The mother of a Black woman whose body was found hanging from a tree in Jackson, Mississippi, has told the BBC she is still waiting for answers from officials more than a month later. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing BBC News.
Tasia Fortune, 29, was discovered on 3 August hanging from a tree in the lot of an abandoned home. On Tuesday, police confirmed for the first time that they were investigating her death as a potential homicide, while clarifying that the official cause of death has yet to be confirmed.
Fortune's mother, Christy Spivey, expressed anger: "It's making me angry. What is the hold up?" She described desperate attempts to get information and said multiple enquiries to police had gone unanswered. The first update she received came at a public city meeting on Tuesday, where Police Chief RaShall Brackney said the department "has been investigating this case from day one as a homicide."
Spivey last saw her daughter alive on 26 July, when Fortune visited for a family reunion. The next time she saw her was at a funeral home, where she could barely look at her body: "I didn't look straight at her. Her daddy did. I kind of looked from the side." In their last conversation, Fortune had talked about possibly coming home.
The death has raised concerns about racial violence in Mississippi. Fortune's death is the third incident in less than a year where someone was found dead and hanged from a tree in the state. The other two bodies (one Black male, one white) were discovered in September 2025 on the same day. Both were ruled suicides, though the mother of one of the deceased, Trey Reed, contests those findings.
Residents launched an online petition that has gathered more than 50,000 signatures for an independent investigation into the state's chief medical examiner, Dr Staci Turner, over the handling of recent cases involving people of colour. Another petition asks the FBI to investigate Fortune's death.
Jackson City Councilman Kenneth Stokes expressed concerns about the police investigation, saying he had been outside the home where Fortune was thought to have lived multiple times and never saw officers. He sent letters to federal prosecutors and the FBI weeks ago urging that the investigation was "in dire need of assistance," but has yet to hear back: "Nothing from nobody. It's like nobody cares."
US Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett has requested federal intervention, writing to the Department of Justice to investigate recent deaths in Mississippi, including Fortune's, calling them "possible cases of modern-day lynchings." She cited the state's "appalling historical reputation of violent terrorism against black Americans."
In North Carolina, four Black people have been found hanged from trees this year alone; three were ruled suicides, and an autopsy is pending for the fourth.