Zion Foster murder case: Five witnesses called in first day of Jaylin Brazier's trial

DETROIT (FOX 2) - The jury trial of Jaylin Brazier started Tuesday morning in Wayne County. Charged with murdering his cousin, Zion Foster, and then dumping her body in a Highland Park trash dumpster, Brazier has maintained he didn't kill her but that he did throw her body in a dumpster.

Brazier's trial started with jury selection on Monday and opening statements started on Tuesday. You can watch our gavel-to-gavel coverage in the player above, on FOX2Detroit.com, and FOX 2's YouTube channel.

3:55 p.m. - Court adjourns for the day

3:40 p.m. - Former DPD officer called

The fifth witness called to testify was Cadan Sans, who was a Detroit Police Officer at the time of Foster's disappearance.

He testified that he arrived at Brazier's home on January 6, 2022, and spoke with Brazier – a conversation that was recorded on his bodycam.

In the interaction, Brazier said he hadn't spoken with Foster since May 2021. Sans entered the home with Brazier's permission. Once inside, Brazier reiterated he hadn't seen Foster and that she could have been across the street. 

Sans and another officer then walked through the home as they searched for Foster.

After the search, the officers returned to the living room where Brazier said the phone location showed it was at a duplex across the street.

During cross-examination Sans was asked just one question: did he see anything related to Foster. Sans said there was nothing at the home and he was dismissed from he stand.

3:30 p.m. - Jaylin Brazier's brother, David Magee testifies 

David Magee, the brother of Jaylin Brazier, was called to testify as the fourth witness.

After being sworn in, Magee testified that he didn't know that his brother knew Foster. He asked his brother if he had seen Foster, which Brazier said he had not. Magee said, eventually, Brazier said she had been at his house but did not say what happened.

Under cross-examination, Magee said he stayed with his family for a few nights for safety reasons.

After just a few questions, he was dismissed.

2:47 p.m. - Katrina Smith called to the stand

After a brief recess, Brazier's ex-girlfriend was called to the stand to testify. 

Katrina Smith testified that she and Brazier were still together in early January 2022, when she was pregnant with his baby. She then discussed text messages between her and Brazier, which were sent in the early morning of January 5, 2022. This was around the same time frame that Foster's phone stopped sending its location.

Around 1:30 a.m., Smith texted Brazier that she wasn't feeling well and wanted to lay down - but she was at work.

By 2:20 a.m., Brazier offered to come get her from work. He also sent a message to her that her cat scratched her neck when he tricked to tickle the cat's stomach.

At 2:37 a.m. on Jan. 5, Brazier said he was on his way to pick her and brought her home. She testified she did see a scratch on his collarbone that she described as big with a lot of blood. That seemed out of place to Smith.

"She never scratched that deep before to draw that much blood," she said.

Once she got home, the rest of the night seemed normal, Smith testified.

The next line of questioning was about conversations between Smith and Brazier when he was in prison after being convicted in Macomb County. 

These were messages that Brazier sent from a different phone while in state custody. In the link was a Google search result of a landfill search in Macomb County. Detroit Police spent the summer of 2022 searching the landfill for Foster's remains. They never found her.

Smith testified that Brazier never told her anything about what happened to Foster.

In October 2022, Brazier and Smith were on a phone call when he sent her messages from behind bars. The texts included Google searches, including one that read "With no evidence or confession of murder, can one still be charged with murder?"

He then sent a message that said he made a plan in every step and told Smith to ‘relax’. 

Under cross-examination, Smith said she was never told by Brazier whether or not he wanted Foster's body to be found.

1:09 p.m. - Zion Foster's boyfriend testifies

With all parties back in the courtroom, the prosecutor called Vertez Gonzalez, the boyfriend of Zion Foster, to the stand.

Gonzalez testified that he was not with Foster on the night of January 4. He said that both he and Foster had Covid a few weeks before and were still keeping their distance but they spoke via text, phone call, and video calls.

That night, he said she told him she would ‘hang with her favorite cousin’ - who he identified as Brazier.

Gonzalez testified that he spoke on the phone with Foster on Jan. 4, 2022, as she was getting into a car. He did not say who the voice was but said he recognized it.

He also testified that he checked on her location that night because he was worried about her hanging out with her cousin. 

"I just (wanted) to make sure she was good," Gonzalez said.

He texted her that night, saying he didn't want to talk with her while she was out with her cousin, Jaylin.

They texted throughout the night – with the last message coming from her phone at 1 a.m. on Jan. 5 that said ‘OMW’ - shorthand for on my way. He sent a message to her phone roughly 20 minutes later, saying he was mad she let her phone die.

Gonzalez said he had called her but it went straight to voicemail, prompting the text. He sent other texts as well and testified he was thinking the worst.

"I'm thinking of everything, basically," he said.

He was concerned Foster was cheating on him when he sent the messages.

By 9 a.m., Gonzalez had gone to sleep and woke up, prompting a text message that asked "is you alive?"

Gonzalez tried to find her phone but it wasn't working. 

"I looked at the location and then I tried. I called her brother to see if she was at the house, because at this point, I was actually probably just back in the house. And after that, I told him to go look at, go look at her phone and look up Jaylin's phone number," he said.

When he spoke with Brazier, he denied having seen Foster. Brazier also denied that the location, which had last pinged near his home, was not exactly at his home. Brazier told Gonzalez that it ‘sounded like she had something going on’ near him.

Under cross-examination, defense attorney Brian Brown asked about his past history with Foster, where she had asked him not to check his location or ping her, especially when she's at work. 

Gonzalez said Foster had cheated on him in the past and he was insecure about their relationship – prompting the frequent calls and texts.

Brown also questioned if Gonzalez was aware of seizures and prescriptions. Gonzalez confirmed he was aware. He also said he had witnessed an episode where she passed out but wasn't worried about it.

Brown asked if Gonzalez knew where she got her marijuana from and whether it could have been laced. Gonzalez said no.

"I smoked with her sometimes," Gonzalez said.

1:00 p.m. - Court Resumes

At 1 p.m., the defendant and prosecution both returned to the courtroom, where the judge in the case revealed that a family member of Foster approached a jury member and told them not to be late.

This prompted the judge to issue a warning to all to not approach the jurors.

11:50 a.m. - Court lunch break

After opening statements from both sides and the first witness – Ciera Milton – court took a lunch break with plans to return around 1 p.m.

10:30 a.m. - Zion Foster's mom called as first witness

With opening statements wrapped up, Zion Foster's mom - Ciera Milton - was called to testify. She answered a few basic questions about her daughter – including her age and health history – before court took a break.

After a brief break, Milton testified that her and her daughter had arguments in the past and that her daughter had run away – but they had communicated when she had run away.

Milton said her daughter wanted to smoke weed in her home and she wouldn't let her. 

She said along with the friction between the two of them, her grandmother had been diagnosed with cancer. Milton said her daughter didn't drink or use any other controlled substances. 

Her daughter was diagnosed with anxiety and depression and had been medicated. 

Milton said when she reported her daughter missing in early January, police dismissed her as a runaway. She said she put up missing person fliers, called media stations, and searched for her daughter. She also contacted Brazier – who denied seeing her daughter.

She said Brazier showed her security camera footage. But a neighbor showed her footage too, which showed Foster at his house.

Milton was also asked about text messages between herself and Brazier in the day after Foster disappeared. He asked multiple questions – about how often Zion said they would spend time together; if Milton had RIng doorbell cameras; if her Foster had been at her boyfriend's house.

He texted Milton multiple times – offering to help search for Foster. He also said Milton could come to check his cameras but maintained that he hadn't seen her.

"We have cameras too, so you can see with your own eyes that the girl was not over here," he wrote.

He also offered to help with distributing fliers.

Elsey then questioned about Brazier's sentencing hearing – where he said that they were smoking marijuana together that night and that he looked over and she was dead and that he panicked.

Under cross-examination, defense attorney Brian Brown questioned what Milton had testified to – including whether she allowed her daughter to smoke marijuana at her house.

"That was a different time," Milton said, when asked about a previous time allowing her daughter to smoke marijuana.

She was also questioned if she knew her daughter was taking proper medication, which Milton said she had by watching her take her medication.

Brown said during the preliminary exam, Milton indicated the opposite – that she had not supervised her medication.

Brown also took issue with Milton's testimony that her daughter hadn't expressed any suicidal thoughts or ideations.

"The answer is no," Milton said.

9:52 a.m. - Opening Statements underway

Court was supposed to start at 9:30. However, the judge in the case said a juror was late arriving, causing the trial to be delayed. Just before 10 a.m., the Wayne County Prosecutor delivered opening statements.

Among the arguments, assistant prosecutor Ryan Elsey said they will introduce evidence showing Foster's cell phone data, Brazier' data, and what Brazier did in the hours and days after Foster disappeared.

The prosecutor said Foster's phone last pinged at Brazier's house, yet he denied seeing her that night. Brazier's phone showed he then drove to a Highland Park parking lot where he dumped Foster's body – and then factory reset his phone in the days after Foster's disappearance.

Elsey said he also searched two terms: ‘Are trash trucks also compactors’ and ‘What is the force of a garbage truck compactor’.

"There is no innocent explanation for him putting Zion Foster's body into a dumpster in the middle of the night after bringing her to his house alone in the middle of the night; after months of sexualized text messages and before a campaign of obstruction to make all of the evidence of that night disappear, including lie after lie after lie," Elsey said.

Brazier's attorney, Brian Brown, said his theory of the case is quite different – and that the two were each other's favorite cousin. When Brazier brought Foster over, he admitted to smoking marijuana and that Foster died while the two were together. Brown said, out of fear because marijuana is still federally illegal, he panicked.

Brown also claimed that Foster's family was threatening his family while they searched for Foster. Once he secured his family's safety, he turned himself in to police and confessed everything that happened.

He also argued that Foster's medical history – including seizures – combined with smoking marijuana, led to her death. Brown said it was unfortunate that they never recovered Foster's body as it would prove Brazier's case.

"The symptoms that Jaylin told the police told the police were consistent with her dying of something that either she had internally or possibly something that she ingested that could have contributed or made any situation she previously had that much worse," Brown said.

Brazier, 25, told police that he was with Foster when they left her home on January 4, 2022. He admits that they were smoking marijuana, adding that she died with him – and that he even dumped her body in a dumpster somewhere in Detroit. But he denies that he killed her.

Last summer, he was bound over for trial for Foster's murder – despite police never recovering her remains after months of searching a Macomb County landfill.

What happened to Zion Foster?

Foster was last seen by her mom, Ciera Milton, on Jan. 4, 2022.

Milton said Foster was picked up by her cousin at his home in Detroit to smoke marijuana. Milton said Foster texted her later saying she was coming home, but never did. When she started searching and couldn't find her, she went to Eastpointe Police and then Detroit Police, who eventually went to Brazier's home in Detroit and talked to him. 

Foster's phone last pinged in Detroit – which is what prompted Detroit Police to show up at Brazier's door.

Milton recalls Brazier telling her "he hadn’t seen or been in contact with her 'for three years' which is impossible when you were in my driveway and gave me a hug."

Milton said Brazier showed her surveillance footage, but there were gaps in the recordings. She filled in those gaps from a Ring doorbell camera that showed someone believed to be Brazier picking up Foster at her house in Eastpointe the night of her disappearance and bringing her back to his house.

Then, she said, she and others searched the area around Brazier's home.

"That prompted me to go to Jaylin's house. We searched the neighborhood, we looked through abandoned houses, we looked through dumpsters," she said.

Brazier was arrested a few days after Foster disappeared. He was initially arrested for lying to police during the investigation and ultimately pleaded no contest, as part of a plea deal. 

"I was on panic mode ever since that happened," Brazier said in court in 2022. "Her mother at one point talked to me, and I couldn't bring myself to (tell her) 'Your daughter just died.' What do I do?"

In March 2022, Brazier admitted to lying to Eastpointe Police about the investigation. 

"I can't even explain it, what happened. I can just tell you my honest reaction," Brazier claimed in court in March 2022. "One minute she was cool, she was fine. She laid back for a minute and the next thing I knew she was just dead. I don't know what caused it, I did not cause it."

Detroit Police Department spent several months in 2022 picking through tons of trash at a Macomb County landfill, but Foster's body was never found. The search was ultimately called off in October 2022.

'He threw her in a dumpster'

Brazier's story changed wildly over the first few months of the investigation. He first said that he didn't know where she was before ultimately admitting they had been together and that she had died with him as they were smoking marijuana. He then later said he put her body in a dumpster. 

"He said that my baby just died, and then that he threw her in a dumpster, like she was trash," Foster's mom said.

He did not say that he killed her.

"I reacted stupidly off of fear and panic like I've never felt before in my life," he said in court during his sentencing for the initial charge of lying to police.

Detroit Police then spent the summer of 2022 searching through a Macomb County landfill as that's where it was believed her body ultimately would have been when the dumpster was emptied. After several months of searching, they were unable to find her remains or evidence of her remains.

But a year after the search, in June 2023, Brazier was charged with her murder but maintained his innocence.

Milton said she did not believe Brazier.

"It wasn't too long ago that I saw you and even knowing that my baby had been in contact with him, I kept going to his house. I just wanted him to tell me the truth," said Milton.

In March 2022, he was sentenced to between 23 months to 4 years in prison.

Brazier's release and charges

In January 2023, Brazier was released from custody after completing just 10 months of his sentence. The 23-year-old completed a 90-day Special Incarceration Program - essentially a boot camp program - which granted his release. 

In August 2023, Brazier returned to a Wayne County courtroom for his preliminary hearing, which stretched over two days. 

He sat in court emotionless during the hearing as details emerged about Zion’s bank accounts and text messages — prosecutors say — Brazier shared with his girlfriend.

One of those messages included a link to a Google search that questioned if someone could be charged for murder if a body isn't discovered.

After two days of testimony, Brazier was bound over for trial.