Police in Mississippi have arrested a second man in the death of a Black woman found hanging from a tree and have issued an arrest warrant for a third suspect.
Content warning: This story contains details some readers may find disturbing
Jackson police said late Tuesday that they arrested 25-year-old Earnest Lloyd Jr in the death of 29-year-old Tasia Fortune, whose body was found hanging behind an abandoned home in the city on August 3.
Like Fortune and the first man arrested, 51-year-old Jarques Ratliff, Lloyd is Black. He appeared at a brief hearing Wednesday, where he was denied bond.
According to local TV station WLBT, investigators said witnesses directed them to Lloyd, who had allegedly had a physical altercation with Fortune days or minutes before she was killed. Police contend that Lloyd hanged Fortune with a black cable cord, and three co-defendants are also suspected of being involved in her death, the station reported.
Fortune's mother Christy Spivey, who attended the hearing, said afterwards that she was ecstatic to see arrests made in her daughter’s death. She said neither she nor several of her daughter's friends knew Lloyd, and she cautioned that everyone is innocent until proven guilty.
“My family is not the only family that this is affecting,” Spivey said of the defendants' families. “I feel for them as well. The only difference is that mine can never come back.”
"I’ll never truly have peace,” she said.
Ratliff was arrested in September on murder charges. He pleaded not guilty and remains jailed without bond.
Police said in a statement that they issued an arrest warrant for a third suspect, but gave no details about that person’s identity or alleged link to Fortune's death. They also said they expect to issue additional warrants.
After Ratliff's arrest, Jackson's police chief, RaShall Brackney, said Ratliff had an “association” with Fortune, but she didn't elaborate.
Although police haven't suggested a possible motive for the killing or said whether they think race played a role, the case has attracted widespread attention because the manner of death recalled lynchings in the Southern state.
A Kentucky native, Fortune had four children and had been living in Jackson for about a decade, relatives said.
Spivey previously said her daughter struggled with homelessness in recent years, and that she wasn’t sure where her daughter was living at the time of her death. She said that before her death, her daughter had talked about starting a cleaning business and was trying to get her life in order.
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