Police have arrested a third suspect in the death of Tasia Fortune, a mother whose body was discovered “in a hanging position” behind a tree near an abandoned home in Mississippi. Investigators later said both the scene and the hanging had been “staged.”
Eric Clark was charged with murder after turning himself in to police on Sept. 25, according to a press release obtained by People. He was expected to appear in Jackson Municipal Court on Sept. 28. It was not immediately clear whether Clark had entered a plea, and Oxygen was unable to identify an attorney representing him.
Fortune’s mother, Christy Spivey, said she last saw her daughter at a family reunion on July 26.
Spivey told WJTV that Fortune asked her the following day to send “all the pictures we had” so she could make a collage. Spivey said she repeatedly tried to contact her daughter, but each call went to voicemail.
On Aug. 3, the 29-year-old Fortune was found “in a hanging position behind a tree” near an abandoned house in Jackson, Mississippi. Her body was decomposing, Police Chief RaShall Brackney said during a Sept. 11 press conference.
“We understand that this case has received media attention from across the globe,” Brackney said. “We understand the questions and the desire for answers, given Mississippi’s history.”
Fortune and the suspects were Black. According to the New York Times, Fortune’s family had never believed race was connected to her death.
Jarques Ratliff was arrested in downtown Jackson on Sept. 11, Brackney said. He pleaded not guilty to murder at a Sept. 14 court hearing, and a judge denied him bond, according to NBC News.
Ratliff reportedly told the court that Fortune had been his friend.
“My client said he’s not involved,” Ratliff’s attorney, Toney Baldwin, said, according to NBC News. “And that’s absolutely what I believe.”
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Baldwin said he wanted the “truth about what happened to come out.”
Earnest Lloyd Jr. was arrested on Sept. 22 and charged with murder, according to the Jackson Police Department, WLBT reported.
Lloyd pleaded not guilty and was denied bond during a Sept. 23 court hearing, a police spokesperson told the Clarion Ledger. Police said witnesses observed “Lloyd … chasing Fortune” before her death. Oxygen was unable to identify an attorney for Lloyd.
Fortune was killed at a location separate from where her body was found, Jackson Police Detective Samuel Dukes testified on Sept. 25, according to the New York Times. Investigators believe her body had been hanging for several days before it was discovered.
Dukes described the hanging as “staged.”
Fortune’s cause of death has not been released publicly, according to the Associated Press. The medical examiner determined that her death was a homicide. A spokesperson for the Mississippi State Medical Examiner’s Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Witnesses told police they believed Fortune had been “targeted” because she allegedly stole drugs, the NYT reported. Her family said she had a history of addiction.
Spivey said Fortune’s death has “devastated” their family.
“Tasia was strong-minded, she was full of laughs and love, she had faith in God,” Spivey told ABC News in August. “She had so little and gave so much.”
A Jackson Police Department spokesperson did not immediately respond to Oxygen’s request for comment.