A third man now faces murder charges in the death of Tasia Fortune, the Jackson mother of four found hanging from a tree after what police tied to a drug dispute.
Jackson police arrested 45-year-old Eric Clark on murder charges Friday in the killing of Tasia Fortune, a 29-year-old mother of four whose body was discovered hanging from a tree behind an apparently vacant home in Jackson, Mississippi.
ABC News reported that Clark is the third suspect charged with murder in the case. He was scheduled to appear in court Monday. It remained unclear whether he had retained an attorney.
Fortune’s body was found Aug. 3. What first looked like a hanging has drawn murder charges against three men as investigators described a killing tied to drugs and a scene arranged afterward.
Two other men had already been arrested earlier in the month and charged with murder in the same case, a prior arrest in the Fortune homicide that put the case on a steady charging track.
Jarques Ratliff, 51, was arrested Sept. 11 and charged with murder. On Sept. 14 he pleaded not guilty. A judge denied him bond.
An affidavit described in local reporting accused Ratliff of using a black cable cord to hang Fortune from a tree. His attorney, Toney Baldwin, confirmed the not-guilty plea and did not comment on the charges.
Earnest Lloyd Jr., 25, is also charged. A judge denied him bond at a Sept. 23 hearing. It was unclear whether Lloyd had hired a lawyer.
Court records and charging steps have moved faster than the public explanation. Three men now sit under murder counts while key details still come out in pieces.
The Associated Press reported that police disclosed a stark account at a pre-trial hearing for Ratliff on Friday. Officers said Fortune was killed in a drug dispute. Then, they said, her body was hung in a “staged” scene.
That account matches earlier case developments covered when police described the hanging as staged after a drug-dispute killing, and it undercuts rush-to-judgment narratives that ignore the drug evidence.
A Jackson Police Department spokesperson did not respond to ABC News questions about that disclosure. The department did announce Clark’s arrest and his Monday court date.
Early online reaction treated the tree and the hanging as a ready-made symbol. Charging documents and the hearing disclosure point somewhere else: a drug dispute, a dead mother of four, and a body placed to mislead.
Christy Spivey, Fortune’s mother, told ABC News the loss shattered the family.
"This has just devastated us,"
Spivey said. She also said:
"Tasia was strong-minded, she was full of laughs and love, she had faith in God... she had so little and gave so much."
After Ratliff’s arrest, the family released a statement urging restraint.
"We would like to thank everyone for their prayers and support and are grateful for the silence to be broken but we also want to say that we wish for people to have patience and wait for the rest of the facts to come out before jumping to conclusions,"
the family said. They added:
"We are hoping soon we will have more answers."
That plea landed for a reason. Hanging deaths of Black Americans are often pulled into national rhetoric before local evidence is in, a pattern examined when official findings clashed with “modern-day lynching” claims. In this case, police charging decisions and the hearing disclosure point to a drug dispute and a staged scene, not a mob killing.
Fortune was 29. She left four children. The men charged, Ratliff, 51; Clark, 45; and Lloyd, 25, now face murder counts in Mississippi court.
The timeline is blunt. Body found Aug. 3. Spivey spoke publicly days later. Ratliff’s arrest came Sept. 11. His not-guilty plea and bond denial followed Sept. 14. Lloyd lost a bond hearing Sept. 23. Clark’s arrest came Friday, with a court appearance set for Monday.
Another suspect arrest tied to Fortune’s hanging death fit the same pattern: identify suspects, file murder charges, and keep them held as the case builds.
Jackson has struggled for years with violent crime and weak governance, including the scandal in which a former Jackson mayor and council president pleaded guilty in a federal bribery sting. Families there need working courts and clear police work more than national mythology.
Murder charges do not finish a trial. They do fix the basic public facts in place. A mother of four was killed. Police say drugs drove the dispute. They say the hanging was staged. Three men are charged. Two have already been denied bond. A third was headed to court.
When a child’s mother is murdered in a drug dispute and her body is strung up to confuse the public, the decent response is evidence, arrests, and trial, not a political script that erases the crime in front of everyone’s eyes.
