Mum found hanging from tree ‘fought for her life’ before killing was ‘staged to look like lynching’

The mother of a woman found hanging from a tree claims her daughter must have ‘fought for her life’ amid allegations her killing was ‘staged’.

Tasia Fortune was apparently killed in a drug dispute before her body was found behind an abandoned home in Mississippi in August prompting local fears of a lynching.

But the mum was allegedly killed in a drugs row, and she fought hard with her attackers before she was killed, Jackson police Detective Samuel Dukes told a court.

Citing the medical examiner’s opinion, he also said the hanging was ‘staged.’

Fortune was Black, and the August 3 discovery of her hanging body stoked fear because the scene recalled actual lynchings in the Southern state, which has a long and troubled history of racist killings.

Authorities haven’t disclosed the exact cause of Fortune’s death or said why they think her body was hanged afterward, but they ruled it a homicide and arrested two men, both of them also Black, on murder charges.

A 45-year-old man turned himself in Friday after a warrant was issued for his arrest. He was charged with murder and will appear in court Monday.

Outside court, Fortune’s mother, Christy Spivey, said she had been aware that her daughter died before her body was hanged. But that step, she added, ‘brought all the attention to it.’

‘What bothered me was they said Tasia fought for her life. I know she did. I know my daughter,’ Spivey told reporters outside court.

The hearing was meant to determine whether there is sufficient evidence to send the case against the first man arrested, Jarques Ratliff, to a grand jury for a possible indictment

Ratliff, 51, was arrested in mid-September and has pleaded not guilty. He remains jailed without bond. Police arrested a second defendant, 25-year-old Earnest Lloyd Jr., this week.

During Friday’s hearing, Ratliff blurted out in court that he and Fortune were friends.

‘It sounded sincere. Tasia had a lot of friends,’ Spivey said later.

‘I hope if he is innocent that he can prove he’s innocent. We don’t want any innocent people going to jail.’

Ratliff’s stepdaughter, Lashuna Jones, was among her father’s supporters at court.

‘He didn’t do it, and I’m behind him,’ she said.