Murder trial opens in death of Detroit-area teen whose disappearance led to grueling landfill search
DETROIT– A man who disposed of the body of a Detroit-area teen in a dumpster “left behind a trail of digital evidence” implicating him in her death, despite a fruitless, extraordinary search to find the remains in a landfill, a prosecutor told jurors Tuesday.
Jaylin Brazier, 25, faces manslaughter charges in the death of 17-year-old Zion Foster, whose body has not yet been found.
Detroit police sifted through tons of rotting trash at a suburban landfill in 2022 to find any trace, a rare move by a law enforcement agency. The search, sometimes in 90-degree heat and humidity, was called off after five months.
‘Was she suffocated? Was she raped? Did she somehow die from some unexplained natural cause?’ Assistant U.S. Attorney Ryan Elsey said in his opening statement to a jury. “The search for Sion’s body became crucial to the investigation.”
Brazier and Foster were cousins. He has denied killing her and insists Foster died suddenly while they were using marijuana at his Detroit home.
Brazier told police he panicked, stuffed the body in the trunk of a car and drove it to a dumpster after midnight, revelations that investigators say led to the search for the dump.
Defense attorney Brian Brown said it’s a case of “fear and bad decisions.”
“Jaylin was scared,” Brown said. “He may not have made the right decision, but that doesn’t make him a murderer.”
Elsey told jurors that experts would rule out the possibility of a marijuana-related death. He said Brazier “left a trail of digital evidence that is damning.”
Brazier searched the Internet for information about whether garbage trucks grind waste and the possibility of criminal charges if a body cannot be found, the prosecutor said.
While in jail for lying to police, Brazier told a girlfriend that “there was nothing to worry about,” Elsey said. “He was wrong. You can’t get away with murder just by getting rid of the body.”
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