques Ratliff and that police were charging him with murder. Brackney said investigators had already secured arrest and search warrants before the medical examiner’s finding. The determination that Fortune’s death was a homicide allowed officers to move forward with those warrants. Police said Ratliff had an association with Fortune but did not disclose the nature of their relationship or describe a suspected motive.
Fortune was found Aug. 3 in the backyard of an abandoned home on Road of Remembrance in west Jackson. The circumstances immediately drew public attention and questions about whether she had died by suicide or had been killed. Her mother, Christy Spivey, rejected the possibility that her daughter had taken her own life. “She did not do this to herself,” Spivey told ABC News in August, describing Fortune as strong-minded, loving and in better spirits shortly before her death.
For weeks, authorities said the official cause and manner of Fortune’s death remained pending. The Mississippi State Medical Examiner’s Office conducted an autopsy in August, but Jackson police said in early September that they had not yet received the final findings. Brackney told the Jackson City Council that her department had approached the case as a homicide investigation from the beginning while awaiting the medical examiner’s determination.
That determination came Thursday evening, according to Brackney. Police then executed the warrants and took Ratliff into custody after encountering him on a Jackson street. Authorities have not publicly explained what evidence led them to identify Ratliff, and the evidence supporting the murder charge had not been detailed publicly as of Saturday. Ratliff is accused of a crime and has not been convicted. It was not immediately clear from publicly available records whether he had retained an attorney.
Brackney said detectives interviewed nearly 15 people, collected forensic evidence and followed numerous leads during the investigation. She stressed that Ratliff’s arrest did not mark the end of the case. Police said the investigation remains active and indicated that additional arrests are expected, though authorities have not identified other potential defendants or said what charges they could face.
Spivey said the arrest brought an emotional response after more than a month of uncertainty. She said she cried and thanked investigators when police told her someone had been arrested, but she said the family still had unanswered questions. Police had not told her a motive or whether DNA evidence played a role in the case, she said. Spivey also said she did not know Ratliff and was asking people who knew her daughter whether they were familiar with him.
Fortune had traveled to Kentucky shortly before her death and spent time with her family. Spivey previously said her daughter appeared to be at peace during that visit and was trying to move forward with her life. Fortune had experienced periods of homelessness in recent years, according to her mother, and had talked about starting a cleaning business. She had two sisters and was the mother of four children.
The way Fortune was found also carried particular weight in Mississippi, where the history of racial terror and lynching contributed to public concern surrounding the case. Jackson City Council member Kenneth Stokes sought federal assistance after Fortune’s death, and community members called for a thorough investigation. Spivey has said she believes her daughter was killed but does not believe the killing was motivated by race. Authorities have not publicly announced evidence establishing a racial motive.
Fortune’s death came amid heightened attention to other people found hanging in Mississippi within the past year. Authorities determined that the deaths of Delta State University student Trey Reed and Cory Zukatis in separate cases were suicides. No evidence released by authorities has connected those deaths to Fortune’s case, and Jackson police have cautioned against drawing conclusions about unrelated incidents without supporting evidence.
Police have not publicly disclosed a suspected motive in Fortune’s killing or the full evidence behind Ratliff’s arrest. The case remains under investigation, and Brackney said further arrests are expected. For Fortune’s family, the homicide ruling and first arrest answer one of the central questions surrounding her death while leaving others unresolved. “We still don’t have a lot of answers,” Spivey said after learning of the arrest.
Author note: Last updated September 12, 2026.