UPDATE: On June 13, 2023, Zion Foster’s cousin Jaylin Brazier was charged with her murder. He had been released from custody in January 2023 after serving less than a year on charges of lying to a peace officer. A not guilty plea was entered on Brazier’s behalf on the murder charge and he is being held without bond. Zion’s body has still not been found, despite extensive searches conducted by the Detroit Police Department.
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The 23-year-old cousin of missing 17-year-old Zion Foster has been sentenced in relation to her disappearance. Jaylin Brazier was charged with lying to a peace officer in the investigation into Zion’s disappearance. On Wednesday, March 30, Brazier appeared in court where he admitted that he had thrown his cousin’s body in a dumpster weeks earlier. He claimed that Zion had stopped breathing while they were smoking marijuana, and he didn’t know what to do.
Zion Foster was last seen on January 4, 2022, in Eastpointe, Michigan. She was picked up from her family’s house around 10:45 p.m. to go hang out with Brazier at his place in Detroit. Zion’s mother, Ciera Milton, told Dateline in January that she received a text from Zion’s phone at 12:59 a.m. saying “omw” to let her know that she was on her way home. “My phone shows, you know, our location – all of my kids’ locations are shown,” Ciera told Dateline. “Twenty minutes after texting me that she was on her way home, she still wasn’t there.”
Ciera reported her daughter missing to the Eastpointe Police Department on January 5. By January 19, the Detroit Police Department had taken the lead in the case and held a press conference where they stated that Brazier was a person of interest. That evening, Brazier turned himself in for questioning in Wayne County.
He was arraigned Monday, January 24, in the 38th District Court. He faced one count of lying to a peace officer in a violent crime investigation and one count of lying to a peace officer.
Brazier made a statement to Macomb County Judge Edward Servitto, saying, “I did turn myself in. Yes, I lied. But I was not in the right state of mind.”
At his sentencing, Brazier told the judge that he was terrified and didn’t know what to do. “I don’t know exactly how she passed or what caused her to pass,” Brazier said. “I just know one minute, she was cool, she was fine. She laid back for a minute, and next thing I know, she’s just -- she was dead. I don’t know what caused it. I did not cause it, or anything like that. I reacted stupidly off of fear and panic like I’ve never felt before in my life.”
According to NBC affiliate WDIV, Brazier said he did not think about calling 911 as his mental state was not in a “logical” place because they were smoking marijuana. “I was reacting off of innate fear,” Brazier said at sentencing.
“I wish I could take it back. I would have called the ambulance, called her mom,” Brazier cried. “I wish I could take it back.”
Ciera Milton delivered a victim impact statement at sentencing. “We were supposed to be planning her prom, her dress and colors,” Ciera said about her daughter. “I’m still getting emails from the school right now for graduation pictures and just graduation, and now I can’t do any of that.”
She said that she trusted Brazier and thought he would be responsible, when she allowed her daughter to go see him that evening.
Ciera is a single parent to six children, Zion being the oldest. “I stayed up for nights, for days, panicking and being so fearful,” Ciera said during her victim impact statement. “Everything that I do is for my children. Every ounce of money and time or whatever, and energy, is for them. Just to make sure that they’re good, just to make sure that they’re surrounded by people who love them and protect them.”
Ciera says that she just wants closure for her other children and herself.
“I will never know. I will never know. I won’t get to see my baby again,” Ciera said. “We will never have closure, and as much as I love you guys, as much as I love that family, you have caused such (devastation) that it’s hard to trust family at all, and now my babies are even more isolated because how can I trust family when family is the one who did this?”
According to WDIV, the prosecutor said that “Brazier put Foster in the trunk of his car and drove her to a dumpster.” The NBC affiliate continued on to say that according to the authorities, Brazier told police the location of the dumpster and the police were able to identify the company that hauls from that dumpster and found out where the trash is dumped. The prosecutor said that “Her body is, unfortunately, 75-100 feet or more below the surface.”
During the sentencing, Judge Servitto addressed Ciera directly, saying, “I cannot do anything to remedy what occurred. I am so sorry for what has happened to you.” Then he turned to Brazier, “But you need to be punished.”
“Your failure to be honest and truthful in preventing, I don’t know, maybe preventing certain further pain and suffering from the family -- requires punishment,” Judge Servitto said. “He’s going to prison today, and the prison sentence here hardly reflects the injury that you’ve accomplished.”
The judge remanded Brazier to the custody of the Michigan Department of Corrections for a period of 23 months to four years.