Cousin dumped Zion Foster 'like she was a piece of garbage,' murder trial prosecutor says

Detroit — Zion Foster made a mistake on the last night of her life, a prosecutor said Tuesday, by placing her trust in her favorite step-cousin.

That cousin, 25-year-old Jaylin Brazier, is charged with killing 17-year-old Zion and disposing of the Eastpointe teen's body in a dumpster in Highland Park, sparking a months long, unsuccessful search of a Macomb County landfill. His jury trial began Monday in Wayne County Circuit Court.

"Zion is gone forever; her body was never even found," Wayne County Assistant Prosecutor Ryan Elsey said during his opening statement. "Zion left the defendant's house that night in the trunk of his car and he threw her body away in a dumpster like she was a piece of garbage."

Brazier's statements about what happened to Zion changed nearly every time he gave a statement, Elsey said. At first, he said Zion hadn't been with him the night she went missing. Then Jan. 19, 2022, he told police he and Zion had smoked marijuana together, she died and he panicked and dumped her body in the trash.

The next day, he claimed they used LSD together and that it must have killed her, Elsey said. But in recorded jail calls in January and February 2022, Brazier claimed he only told police she died from the drugs because his attorney told him to in an effort to lower the heat of the investigation, Elsey said.

"It’s as if every time he spoke, he tried to erase what he had said about this before," Elsey said. "It was lie after lie after lie."

Brazier's attorney, Brian Brown, said in his opening statement that the case is about "fear and bad decisions." He said Brazier and Zion were doing drugs when she became unconscious and had shallow breathing and a slow heartbeat. Then those disappeared and she had no vital signs. Brazier feared he would get in trouble for her death, Brown said, and he panicked.

"Jaylin was scared. He may not have made the right decision, but at the end of the day that does not make him a murderer," Brown said. "He panicked and he did something he shouldn't have by dumping the body."

Had Zion's body been found, an autopsy would have substantiated what Brazier told police, Brown said. But ultimately, they don't know how she died.

"She either had a seizure or there was something laced in the marijuana. We don't know. The symptoms Jaylin told police about were consistent with her dying of something she had internally or something possibly she ingested," Brown said. "(Elsey) would like you to fill in the blanks for him and assume something he cannot prove."

Brazier's trial is expected to run for two to three weeks. Elsey said the case required a "massive investigation" and said the evidence he presents will be meticulous and detailed because Zion's body was never found.

During jury selection Monday, many of the questions Elsey asked pertained to whether prospective jurors would feel comfortable convicting someone with only circumstantial evidence.

Brazier is charged with second-degree murder and tampering with evidence. He was convicted in March 2022 of lying to Eastpointe police about the investigation into Zion's disappearance and sentenced to nearly two years to four years in prison. He was paroled in January 2023.

The search for Zion's body

Because of Brazier's statements to police about Zion's death, finding Zion's body became paramount, Elsey said. Her body would answer a lot of unanswered questions and could confirm if Brazier was lying or telling the truth, he said.

Police tracked the path that the contents of the dumpster Brazier admitted to dumping Zion's body in to a Macomb County landfill and narrowed down a spot where they thought her body could be.

Team of volunteers dug in the area for “months and months and months trying to find Zion’s remains," Elsey said. But they never found Zion's body.

As the search wound down in fall 2022, Brazier was finishing up his prison term for lying to police. He texted his girlfriend a link to an article about whether he could be charged with murder if the body is never found. He said he planned out every step and that "there is nothing to be worried about," Elsey said.

"He was wrong," Elsey said. "You don’t get away with murder just by getting rid of a body. ... There is no innocent explanation for him putting Zion Foster's body in a dumpster in the middle of the night."

Digital evidence cited

Elsey said Brazier left behind a "damning" trail of digital evidence, including internet searches, surveillance videos, text messages and cellphone location data.

Just before midnight Jan. 4, 2022, when Zion disappeared, her boyfriend had taken a screenshot of Zion's phone's location near Brazier's house, Elsey said. Surveillance video from across the street showed two people getting out of a sedan in Brazier's driveway and going into the home.

At 1:15 a.m. Jan. 5, Zion's phone dropped from the cellular network "like the phone just vanished," the prosecutor said. A half hour later, someone pulls the sedan out of the driveway and backs it in, pulling all the way back to the tail end of the driveway, Elsey said. Video shows one person coming out of Brazier's front door and leaving in the sedan.

Brazier went to a parking lot in Highland Park with several dumpsters large enough to fit human remains inside, phone GPS data showed, Elsey said. He stayed there for about seven minutes, then went back home. He texted his girlfriend, saying the cat had scratched him and “beat his ass," Elsey said.

Two days later, he did a factory reset of his phone, wiping everything off it.

"Just as her body vanished, (Brazier) made all the digital evidence of the last night of her life vanish with her," Elsey said.

Brazier returned Jan. 6, 2022, to the parking lot with the dumpsters, which had already been emptied. He did two searches on Google, Elsey said: “are trash trucks also compactors” and “what is the force of a garbage truck compactor?”

kberg@detroitnews.com