Christy Spivey tells the BBC she only has more questions now police think Tasia Fortune's body was put in the tree after her death.

Tasia Fortune, a 29-year-old mother of four, was found hanging from a tree in August

Published9 hours ago

Warning: This story contains distressing details

The mother of a woman found hanging in a tree in Mississippi has spoken of her shock after authorities said they believed her daughter was dead before her body was placed at the allegedly "staged" crime scene

Tasia Fortune, a 29-year-old mother of four, was found hanging from a tree at an abandoned home in Jackson in August

The discovery sparked widespread fears in the majority-black city because of the state's deep history of racial violence and lynchings. But on Friday, police said that Fortune had been dead before her body was hanged from the tree

"I have more questions now than what I did before," her mother Christy Spivey told the BBC

The Jackson Police Department said that the medical examiner who conducted Fortune's post-mortem examination had determined that her death was a homicide and that "the scene and the hanging were staged"

Officials have not disclosed the exact cause of death or shared any potential motive behind the allegedly staged hanging