Mississippi authorities investigate hanging death of 29-year-old woman
Police are examining the circumstances surrounding the death of Tasia Fortune, whose body was found hanging outside an abandoned house in Jackson, Mississippi, while an autopsy is pending.
Police in Jackson, Mississippi, are investigating the death of 29-year-old Tasia Fortune after her body was discovered hanging in the backyard of an abandoned house on Aug. 3. The Hinds County chief medical examiner confirmed her identity, and the case has been transferred to the Mississippi State Medical Examiner’s Office for an autopsy to determine cause and manner of death.
Fortune’s mother, Christy Spivey, told ABC News she last saw her daughter on July 26, after the woman returned from a family reunion in Kentucky. Spivey said her daughter was a caring mother and “did not do this to herself.”
Jackson City Councilman Kenneth Stokes wrote to U.S. Attorney Baxter Kruger requesting assistance, referring to Fortune as a murder victim, though police have not named any suspects. A man who was arrested on an unrelated firearms charge told investigators he had argued with Fortune, but officials have not disclosed his connection to her.
Fortune’s death follows two other hanging deaths in Mississippi within the past year: the suicide of 21-year-old Trey Reed, a Black student at Delta State University, and the suicide of Cory Zukatis, an unhoused white man in Vicksburg. Both cases were concluded by state medical examiners as suicides.
The handling of deaths involving Black residents in Mississippi has drawn heightened scrutiny, highlighted by the unresolved case of Nolan Xavier Wells, an 18-year-old who disappeared after a July 4 boat trip. Bernice King, daughter of the late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., urged caution in drawing conclusions, emphasizing the need for transparency and thoroughness in investigations affecting Black communities.