Zion Foster murder trial: Jaylin Brazier returns to court as case enters second week
DETROIT (FOX 2) - The murder trial for a man accused of killing his cousin more than two years ago continued Monday.
Jaylin Brazier, 25, was originally charged and convicted of lying to police. While serving time for that crime, he was charged with murder, though a body has never been found.
You can watch our gavel-to-gavel coverage in the player above, on FOX2Detroit.com, and FOX 2's YouTube channel.
Brazier told police that he was with Foster when they left her home on Jan. 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.
Through five days of testimony, a total of 26 people have taken the stand. They included Foster's mother, Ciera Milton, Brazier's ex-girlfriend, Katrina Smith, and a large number of police and investigators.
Monday's testimony was primarily focused on text exchanges. It also included the seizing of two cell phones that police took in June 2023. Not a lot of details were provided with the phones – but more is expected to be discussed Tuesday in court.
Monday afternoon, the detective who pulled messages from Foster's phone testified. There were thousands of messages exchanged between the two. In court on Monday, they started with texts in December 2020. Scroll below for a full recap of the messages.
WARNING: Explicit content.
4:00 p.m. - Court adjourns for the day
After several hours of testimony, Judge Donald Knapp adjourned the trial for the day and ordered the jury to return Tuesday morning.
Court is set to resume at 11 a.m.
2:12 p.m. - DPD detective Sarah Markel testifies
Friday afternoon's testimony centered on the cell phones that police seized from Brazier when he was arrested in June 2023 – 16 months after Foster's death – but it has all been about the chain of custody of the cell phones.
Markel, a detective with the Detroit Police Department, testified that she was the detective who extracted the cell phone data. She testified she starts by making a copy of the phone – including all of its data – and then providing all of that data to the officer in charge of the case.
Markel testifies she performed multiple extractions on the phone – which was needed because of her programs having to stay up-to-date on the operating system.
She testified about search records that were on Brazier's phones: 'how long acid stays in your system', 'what happens if you drink peroxide', 'how to tell if you're being watched by police'
Other search terms included ‘how much motrin can kill you’ and ‘can taking a bath with a toaster’ kill you.
All of these searches came after Brazier restored his phone to the factory settings on Jan. 7 – two days after he dumped Foster's body.
Markel also reviewed Foster's phone – which had over 4,000 messages on it between her and Brazier.
In December 2020 - Foster and Brazier had a detailed conversation about Foster needing a ‘plan b’. The next day, Dec. 28, she told Brazier via text that ‘it came today’. ‘It’ was revealed to be Foster's period.
In March 2021 - Brazier told Foster he was about to be single with graphic language to explain why.
Many of the texts were extremely sexually explicit.
In May 2021, Brazier sent a message saying that his family was talking about if the two of them may have been having a sexual relationship – and both of them lashed out in the text about the possibility.
Also in May 2021, Brazier offered Foster a place to stay in the basement of his place on Greenfield.
On May 26, 2021, Brazier told Foster to have her friend delete all of her conversations about "what's going on". There was no context included about what Brazier meant about ‘what was going on’.
The massive document took most of the afternoon to read through, even as the prosecution skipped a majority of the texts.
In December 2021, Brazier talks about how he's gotten into LSD and acid.
The final message from Foster came on Dec. 31, 2021: a Happy New Year message.
After Markel finished reading through the texts, she confirmed she was also involved in pulling data from the cell phones seized during Brazier's arrest in the summer of 2023.
2:10 p.m. - Court returns after break
After a brief court break, the prosecution said they planned to waive two planned witnesses - one of which is Brazier's mom.
The defense said he wanted to talk with Brazier before agreeing to waive that witness. The other witness, the partner of Ian McBee, agreed to be waived.
1:50 p.m. - DPD Sgt. Jarmiare McIntyre
The next witness was the officer who took custody of the cell phones from the arresting officers that night. He testified he took the phones and put them into evidence.
Similar to the previous two officers – he confirmed the cell phones and then the prosecution had not further questions.
Defense attorney Brian Brown confirmed McIntyre's involvement with the case and that he was aware of the Foster case and Brazier's arrest.
McIntyre was asked about his involvement with seizing evidence at Brazier's home - of which he had none.
McIntyre did not participate in any searches of Brazier's home the week after Foster disappeared.
1:43 p.m. - DPD Sgt. Eugene Bomber
The 24th witness is Detroit Police Sgt. Eugene Bomber, who was also part of the Fugitive Apprehension task force on the night of Brazier's arrest.
Similar to McBee, he confirmed the cell phones that were taken from Brazier and that he handed the phones over to the investigating homicide detective.
1:31 p.m. - Detroit Police Officer Ian McBee
The next witness called by the prosecution was Detroit Police Patrol Officer Ian McBee - who was on the fugitive apprehension team in 2022.
McBee was part of the team of officers who arrested Brazier on June 13, 2023.
McBee testified during the arrest, they recovered two cell phones from Brazier.
Prosecutor Ryan Elsey then played bodycam video of the arrest that happened in Southwest Detroit.
McBee confirmed that he confiscated the phones, verified them in court, and then the prosecution had no further questions.
During cross-examination, the defense attorney confirmed that he seized the phones and that he processed the phones.
1:08 p.m. Forensic tech Felicia Jackson
After an hour-long lunch break, court returned with Felicia Jackson - a forensic technician with the Detroit Police Department.
Jackson photographed the progress of the search of the Macomb County landfill as police tried to find Foster's body.
In court, prosecutor Elsey then displayed some of the 600+ photographs that Jackson took in court to detail the extent of the search conducted by police.
Jackson discussed going to court every day and taking photos throughout the process.
11:26 a.m. - DPD Sgt. Shannon Jones recalled
Detroit Police Sgt. Shannon Jones was recalled to the stand on Monday after her initial testimony on the second day of the trial.
Jones was asked about the search done by Detroit Police to find Foster's remains. She testified about reaching out to Waste Management to see when the trash was picked up – which was done the morning of Jan. 5, 2022.
Jones also explained how police identified the section of the landfill to search for Foster's remains.
"When we track the truck to the last stop where the red dot is, and we know that the tracker is on the front of the truck, you do the measurements on where the debris would have hit the land. We had to learn and talk to several of the people out there and watch which way it was the trash. Once it was empty, which way was it being pushed and how were they filling up that section? So from where the truck stopped, that area, they were pushing trash north, which would have been this way up here. So we identified an area where we were going to work from the final spot that we knew the contents had emptied and landed on the ground and we went. Our goal was 100ft north and 100ft wide," Jones said.
For the next 30 minutes, Jones went through all of the details of what police did to search for Foster's body. It included days starting at 7 a.m. and sometimes not ending until dusk.
The search started in May and ended in October. Foster's body was never found.
Jone said they had information for roughly where Foster's remains would have ended up in mid-January but they didn't search the landfill until May. Under cross-examination, that was Brown's first question: why the delay?
"We couldn't search day one because you've got to do a lot of a lot of research. You're watching the video. You're trying to narrow down what trucks were used. You watch the video of those items being put in the truck. You're watching the tracking of the vehicle going out there. We had several days where we had to go out there to get an understanding. I've never worked in a landfill, so you have to learn that process. You also have to order all these different equipment and get all the heavy machinery. It's not something that I can just go tomorrow and get for such a massive search. If it was something smaller, it might have happened a lot faster. But with such a task, it's not something that can happen overnight," Jones said.
She reiterated they were searching the best possible location.
"We went there because of the evidence led us there as well. So if I didn't have evidence to give me an area of where to search, then I wouldn't just do a random search," Jones said.
10:38 a.m. - Court resumes
Monday morning, court was supposed to resume at 9:30 a.m. However, it didn't start until almost an hour later after defense attorney Brian Brown was late to court.
With the jury called in, Sgt. Lance Sullivan, who 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.
Court resumed in the middle of the audio recording of Sullivan's interview that day.
The interview was recorded on tape as there wasn't a camera in the room. It lasted well over 2 hours and spanned several topics.
Brazier can be heard saying he tells other inmates 'I ain't like you' in regards to why he told police he put Foster's in a dumpster. He also speculates what else could have been in Foster's system when she died.
"She told me. I don't know if it's true because she does lie sometimes, heart issues or it could have just been something in her system beforehand. I don't know," Brazier said.
He then talked about the two of them smoking weed that night. He said after they smoked, 30 minutes later he found her with her head hanging to the side.
Also in the recording, Sullivan mentioned whether Brazier had put Foster's body in a garbage bag before placing her body in the dumpster. Under cross-examination, Sullivan explained he uses some deception in his interviews to try to get information from the person he's talking with.
Defense attorney Brown then asked if he ever received information that indicated that Brazier put Foster's body in a trash bag before putting her in the dumpster.
"No, not necessarily. The purpose of listening to those interviews was to develop a strategy to get him to talk to us," he said.
Brown asked him the purpose of the interview – to which Sullivan said it was trying to see if Brazier's story would change.
"The role in this case was to talk to him, hear his story, turn it back over to the officer in charge of the case and let her decide if it was consistent or any any inconsistencies with it," Sullivan said.
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.