LENOX TOWNSHIP (WWJ) - It’s been seven months since 17-year-old Zion Foster disappeared and after two months of searching for the teen’s body in a Metro Detroit landfill, authorities said time is running out.
WWJ’s Sandra McNeill spoke with Detroit Police Spokesman Rudy Harper on Friday who gave an update on the extensive – and expensive – search for Foster’s remains after her cousin, Jaylin Brazier, admitted that he thought she had died after the two took drugs together on January 4.
Brazier later confessed to dumping the Eastpointe teen's body in a dumpster in Detroit, sparking the department's search efforts at Pine Tree Acres Landfill in Lenox Township at the beginning of June.
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Harper said while the department worked tirelessly to identify the correct landfill and pieces of evidence suggest they are looking for the teen’s body in the right area, “we know we can’t dig forever, unfortunately.”
“They are motivated and they’re confident still that we’ll find something,” Harper said of everyone involved in the operation. “We would love to search forever, but there’s going to be some key factors in this search and that we have to make that conscious decision that at this point in time, the search would have to be terminated because we may be in the wrong area or we may not be able to find her body.”
Volunteers and partners along with Detroit police officers have been battling brutal heat while digging through trash and hazardous material in the landfill for the last two months.
Police Chief James White said back in June that safety hazards face searchers in the "pit." Crews are outfitted with airtight hazmat suits that must be cut off of them when they're finished with their shifts.
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White said a number of dangerous materials and carcinogens are among the garbage and considerable time and effort goes into making sure searchers stay safe.
“The cost is significant, we are well over $200,000 and still going, but we have great support from the community," White said.
So far, officials said searchers have dug down between 25 to 28 feet of trash in an effort to locate Foster's body.
"We are extremely thankful for the numerous organizations including city departments and municipalities who are devoting their resources and time," the department said in a press release on Friday. "The cost associated with Operation Zion are significant, but don’t outweigh bringing Zion home to her heartbroken mother and family."
According to Harper, White will meet with volunteers and the executive team to reassess whether to continue the search if nothing of significance is found over the next couple of weeks.
“We’re going to make a conscious decision at a later date to decide what our next steps are going to be," Harper said.
Foster's cousin, Brazier, was sentenced to four years in prison for lying to police after he initially told officers he did not know what happened to her.
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