Tasia Fortune was found hanging from a tree behind an abandoned house in Jackson, Mississippi, last month.
JACKSON, Miss. — A man accused of murder in the hanging death of a Mississippi woman entered a not-guilty plea Monday at his first court appearance.
Fortune, 29, was discovered hanging from a tree behind a vacant home in Jackson, the state capital, on Aug. 3.
Jackson police arrested 51-year-old Jarques Ratliff on Friday after the state medical examiner ruled Fortune’s death a homicide.
At a short Municipal Court hearing Monday, a judge denied Ratliff bond. Ratliff told the court he was not guilty. His attorney left the courthouse without commenting to reporters.
The Jackson homicide case has drawn broad attention because the circumstances of Fortune’s death evoked the history of lynchings in Mississippi, a Southern state with a deeply troubled civil rights record marked by racial violence.
Police and prosecutors have not identified a possible motive or said whether they believe race was a factor in the killing.
Police Chief RaShall Brackney said Friday that Ratliff had an “association” with Fortune, though she did not provide further details. Brackney also said investigators expect to make additional arrests.
Prosecutors disclosed little additional information during Monday’s hearing. They said Fortune was hanged with a “black cable cord” and alleged that Ratliff tried to conceal himself from officers inside a vehicle on the day he was arrested.
Brackney and other Jackson police officials who attended Ratliff’s hearing declined to comment afterward.
A Kentucky native, Fortune had a Black father and a white mother, though she identified as Black, said Christy Spivey, the dead woman’s mother. Fortune had been living in Jackson for about 10 years, according to relatives. Fortune had four children, Spivey said, adding she rarely saw two of her grandchildren.
Spivey wasn’t sure where Fortune was living when she died, but she said her daughter had struggled with homelessness in recent years. She said Fortune had talked recently about starting a cleaning business and was trying to get her life in order.
Two other Mississippi hanging deaths over the past year — those of a Black student at Delta State University and a homeless white man in Vicksburg — also drew widespread attention. Both of those deaths were deemed to be suicides.
ALSO READ: Mother Grieves After Children and Parents Killed in Plane Crash