The hanging death of Tasia Fortune, whose body was found outside an abandoned house on Aug. 3, has shaken her family and community in Mississippi, where two other people have been found hanging from trees in less than a year. Police have not indicated whether they consider the 29-year-old Black woman's death suspicious, the AP reports, saying only that they are actively working "to determine the circumstances surrounding the death." A week after Fortune's body was found, a pink-and-white memorial honoring her life stood as a bright spot Monday in the otherwise overgrown backyard of the abandoned house in Jackson.
Christy Spivey, Fortune's mother, told ABC News on Sunday that she last saw her daughter on July 26. Fortune, a mother of four who had lived in Mississippi for more than 10 years, had traveled to Kentucky for a family reunion. She described her daughter as a loving mother who was not behaving out of the ordinary. "I know my daughter, and she did not do this to herself," Spivey said. Jackson police have not identified any suspects or person of interest. Fortune's death comes less than a year after the hanging deaths of 21-year-old Trey Reed, a Black student at Delta State University in Cleveland, and Cory Zukatis, an unhoused white man in his 30s, in Vicksburg. Police concluded Reed's death was a suicide.
Spivey, Fortune's mother, told ABC she "does not want her name associated with" the death possibly being racially motivated. Bernice King, daughter of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., cautioned people to "not rush to conclusions." At the same time, Fortune's death is triggering. "We also cannot dismiss the fear and painful history these circumstances evoke for Black communities, especially in Mississippi," King said in a statement. "That history makes transparency, thoroughness, and truth essential."
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