Mississippi Black woman found dead in tree for over a month: Police only publicly confirm homicide investigation after more than a month; federal agencies accused of "no response"

Mississippi Jackson police have stated publicly for the first time this week that they are investigating the death of 29-year-old Black woman Tasia Fortune as a potential homicide, more than a month after her body was found hanging from a tree. According to BBC reporting, Fortune's mother, Christy Spivey, had repeatedly asked police about the case's progress over the past several weeks without receiving answers, only learning at a city council meeting this week how the case was being handled.

On August 3, police discovered Fortune's body in an empty lot beside an abandoned house in Jackson. The BBC reported that Spivey last saw her daughter on July 26, when Fortune had traveled from Mississippi to Spivey's home in Kentucky for a family reunion. In their last phone call, Fortune mentioned she "might come home." Several days later, Spivey saw her daughter's body again at a funeral home. "I didn't look at her face," Spivey told the BBC. "Her father looked. I looked from the side."

Jackson Police Chief RaShall Brackney confirmed for the first time to Fortune's family and the public at a Tuesday evening city council meeting that the department "has been investigating this as a homicide since the day it was discovered." She said in a statement to the BBC: "We are conducting this investigation at the highest appropriate level, pending the medical examiner's ruling." Brackney explained that the department handles all pending death cases as "potential homicides" to avoid losing critical evidence while awaiting autopsy results. In the preceding weeks, police had only described the case as a death investigation.

Fortune's official cause and manner of death, however, remains pending the ruling of the state chief medical examiner's office. The medical examiner's office declined to comment on pending cases.

The federal level of the investigation was also accused of being slow. Jackson City Council member Kenneth Stokes told the BBC that he had written weeks earlier to both the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Mississippi and the FBI, requesting "urgent assistance" with the Fortune case, but "no one responded." Stokes told the BBC: "All cases are important, but this one—a hanging case in Mississippi—should be at the top of the food chain." "No one replied," he said bluntly, "it's like nobody cares."

U.S. Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett has written to the U.S. Department of Justice requesting an investigation into recent Mississippi deaths, including Fortune's case, characterizing them in the letter as "possible modern-day lynchings," citing the state's "horrific historic reputation" against Black Americans. The BBC has separately sent comment requests to the Department of Justice, the U.S. Attorney's Office for Mississippi and the local FBI office, and had not received a response from any party as of publication.

The BBC's reporting notes that Fortune's case is the third in less than a year in Mississippi in which a person has been found hanging from a tree. Two bodies discovered in the state on the same day in September 2025—one Black male, one white—were both ruled suicides, but the mother of Trey Reed, the Black youth, has challenged the ruling. An online petition demanding an independent investigation into the way state chief medical examiner Staci Turner has handled recent cases involving people of color has gathered more than 50,000 signatures; a separate petition demands FBI involvement in the Fortune case.

Outside Mississippi, North Carolina has also seen four cases this year of Black people found hanging from trees; three of those have been ruled suicides and the fourth remains pending autopsy.

Stokes emphasized to the BBC that he does not know whether Fortune's death constitutes a lynching, nor whether racial factors are involved, but he is demanding answers. Brandon King, president of the NAACP student chapter at nearby Jackson State University, told the BBC that the mystery surrounding Fortune's case and the police's minimal information updates have made him and those around him "extraordinarily cautious" about the area around campus. "Hey, you could be next," King said, "this is in Jackson, in your backyard." He added that the worry is particularly disturbing "because this is supposed to be the state capital. I'm supposed to feel safest here."

Spivey told the BBC that she ultimately chose to bury her daughter rather than cremate her, so that if investigative progress is made in the future the body could potentially need to be exhumed. "This makes me angry," Spivey said, "what exactly is being delayed?"