After five months of searching, investigators in Michigan believe they are one step closer to solving the death of Zion Foster, a 17-year-old girl whose sudden disappearance not only rocked the small town of Eastpointe but also drove a family apart.
On Thursday, police zeroed in on the spot where they believe the teen’s body is buried 100 feet beneath the surface, WXYZ reported, possibly providing crucial answers after Foster’s cousin offered a sensational story about her death.
Foster was last known to be hanging out with a cousin, 23-year-old Jaylin Brazier, who picked her up from her house on Jan 4. Brazier was sentenced on March 30 for initially giving false statements to police related to Foster’s disappearance.
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During the sentencing, Foster’s mother, Ciera Milton, testified that she was incredibly close with her daughter, Local 4 Click on Detroit reported.
“She shared her location with me everywhere she goes,” Milton said. “She asks if she can go wherever, I would allow her to go. There are yeses and there are nos because, as a parent, you want to protect your babies.” Foster was the oldest of Milton’s six children.
When Foster asked her mom if she could hang out with Brazier on Jan. 4, Milton agreed, telling the court that Foster had Brazier listed in her phone as “Favo” because he was her favorite relative on that side of the family.
Milton told Dateline in January that her daughter left around 10:45 p.m. At 12:59 a.m., she received a message from Foster’s phone that said, “omw,” letting her know she was en route home. When Foster never arrived, her mom reported her missing to Eastpointe Police.
Milton told the court that Foster usually kept in constant communication, so the silence was incredibly unlike her. She said she began to fear that her daughter was being held against her will, the original missing person report said.
Milton testified in court that things became even stranger when Brazier called her the next day.
“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.’” Milton said she was stunned and knew Brazier was lying as even she had seen him recently.
Brazier’s lies persisted when he was brought in for questioning on Jan. 10, prosecutors claimed. He asserted that not only had he not seen Foster in a year, he hadn’t even visited the town of Eastpointe in as much time. When investigators offered phone records that proved otherwise, he hedged, claiming it had been May since he’d seen Foster. As Brazier changed his story, Foster’s family remained frantic for any information about her whereabouts.
But a week later, with lawyers in tow, Brazier renounced his story and turned himself in.
“He eventually confesses that he did in fact see Zion that night, picked her up, brought her home,” the prosecutor said during Brazier’s March 30 sentencing. “They combined their marijuana together and they both smoked it. Somehow, when he came back to the room, she was unconscious.”
Brazier claimed that he then panicked.
“I don’t know exactly how she passed,” Brazier said in court. “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.”
Instead of calling for help, he admitted to loading his lifeless cousin into the trunk of his car. Brazier said he drove her to a dumpster and dumped her body.
“How do I explain what happened? I don’t know why she died or what caused her to die,” Brazier said of his decision. “I was reacting off of just innate fear...I just didn’t know what to do.”
With this new information, investigators said they were able to locate the site where the dumpster is emptied.
“Now, 14 or more days after the incident—15 days of lies and more—they find out that her body is, unfortunately, 75-100 feet or more below the surface,” the prosecutor said.
Brazier was arraigned on Jan. 24 and charged with lying to officials in a violent crime investigation and one count of lying to an official, NBC News reports. Investigators have since been scouring the dumping ground where Foster’s body could be.
“I stayed up for nights, for days, panicking and being so fearful,” Milton said during her victim impact statement at Brazier’s sentencing. “I won’t get to see my baby again...As much as I love that family, you have caused such [devastation] that it’s hard to trust family at all.”
