A Michigan jury has found Jaylin Brazier guilty of second-degree murder and tampering with evidence in connection to the January 2022 disappearance of his 17-year-old cousin Zion Foster.
Dateline first featured the story two weeks after Zion disappeared in our ‘Missing in America’ series. Her mother Ciera Milton told Dateline that on the evening of January 4, 2022, Zion went to work at the Detroit Wing Company in Eastpointe, Michigan. When her shift was done around 10 p.m., Zion was picked up by Ciera’s boyfriend.
After Zion got home that night, she asked her mother if she could go hang out with a cousin from her father’s side of the family.
Ciera said Zion was picked up around 10:45 p.m. and that she only took a little purse and her phone with her. “She didn’t leave with a jacket, her coat was actually at the house,” Ciera said.
Ciera told Dateline Zion sent her a text a couple hours later, at 12:59 a.m. saying “omw” to let her know that she was on her way home. “Twenty minutes after texting me that she was on her way home, she still wasn’t there,” Ciera said.
That’s when Ciera knew something had to have been wrong. She reported Zion missing the next day.
Multiple agencies became involved in the investigation, including the Eastpointe Police Department, the Detroit Police Department and the FBI. They quickly identified Zion’s cousin Jaylin Brazier as a person of interest they needed to speak to. “We would like to know if he has seen her,” Chief James E. White of the Detroit PD said at a press conference on January 19, 2022. “Or if he has any information that could lead to her whereabouts.”
By the end of that day, Brazier had turned himself in for questioning.
“He turned himself in in Wayne County,” Detective Lt. Koenigsmann of the Eastpointe Police Department told Dateline. “And we issued a warrant for his arrest, so they transferred custody to us.”
Brazier was transferred to the Eastpointe Police Department on Saturday, January 22. He was arraigned on Monday, January 24, in the 38th District Court. Brazier was facing one count of lying to a peace officer in a violent crime investigation and one count of lying to a peace officer — he initially told authorities he hadn’t seen Zion for months.
On Wednesday, March 30, Brazier appeared in court, where he accepted a plea deal on the charges of lying.
Brazier also 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.
In 2022, authorities conducted extensive searches for Zion in a landfill, but after multiple weeks of finding nothing, they eventually called off the search. Zion’s body has never been found.
In court, 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.”
He said 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.”
Ciera Milton delivered a victim impact statement at Brazier’s sentencing for that charge. She said that she trusted Brazier and thought he would be responsible when she allowed her daughter to see him that January evening. “I won’t get to see my baby again,” Ciera said. “We will never have closure.”
The judge remanded Brazier to the custody of the Michigan Department of Corrections for a period of 23 months to four years. He was released in 2023 after serving just 10 months.
Then, in June of 2023, despite Zion’s body never being found, prosecutors charged Brazier with second-degree murder.
Almost a full year later, on Monday, May 6, 2024, jury selection began. The trial was underway by Tuesday, May 7.
The NBC Detroit affiliate, WDIV, has been following Zion’s case for years and did extensive coverage of the trial. WDIV reported that the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office brought in dozens of witnesses, while the defense didn’t call any, arguing “that there was no evidence Brazier was directly responsible for Foster’s death.”
Prosecutors presented evidence of cell phone data, online searches, Brazier’s changing stories in police interviews and witness testimony of interactions with Brazier after Zion’s disappearance. Jurors got the case on Thursday, May 16. After less than an hour of deliberation, the jury found Brazier guilty of second-degree murder and tampering with evidence.
WDIV caught up with Zion’s mother, Ciera Milton, outside the courthouse after the verdict. “Thank you so much for looking at the facts, for not being distracted, for not allowing yourselves to be deceived,” Ciera said, referring to the jury. Then she spoke directly to Brazier. “You thought that she didn’t matter to us, and you -- you were mistaken.”
Brazier will be sentenced in June.