Jaylin Brazier pictured in October 2022 (Michigan Department of Corrections), Zion Foster (WDIV/screengrab)
The cousin of a missing woman who already served time behind bars for admittedly lying about throwing her body in a dumpster is now charged with murder.
Jaylin Omar Brazier, 24, has already served time in prison in connection with the disappearance and presumed death of Zion Foster, a 17-year-old last leaving her Eastpointe, Michigan home with her cousin on Jan. 4, 2022. Brazier insisted to Foster's mother and his own mother that he hadn't seen Foster in months or years, but that only set off alarm bells.
He called me Foster's mother Cierra Milton told WDIV that Brazier called her on Jan. 5, 2022, the day after Foster was last seen alive but five days before a missing person alert was issued.
"I didn't call him. He called me on, when my baby didn't come home. He called me to say, 'I don't know why Zion would lie and put me into this. I haven't seen her in years. I haven't seen her in months.' And I'm, like, 'What? It wasn't too long ago that I saw you,'" Milton said. The mother said that Brazier even helped her post missing person fliers "of my baby in his neighborhood, on the corner of his house, the street that he lives."
"He told me, along with his mother, 'I would not lie to you. I know this has got to be really fearful for you, but I'm telling you I have not seen her. I have not been around her," Milton recalled. "His mother said, 'My baby wouldn't lie to me,' and so now everybody is suffering."
In the weeks that followed, Brazier went from ostensibly helpful and concerned searcher to a person of interest under arrest for lying about what happened to Foster. Months later, he was punished for that offense and blamed the lie on "innate fear" and "panic." Brazier claimed that Foster suddenly stopped breathing when they were smoking marijuana, so he panicked and threw her body away.
"My first thought was how bad it looked to start with. How do I explain what happened? I don't know why she died or what caused her to die, and just a lot of possibilities popped in my head. I was reacting off of just innate fear. I don't know. Literally, I don't do anything. I just didn't know what to do, literally. Literally, did not know what to do," he said in court, according to WDIV. "I sat for at least 10 minutes sitting there, like, 'What do I do? Who do I call?' My kids are upstairs. We just got into this place after struggling for like two years to get here, and everything is falling down."
Foster's body has not been found.
Calling the conviction type the result of a no contest (nolo contendere) plea, Michigan Department of Corrections records say that Brazier was sentenced on March 30, 2022, t0 23 months to four years in prison for lying to a peace officer amid a violent crime investigation.
He was paroled on Jan. 17, 2023, less than a year later.
"Our hearts go out to the family of Zion Foster," Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy said in a statement. "This case is a quintessential example of investigators and prosecutors who refused to give up on her homicide. For 18 months, investigators put together the evidence. Each piece of evidence in this case was examined and linked together."
Jail records show that Brazier was booked Tuesday in Wayne County at 7:32 p.m. on charges of second-degree murder and tampering with evidence. A not guilty plea has been entered for him, WXYZ reported.
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