*Warning: This article contains distressing details*
The mother of a 29-year-old woman whose body was found hanging from a tree in Jackson, Mississippi, has said she is more disturbed than ever after police told her they believe her daughter was already dead when she was placed at the scene.
Christy Spivey spoke to the BBC days after the Jackson Police Department revealed that Tasia Fortune, a mother of four, died by homicide and that the scene where she was discovered was staged. Spivey said the news that her daughter did not die by hanging had briefly brought her a measure of peace, but the emergence of further details this week has left her questioning more than she did before the investigation widened.
Fortune was found hanging from a tree at an abandoned home in the Mississippi capital in August. The circumstances of the discovery triggered widespread fear and unease across Jackson, a majority-black city that bears the weight of Mississippi's long and brutal history of racial violence and lynchings — a history that has repeatedly turned similar discoveries into flashpoints of alarm and demands for a federal response.
The Jackson Police Department said the medical examiner who conducted Fortune's post-mortem examination determined that her death was a homicide and that "the scene and [the hanging were staged]." In other words, investigators believe she was killed by other means, or at least at another time and place, before her body was moved and suspended from the tree.
That finding has not answered the family's central questions. Officials have not disclosed the exact cause of Fortune's death, nor have they shared any potential motive for the alleged staging. Police have also not explained why her body was placed in a manner capable of evoking one of the state's most traumatic chapters, nor have they detailed how the three people arrested in connection with the case are connected to her.
Spivey said she had hoped the update would bring closure, but instead left her with more uncertainty. "I have more questions now than what I did before," she said. She noted that officers have still not provided a cause of death or even a date of death. "What actually killed her?" she asked.
Her account of the sequence of emotion is a reflection of how slowly information has reached the family. When police first called to report the post-mortem finding, Spivey said she began crying, thanked the investigators and felt somewhat more at ease than she had been, reasoning that at least her daughter had not died in the manner the images suggested. She said at the time: "I just hope they've got the right person/people."
But when additional details surfaced this week, her mood reversed. She said she was "starting to break down." The new information has not only failed to resolve the family's questions; it has deepened them, in effect confirming that her daughter's body was positioned deliberately and that the crime scene was fabricated.
Court proceedings on Friday provided a partial explanation, though one contested by the family. Police told the court that Fortune's death was thought to be the result of a drug-related dispute. A detective said she may have been killed over allegations that she had stolen drugs. Three people have been arrested in the case, all of whom are black — a detail that has added to the sensitivity of an investigation already under public scrutiny.
Spivey rejected the theft allegations. She did, however, acknowledge that her daughter struggled with addiction, saying: "Tasia has an addiction — had — an addiction problem. She was trying to get better." Her comments underline the difficulty of reconciling whatever circumstances investigators believe surrounded her daughter's life with the view that she was a victim of a killing rather than a participant in a drug dispute.
The family mother was direct about the limits of that distinction. "If she still was doing drugs, which I'm sure she probably was, she still didn't deserve to be done like that. Nobody does," she said.
Spivey also described her daughter's living circumstances: Fortune was homeless at the time of her death but typically stayed with other people, moving between friends' and relatives' homes. That instability may help explain how her movements went unreported for a time, though investigators have not publicly linked her housing situation to the investigation.
The practical consequences of the killing are already visible in the family. Fortune's four sons, whose ages range from one to seven, are now living with a mix of relatives and friends. Two of the children are in the process of being adopted. The mother of four died in circumstances that police now say were staged, and the youngest of her children was only a toddler when she was killed.
The case has drawn demands from lawmakers for federal investigations, with the discovery having left the local community on edge. Police have not said whether federal authorities are involved, and the department has not addressed the questions raised by the family's account or the concerns of civil rights groups.
The investigation remains at a stage that leaves the family with more questions than answers: no disclosed cause of death, no date of death, no stated motive, and no explanation for why a body was hung from a tree in a city where such imagery carries unmistakable historical weight. For Spivey, the central issue is simple and unresolved — whether the people arrested are the people responsible, and whether anyone will ever be able to say what actually killed her daughter.
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