Jackson councilman calls on US Attorney’s Office to investigate death of woman found hanging from tree

The woman was identified by the Hinds County Coroner as 29-year-old Tasia Fortune.

A councilman in Jackson, MS, is calling on the U.S. Attorney’s Office to help investigate the death of a woman found hanging from a tree.

The body of a woman was found on Monday (Aug. 3), in the backyard of a reportedly abandoned home in the 500 block of Road of Remembrance. According to WAPT, Hinds County Coroner Jeramiah Howard identified the woman as 29-year-old Tasia Fortune. Howard said the body would be transported to the Mississippi State Medical Examiner’s Office for an autopsy to determine a cause of death.

Kenneth Stokes, the councilman for Jackson’s Third Ward, is speaking out about the death, explicitly calling it a murder in his letter to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

The letter written by Councilman Stokes addressed to U.S. Attorney Baxter Kruger, who represents the Southern District of Mississippi, reads:

“We are in dire need of the assistance of the U.S. Attorney’s Office with the death of an unidentified female discovered hanging in the back yard of an abandoned house on the Road of Remembrance in Jackson, Mississippi. We especially are in need of the following details: by whom she was murdered, the motive for her murder, the confirmed name of the deceased, her permanent address, as well as other pertinent information. We look forward to your response.”

Stokes said that even if there is no racial element to Fortune’s death, Mississippi’s history of lynching must be considered, per WAPT, and that public officials need to speak out against what happened to her and say it is unacceptable.

“Hanging is an activity, a crime, that should never be an issue of being accepted by the public, he said in an interview. “Hanging must never be an acceptable behavior.”

Etta Avolio, Fortune’s aunt, is raising money on GoFundMe to cover her burial expenses.

“Tasia was a strong-minded, big-hearted, vibrant young woman whose life was taken at just twenty-nine years old,” the fundraiser description reads. “Her loss has deeply shaken everyone who knew and loved her, and her family is now trying to begin healing while also facing the painful responsibility of saying their final farewells.”