Latest / Best of: Features / Tasia Fortune's hanging was 'staged' after her death in a drug dispute, Mississippi police say

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Tasia Fortune's hanging was 'staged' after her death in a drug dispute, Mississippi police say · Best of: Features

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  Tasia Fortune hanging was staged after her death in a drug dispute,
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  Mississippi police say. Written by Ed White and Sophie Bates. This article
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  is being read by an automated voice generated by Everlett. Jackson, Mississippi,
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  the AP. Tasia Fortune was apparently killed in a drugdust dispute before
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  her body was hung in a tree in a stage lynching behind
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  an abandoned home in the Mississippi Capitol this summer, a detective testified
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  Friday. Fortune was killed in a disagreement about drugs, and she fought
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  hard with her attackers before she was killed, Jackson Police Detective Samuel
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  Dukes told the court. Citing the medical examiner's opinion, he also said
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  the hanging was staged. Fortune’s was black and they august third discovery
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  of her hanging body stoked fear and drew widespread attention because the
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  scene recalled actual lynchings in the southern state, which has a long
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  and troubled history of racial violence. Authorities haven't disclosed the exact cause
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  of Fortune's death, or said why they think her body was hanged
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  afterward, but they ruled it a homicide and arrested two O men,
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  both of them also black, on murder charges. A forty five year
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  old man turned himself in Friday after a warrant was issued for
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  his arrest. He was charged with murder and will appear in court
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  Monday. Outside court, Fortune's mother, Christy Spivy, told reporters that she had
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  been aware that her daughter died before her body was hanged, but
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  that step, she added, brought all the attention to It What bothered
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  me was they said Tazia fought for her life. I know she
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  did. I know my daughter, Spivey said. The hearing was meant to
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  determine whether there is sufficient evidence to send the case against the
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  first man arrested, Sharkex Ratliff, to a grand jury for a possible
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  indictment. It will resume september thirtieth. Ratliff, fifty-one, was arrested in
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  mid-September and has pleaded not guilty. He remains jailed without bond. Police
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  arrested a second defendant, twenty-five-year-old Ernest Lloyd Jr. This week. During Friday's
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  hearing Ratliff blurted out in court that he and Fortune were friends.
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  It sounded sincere. Tasia had a lot of friends, Spivey said later.
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  I hope if he is innocent that he can prove he's innocent.
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  We don't want any innocent people going to jail. Ratliffe's stepdaughter, Lashuna
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  Jones, was among her father's supporters at court. He didn't do it,
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  and I'm behind him, she said. Spivey has said her daughter, who
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  had four children, struggled with homelessness in recent years, and that she
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  wasn't sure where Fortune was living at the time of her death.
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  She said Fortune had talked about starting a cleaning business and was
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  trying to get her life in order. White reported from Detroit.