JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A Mississippi judge set a $5 million bond Monday for a third man charged in the death of a Black woman whose body was found hanging from a tree in August.
Police disclosed Friday that Tasia Fortune, 29, was killed in a drug dispute before her body was placed in a tree behind an abandoned house in Jackson.
Fortune was Black, and the discovery of her hanging body stoked fear because the scene recalled actual lynchings in the Southern state, which has a long history of racial violence. Some officials had called for a federal civil rights investigation before a Jackson police detective said the scene was “staged.”
“People justifiably didn’t know if we had a killer on the loose who might hang people for racial reasons,” Judge Jeffery Reynolds said Monday.
He said it was a “heinous” act that shocked the state capital.
Reynolds presided at a hearing for Eric Clark, 45, who turned himself in Friday. The Hinds County Public Defender’s Office, which is representing him, declined to comment. Clark and two other men charged in Fortune’s death are Black.
Later outside the court, Fortune’s mother, Christy Spivey, said Clark approached her at the courthouse last week and hugged her following a hearing for co-defendant Jarques Ratliff.
“He never said he did it, but he said he was there to turn himself in for murder,” Spivey told reporters Monday.
The body was discovered in a tree on Aug. 3. Jackson Police Chief RaShall Brackney said props were left at the scene “as part of the staging” of Fortune's death and that more arrests were likely.
Brackney told reporters that she believes the case has been conflated with that of Nolan Wells, an 18-year-old Black college student whose July 4 disappearance from an island off Mississippi’s Gulf Coast caused speculation that his death could have been racially motivated.
A Mississippi grand jury said it found no evidence of criminal conduct in Wells' death. His family and its legal team have slammed the report and are working to keep the investigation open.
“This has created even more damage in our communities,” Brackney said, referring to the fear that the image of Fortune’s hanging body evoked. “We know we have a very sordid history around lynchings and racial terror across this nation and particularly around the South. That is still a very current narrative. It is still a very raw narrative.”
AP writer Ed White in Detroit contributed.
Christy Spivey poses with a portrait of her late daughter, Tasia Fortune, on Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2026, in Marion, Ky. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
A New York prosecutor has reopened an investigation into gang rape allegations at a Cornell University fraternity in response to a lawsuit filed by a woman who says she was sexually assaulted in 2024 by seven students after being plied with alcohol and drugs.
Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten said Monday that his office will present evidence to a grand jury as he faces questions from the public about why there were no criminal prosecutions in the case.
The woman, identified only by a pseudonym in the lawsuit, filed the complaint Sept. 16, saying she was sexually assaulted at the Chi Phi fraternity house on Cornell's campus in October 2024 after being pressured into snorting ketamine, smoking marijuana and drinking alcohol. She became completely incapacitated while frat members were sexually assaulting her, the lawsuit alleges.
The lawsuit, the reopening of the investigation and Cornell’s response have sparked a flood of commentary on social media. Many people have criticized the school and the district attorney’s office in their posts, while some have expressed doubt about the lawsuit’s allegations. Some posted photos of the seven fraternity members.
The accuser is suing the men, the Chi Phi fraternity, the university, an Ithaca bar and others, seeking undisclosed damages. Her attorney did not immediately respond Monday to messages seeking comment on the prosecutor’s decision to reopen the investigation.
The woman went to campus police at the time, but Van Houten said the accuser did not make any claims of being gang-raped or drugged in her initial sworn statement to authorities. The prosecutor also said he was never contacted by the woman's attorney about her statement or about reconsidering the decision not to prosecute, but he reached out to them recently.
“Seeking justice sometimes requires us to reconsider or reopen cases when we are provided with additional evidence,” Van Houten said in a statement. “I have been asked by the community to revisit the decision whether to pursue criminal charges against the seven fraternity members. I have already begun that process, starting with our conversation with Jane Doe and her attorneys.”
The university said in a statement that it supports the decision to reopen the investigation. The school said it conducted its own investigation and issued sanctions, including expelling some students and suspending others. It also said the on-campus Chi Phi chapter was closed in 2024 and remains barred from campus.
School officials on Monday declined to release more information on the sanctions, including how many students were expelled and suspended. In a statement last week responding to the lawsuit, Cornell said federal privacy law barred it from disclosing specific information on individual students.
“Any suggestion that the university did not impose consequential punishments for those involved is false,” the university said. “A continuation of the false narrative that there were minimal consequences in this case is irresponsible, will make survivors feel less safe and supported, and will perpetuate the underreporting of sexual assault.”
The national chapter of Chi Phi did not immediately return phone and email messages Monday.
The school said it conducted an internal disciplinary investigation in 2024. It said a panel of trained faculty and staff heard evidence over multiple days, and both the woman and the people accused had the opportunity to testify and present evidence.
The complaint also accuses the university of not preventing the alleged assaults and failing to properly address sexual violence on campus. It includes a photo that it says shows a group chat between frat members discussing the night's events.
The woman, who was a 20-year-old Cornell student at the time and a sorority member, went to campus police about three weeks later, according to the lawsuit. The fraternity and seven of its members were placed on temporary suspension that same day, the lawsuit said.
The woman's complaint said the seven were given “the opportunity to mitigate their conduct by submitting essays to Cornell."
Cornell responded Monday, saying that “none of the individuals charged were offered the opportunity to write essays as a sole consequence of their involvement" and noting the expulsions and suspensions.
Cornell also said a school task force on campus sexual assault, formed in February 2025, made recommendations earlier this year. Several of the recommendations have been implemented while others are in development.
The task force report said a 2025 school survey showed 35% of undergraduate women and 8% of undergraduate men reported experiencing sexual assault during their time at Cornell.
Since the lawsuit was filed, Van Houten said, his office has been flooded with phone calls, voicemails and emails about the case from people seeking answers and others making insults and threats.
“While I generally refrain from commenting publicly on criminal investigations, the community outrage stemming from the incomplete news and social media coverage requires that I provide an answer to why the investigation resulted in a lack of criminal charges,” Van Houten said in a statement.
FILE - People walk on the campus of Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., Friday, Feb. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, file)
