_updates.jpg)
An arrest has been made in Mississippi linked to the death of a 29-year-old Black woman found hanged from a tree.
Tasia Fortune's body was found in the lot of an abandoned home in Jackson in August.
Earlier this week, the police announced that they were treating her disturbing death as a possible homicide.
The Tasia Fortune case remains active
"That arrest today is an important development in this investigation, but it is not the conclusion," Jackson Police Chief RaShall Brackney said on Friday, September 11. "This case remains active."
Fortune's death has raised alarms in Jackson, a majority-Black city in a state with a history of racial violence and lynching.
During Friday's news conference, Brackney said the medical examiner had confirmed Fortune's cause of death was homicide and said there would be a murder charge.
Who was arrested in the death of Tasia Fortune?
Without going into much in detail, she identified the suspect as Jarques Ratliff, 51, and said there was an "association" between Ratliff, who is also Black, and Fortune.
"Additional arrests will be pending as our investigators continue to follow the evidence," Brackney said, adding that they had interviewed 15 people in the case.
Earlier this month, Fortune's death was described by a member of the US Congress as part of a pattern of "possible modern-day lynchings".
Over 50 members of Congress this week sent a letter to the FBI and Justice Department, saying they were "extremely alarmed by reports of Black people found hanging from trees in numerous states" and calling for an independent investigation into the deaths of Black Americans.
"The series of deaths raises significant suspicion of foul play given the role of lynching in our nation's history," it stated.
According to BBC News, there have been at least 10 reported hangings of Black people in the US this year, with an additional more than 70 lynchings documented between 2000 and 2025.
