JACKSON, Miss. (AP)—Tasia Fortune was apparently killed in a drug dispute before her body was hung in a tree in a “staged” lynching behind an abandoned home in the Mississippi capital this summer, a detective testified Friday.
The Aug. 3 discovery of the body—Fortune was Black—stoked fear and drew widespread attention because the scene recalled actual lynchings in the Southern state, which has a long and troubled history of racial violence.
Authorities haven’t disclosed the exact cause of Fortune’s death, but they did rule it a homicide and have arrested two men, both of them Black, on murder charges. They also issued an arrest warrant for a third, unnamed, person.
During a hearing Friday to establish whether there is sufficient evidence to warrant sending a grand jury the case against the first man arrested, Jarques Ratliff, Jackson Police Detective Samuel Dukes testified that the hanging was “staged,” citing the medical examiner’s opinion.
Dukes said the motive for the killing appears to have been a drug dispute, and that interviews with others revealed that Fortune fought hard before she was killed.
Ratliff, 51, who was arrested in mid-September, has pleaded not guilty and remains jailed without bond. Police arrested a second defendant, 25-year-old Earnest Lloyd Jr., this week.
During Friday’s hearing, which will resume Sept. 30, Ratliff blurted out in court that he and Fortune were friends.
“He didn’t do it, and I’m behind him,” Ratliff’s stepdaughter, Lashuna Jones, said outside of court.
Fortune’s mother, Christy Spivey, has said her daughter, who had four children, struggled with homelessness in recent years, and that she wasn’t sure where Fortune was living at the time of her death. She said Fortune had talked about starting a cleaning business and was trying to get her life in order.
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White reported from Detroit.
