Medical examiner ruled the 29-year-old’s death a homicide on Thursday
Jackson police arrested Jacques Ratliff on Friday in connection with the death of Tasia Fortune, a 29-year-old Black woman found hanging from a tree behind a vacant house in Jackson last month. The state medical examiner’s office ruled Fortune’s death a homicide Thursday evening, allowing officers to execute the arrest warrants they already had on hand, according to Jackson police chief RaShall Brackney-Wheelock.
Speaking at a news conference Friday, Brackney-Wheelock said officers secured search and arrest warrants for Ratliff and took him into custody when they encountered him walking on the street. The suspect is a 51-year-old Black man who knew Fortune, the chief said. Brackney-Wheelock declined to discuss motive beyond the medical examiner’s determination.
“We understand the questions and the desire for answers given Mississippi’s history,” Brackney said. “We understand this case is being viewed through a broader lens, a global lens, and we do not dismiss those concerns. We are taking them seriously.” Brackney added that officers have a responsibility to make sure that what is said publicly is supported by evidence and facts, and said they “cannot speculate by the nature or the manner in which Ms. Fortune was killed, beyond what has been officially determined by the medical examiner.”
The investigation remains active and additional arrests are likely, Brackney said.
Fortune was a mother of four. Her mother, Christy Spivey, said Friday that she “just started crying and told them ‘thank you, thank you, thank you’” when police notified her of the arrest. Spivey said officers did not share a motive or indicate whether DNA evidence led to the arrest. Spivey said she did not know the man who had been arrested and was asking her daughter’s friends if they knew him. The family, Spivey said, remains “in disbelief” and in “shock,” and “still don’t have a lot of answers.”
The killing has drawn national attention both because of the severity of the crime and because of Mississippi’s documented history of racist violence and lynchings. Fortune’s death came less than a year after the hanging deaths of Trey Reed, a 21-year-old Black student at Delta State University in Cleveland, Mississippi, and Cory Zukatis, an unhoused white man in his 30s in Vicksburg.