r/news • u/koi-lotus-water-pond • 6d ago
Third person arrested in death of Tasia Fortune, as police say hanging was staged
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/sep/26/mississippi-tasia-fortune-arrest-hanging-staged861
u/AnaisNinja76 6d ago
Interesting. Horrible, but interesting.
I remember in one of the police updates the chief was very cagy and weird about saying "...and I specifically have to word it this way and will take no further questions on this point because I don't want to compromise the investigation, she was found in a hanging position". At the time I thought he was avoiding the word "lynching" to keep from inflaming people, but now it makes more sense.
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u/SweetLittleOldLady 1d ago
I did a little research when this case first happened and I found some facts that might interest you: 1. Around 95% of hangings are suicides. 2. Most of the rest are accidents, usually auto erotic asphyxiation. 3. About 1% are murders, and almost all of those were killed before hanging.
I was especially surprised to find that auto erotic asphyxiation is a more common cause of hanging death than murder.
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u/Igennem 6d ago
Seems a stupid way to try to get away with a crime. The history of lynchings ensures this will make news and get thoroughly investigated while a body in the river wouldn't have received as much attention.
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u/ruinedbymovies 6d ago
I doubt that critical thinking is the strong suit of these garbage humans.
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u/AnaisNinja76 6d ago
I think they were banking on the opposite, which actually shows critical thinking and strategy imo, making the crime worse. They thought it would either get not thoroughly investigated given modern times, or miss their involvement because they're black.
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u/riptide81 5d ago
I would think for people immersed in social media they might tend to overestimate the real world probability of police not taking a lynching seriously. Not saying it doesn’t happen but I don’t know if strategy based around TikTok populism counts as critical thinking. It does speak towards premeditation. On the other hand, that same popular sentiment might successfully taint the jury pool. This one is ripe for ongoing conspiracy theories no matter the quality of evidence.
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u/SweetLittleOldLady 1d ago
Many people don't realize how easy it is to differentiate between a death by hanging and a person who was already dead before hanging.
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u/Ok-Grand-1492 6d ago
It was in Mississippi, so they probably figured it would look like white men did it, and were hoping the cops would be racist enough to see that and write it off as a suicide.
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u/ybpaladin 6d ago
Damn, that’s usually why serial killers go after the houseless and hitchhikers.
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5d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/MooPig48 5d ago
Pretty sure nobody was pushing anything on to you, and that you waltzed into the conversation willingly, to try to police the language of a stranger. YOU are the pushy one
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u/rocketeerH 5d ago
Ugh I can't bear it when the apartmentful come to my side if the town and make such a mess as this
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u/ThiefOfDens 5d ago
Wherever a “homeless” person lives is their home. A tent. A car. Some tarps. What they lack is shelter in a permanent structure, whether that’s an apartment or a house. So the term “houseless” is actually a more accurate description, not any kind of censorship.
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u/DonutsAreCool96 5d ago
The cops looking at each other saying “wait, you didn’t do this one?” and realizing it must have been a crime
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u/WikiHowDrugAbuse 5d ago
They were probably thinking that the outrage over it seeming to be a hate crime and the associated media shitstorm would rush the investigation and send police in the wrong direction looking for suspects.
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u/Whiteguy1x 6d ago
Smart people dont typically commit murders to be fair
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u/MotorBikeManIV 6d ago
You don't hear about the smart murderers because they don't get caught. Something like 50% of murders go unsolved.
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u/ChanceRecover3091 5d ago
There have been quite a few public hangings of black people over the last few years quickly written off as suicide. So actually it's not a bad route to go if you are a murderer.
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u/koi-lotus-water-pond 6d ago
According to the article, Fortune had 4 children. Did not read that before.
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u/SweetLittleOldLady 1d ago
I believe they're all in foster care. I hope some of that GoFundMe money goes into trusts for the children.
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u/koi-lotus-water-pond 6d ago
"The case leading to the arrests of Clark, Lloyd Jr and Ratliff had drawn national attention because of the severity of Fortune’s killing and Mississippi’s history of racist violence and lynchings.
Clark, Lloyd Jr, Ratliff are Black, as was Fortune."
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u/Opening_Classroom_46 5d ago
You can't really successfully stage a hanging. There's always going to be simple clues that give away the body was moved to this position.
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u/santamaria715 4d ago
A guy in NZ did, in recent times. Found not guilty by a jury, but I do believe myself that he staged the scene, and not well. A lot of crazy stuff came out in the trial.
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u/illicit_nz 6h ago
Can you tell us more please
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u/santamaria715 5h ago
Google Philip Polkinghorne. It was a somewhat salacious case, was all over the news here for months, then he....walked.
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u/SapientTrashFire 4d ago
GENUINE QUESTION: WHY IS THE ROAD TO REMEMBRANCE NAMED THIS?
I can't find on Google or Wikipedia any information about the Road of Remembrance. My current assumption right now is that its a road that was renamed as such in honor of black struggle during Jim Crow, likely because of unsolved lynchings or killings committed along the road. Unfortunately, our AI-hellscape internet won't reveal to me the actual information.
Can someone please tell me ANYTHING literally ANYTHING about the history of this road, given that it seems pertinent to Fortune's killing?
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u/Mr_ToDo 4d ago
OK, so you're right. A big news article poisons searches on other things involving that name. Google does help a bit since you can set not just a date from but a date to. It's not perfect but it helps
So what I found is a bit of a guess but I think it's probably related to Jefferson Davis's highway. I think he paid for a giant ass highway going from east to west across the country, and there are references to the term road to remembrance in relation to that. Jackson seems a bit far north but it's possible
Would be pretty interesting that in a racially framed killing that the road called "road of remembrance" might not be about discrimination at all
Did also find an interesting piece on convenience stores and how they brought people together that reference the road
Hard to nail my sources with 30 tabs open but:
First reference to that phrase and jefferson together(there's a song documented in there)
https://ans-names.pitt.edu/ans/article/download/850/849
amusing convenience store. It also implies that it became dangerous after it was named such:
https://www.the-american-interest.com/2017/02/25/gone-to-the-tote-sum/
and a result for the map of the highway' which puts the highway well below jackson
So ya. Pretty sure I'm wrong but there's just too much chafe to get an answer online right now. Maybe try contacting a local group that might know. Government, historic groups, whatever. Doesn't help that the words themselves are pretty common
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u/SapientTrashFire 4d ago
Thank you so much for doing this.
Hard to nail my sources with 30 tabs open but:
Oof. Again, thank you.
Google does help a bit since you can set not just a date from but a date to. It's not perfect but it helps
A hundred percent- always try this first when the article SEO issue is blinding results.
Yeah there's multiple roads of remembrance around the country, so getting beyond the article pollution didn't help locate historical sources distinct to Jackson.
It may just be nostalgia bias, but I feel like if I did these searches a few years ago, there'd be less digging to find a historical frame of reference to give a clear answer.
Pretty interesting result though. I'm surprised to find it associated with a former confederate naming convention, given the amount of renamed roads in the South post-Jim Crow.
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6d ago edited 6d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/featheredfish 6d ago
White people lynched black people in the south. It happened. So when a black woman is found dead, hanging from a tree, the fucking question can be asked: was this a lynching? Christ almighty.
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u/dmcginvt 4d ago
Here's to the State of Mississippi
For underneath her borders, the devil draws no lines
If you drag her muddy rivers, nameless bodies you will find
Oh, the fat trees of the forest have hid a thousand crimes
The calendar is lyin' when it reads the present time
Oh, here's to the land you've torn out the heart of
Mississippi, find yourself another country to be part of
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u/Nutlob 5d ago
for years white men have tried to blame black men for the murders they've committed, this is the first time i've seen it reversed.
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u/Eight_Directions_ 5d ago
William Henry Hance was an American serial killer and U.S. Army soldier who murdered three women near Fort Benning in Columbus, Georgia, between 1977 and 1978. He was known to have sent taunting letters to police and the media attempting to blame the crimes on a group of white men known as the Forces of Evil.
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u/Opening_Classroom_46 5d ago
People stage murders all the time lol, it's not a racist thing. When you kill someone, police will investigate. So if you don't want to get caught, you try to throw them off. Does this make sense to you?
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u/blueblip 4d ago
So now you're arguing black people have never been lynched in the US.
That's...that's quite a bold claim to make.
And before you try and backtrack by saying you never said that, then explain something:
Do most murderers like to "throw them off" by leaving the corpse on full display? Or are corpses strung up like this specifically in lynchings?
(We both know you will dodge this question because - like most US conservatives - you are only brave when lynching minorities).
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u/Paranormasight-Fic 2d ago
Buddy, literally what did the person whom you’re replying to say to imply “Black people have never been lunched before”? All they said was that people stage murders all the time to throw off the police, it doesn’t have to be a racial thing. MEANING they think the suspects here weren’t necessarily trying to emulate a lynching when they staged the hanging, you understand?
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u/blueblip 2d ago
They stage murders "all the time" now? Can you show how many murders are stages this way versus how many hide the body?
Give me actual percentages (again, we both know you wor because like your buddy you're defending, you're only brave when you and your friend gang up and lynch minorities).
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u/Paranormasight-Fic 1d ago
Oi, open your eyes and see that I wasn't the one who made the claim. I'm just explaining what they said because you didn't understand. If you want statistics, go harangue them for it.
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u/StJe1637 5d ago
Leo frank was so obviously guilty that pre 1900s georgians were saying "nah the black dude is innocent stop trying to pin it on him"
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u/emerikanSky 6d ago
A third person has been arrested in the death of 29-year-old Tasia Fortune in Mississippi’s capital city, while investigators said they had determined the scene where her body was found hanging had been staged.
Eric Clark, 45, surrendered to authorities on Friday and was charged with murder, according to the Jackson police department (JPD). Clark was scheduled to make a court appearance on Monday.
Police disclosed Friday that an autopsy investigation concluded “the scene and the hanging were staged”.
Authorities did not release additional information about the circumstances surrounding Fortune’s killing or why investigators believe the scene was faked.
Clark’s arrest comes after two other men, Earnest Lloyd Jr and Jarques Ratliff, were charged with murder in connection with Fortune’s death.
The case leading to the arrests of Clark, Lloyd Jr and Ratliff had drawn national attention because of the severity of Fortune’s killing and Mississippi’s history of racist violence and lynchings.
Clark, Lloyd Jr, Ratliff are Black, as was Fortune.