Third Suspect Arrested in Tasia Fortune Killing as Mississippi Police Confirm Her Hanging Was Staged

Eric Clark, 45, surrendered to Jackson police on Friday, September 25, and was charged with murder in the death of Tasia Fortune, according to the Jackson Police Department. He's scheduled to appear in court Monday, September 28.

Clark is the third person arrested. Jarques Ratliff, 51, was taken into custody in mid-September after the Mississippi State Medical Examiner's Office classified Fortune's death a homicide, according to Fox News, which reported Jackson Police Chief RaShall Brackney announced the arrest at a news conference. Earnest Lloyd Jr., 25, was arrested the following week. All three suspects are Black, as was Fortune, according to the Guardian and NBC News.

Fortune, 29, a mother of four, was found hanging from a tree behind a vacant home on Jackson's Road of Remembrance on August 3. Police say she'd been dead for two to three days before her body was discovered, according to the Guardian. On Friday, September 25, Jackson police disclosed that a medical examiner's investigation concluded "the scene and the hanging were staged," and Detective Samuel Dukes testified Fortune was killed elsewhere in what he described as a drug-related dispute, telling a court she "fought hard" against her attackers, according to the Associated Press, carried by PBS.

Police say Ratliff had an "association" with Fortune, while Lloyd allegedly had a physical altercation with her before her death and used a black cable cord to hang her body, according to Jackson NBC affiliate WLBT. Ratliff has pleaded not guilty and blurted out in court that he and Fortune were friends, per the AP. Both Ratliff and Lloyd have been denied bond. A preliminary hearing to determine whether Ratliff's case goes to a grand jury began September 25 and is set to resume Wednesday, September 30.

The mother's reaction

Christy Spivey, Fortune's mother, told the BBC she initially felt relief when police told her privately that her daughter died before being hanged, only to feel that relief collapse once the "staged" detail and the alleged motive became public. "I have more questions now than what I did before," she said. She rejected the theory that her daughter stole drugs but acknowledged Fortune struggled with addiction and homelessness, saying she was trying to start a cleaning business and get her life together. Fortune's four sons, ages one to seven, are now split between relatives and friends, with two in the process of being adopted, according to the BBC.

Detectives also questioned Terence Bernard Anderson, the father of one of Fortune's children, earlier in the investigation; he was arrested only on unrelated weapons charges, according to Breitbart.

The bigger political fight

Fortune's case became the highest-profile entry in a broader claim by nearly 60 congressional Democrats, led by Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, that the country is seeing a resurgence of "modern-day lynchings." Their letter to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel cited a report documenting more than 70 such deaths between 2000 and 2025 and demanded independent autopsies and federal data collection, according to Breitbart. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called it "racial terror" on social media. Mississippi has a documented history of actual lynchings, and Pressley's letter argues local law enforcement has a poor track record on exactly this kind of case.

But the specific cases cited alongside Fortune's have mostly not held up as evidence of racial violence. Medical examiners and police ruled the deaths of Demartravion "Trey" Reed at Delta State University, Kyle Bassinga in Cobb County, Georgia, Justice Kai James in Albany, Georgia, ToNea Nicole Miller in Miami, Jerard Jay Jackson in Michigan, and a 16-year-old girl in Charlotte, Juliana Nzita, all suicides or found no evidence of foul play, according to the Daily Signal and Breitbart. Wisconsin investigators reached a preliminary suicide finding in the death of Torrance Medley. Of the cases the Daily Signal reviewed, Fortune's is the only one ruled a homicide, and the men charged are all Black. Former Senate staffer Matt Whitlock asked on X, as quoted by Breitbart, "What do you think widespread means if only one of these was actually a homicide?"

Larry Elder, writing for the Daily Signal, cited CDC data showing 10,573 white Americans and 916 Black Americans died by suicide via hanging, strangulation, or suffocation in 2020, with age-adjusted rates of 4.6 per 100,000 for whites versus 2.0 for Blacks. Daily Wire's opinion coverage went further, calling the broader narrative a "hoax" and attacking children's media personality Ms. Rachel and New York Times writer Nikole Hannah-Jones over an unrelated school-choice comment, a tangent that has nothing to do with the facts of Fortune's killing.

Fox News framed Ratliff's initial arrest as ripping apart "the media narrative," though that framing arrived weeks before Clark's arrest and before police had disclosed any alleged motive. Neither Pressley's office nor AOC has commented publicly since the third arrest or since police disclosed the drug-dispute motive.

The Ratliff preliminary hearing resumes September 30, when a judge will decide whether his case proceeds to a grand jury. Clark is due in court September 28. No cause of death, exact date of death, or full account of why the scene was staged has been released.