Zion Foster murder case: Jaylin Brazier's trial resumes Friday afternoon
DETROIT (FOX 2) - The trial of Jaylin Brazier continued on Friday for the murder of his cousin, Zion Foster.
For the first time during his trial, on day four of testimony, Brazier was seen wiping away tears as the prosecution replayed audio recordings of his interrogation with officers.
Brazier is charged with killing Foster at his home and then putting her body in a dumpster in Highland Park.
Brazier has admitted that he dumped her body but says he did not kill her. He said he picked up Foster from her Eastpointe home and drove to his house late on January 4, 2022. Around 1 a.m. the next day, he said she died after the two smoked marijuana.
Brazier says he does not remember where he left Foster's body, which was never recovered.
The recordings played in court on Friday revealed Brazier’s frustration with how Foster’s disappearance and death investigation have dramatically changed his life and the life of his immediate family.
Court wrapped at 4 p.m. on Friday and is set to resume on Monday at 9:30 a.m.
You can watch our gavel-to-gavel coverage in the player above, on FOX2Detroit.com, and FOX 2's YouTube channel.
Assistant Prosecutor Ryan Elsey represents Wayne County while Brian Brown represents Brazier. The judge in the case said he expects it to last into the middle of next week.
Here's a recap of Thursday's testimony.
3:10 p.m. - Detroit Police Sgt. Lance Sullivan
After a very brief court break, Elsey called another police officer to the stand – Sgt. Lance Sullivan with the Detroit Police Department's violent crime task force.
He interviewed Brazier in prison in June 2022 as he was serving time after pleading no contest to charges of lying to police. The interview was recorded and Foster repeated that he freaked out when she died.
He also said he didn't lie to police about the case.
The lengthy police interview continued and Brazier said the claims about him using LSD weren't true.
"That's bulls***," he said.
2:32 p.m. - Liza Moyer - MDOC Intelligence Analyst
Liza Moyer was the next to testify. She investigates internal and external crimes and pulls records from the Department of Corrections. This includes phone calls.
Elsey then introduced phone calls from Brazier that he made from prison. In one of them, a woman can be heard saying ‘they found something else’ and that detectives were asking questions. In that call, they discussed denying things to police.
A few hours later, they spoke again – and the tone was much lighter as Brazier appeared to sound more relaxed.
2:11 p.m. - Christopher Chojnacki - Macomb County IT administrator
Chojnacki is not an employee of Macomb County – but works for a telecommunications provider for the jail. He pulled Brazier's jailhouse phone calls while in the Macomb County Jail.
Then Elsey then played a call in court – placed by Brazier. In the call, he laments being charged with murder, saying police shouldn't have charged him with Foster's murder.
1:40 p.m. - Robert Lalone, Former DPD Lieutenant
Elsey then called Robert Lalone, who was a lieutenant with the Detroit Police Department's major crimes unit during the investigation but now works for the Michigan Attorney General's Office.
Lalone obtained a statement from Brazier on Jan. 20, 2022. During that interview, Brazier admitted he had two tabs of acid and that the two of them took them together.
"I think that's what killed her," Brazier said in the interview.
Brazier said he got the acid from a guy on Facebook and thinks that she had an adverse reaction to the drugs.
1:30 p.m. Court resumes - Shaliah Howard testifies
Friday afternoon, Brazier's neighbor, Shaliah Howard, was called to the stand to start testifying. Howard lived across the street and owned the camera that recorded Brazier's actions the night Foster died.
Her camera only recorded when there was motion detected. Her system saves video for 30 days and she testified she didn't do anything to manipulate or edit the footage.
She was dismissed just a few minutes later.
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.