Mother demands answers, weeks after black woman found hanging from Mississippi tree

Jackson City Councilman Kenneth Stokes has also expressed concerns about the police investigation, saying he'd been outside the home where Fortune was thought to have lived multiple times and has never seen officers.

In a letter to the US Department of Justice, she asked for an investigation into recent deaths in Mississippi - including that of Tasia Fortune - calling them "possible cases of modern-day lynchings".

Brackney, in a statement to the BBC, elaborated and said the department always treats any pending death case as a "potential homicide" so that crucial evidence is not lost as police wait on autopsy results.